What Does Jeremiah 31:32 Mean?
Not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers, on the day I gripped them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:THE KEY
The covenant is spoken of as cut, then broken, while the LORD names his relation to them with a word holding husband and master together.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you in the space between a bond broken and a relationship still named. It holds the hand leading people out of Mitzrayim, the narrow place, beside the unhidden breach: they break the covenant, while the LORD names himself their husband and master. The rupture is real, and it does not erase the relationship.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a breach makes the bond unreal or means the relationship was never held: the verse names both their breaking of the covenant and the LORD’s claim as husband and master.
THE ROOT
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
to bind, press in, or be narrow
The name Mitzrayim carries the sound and sense of tzar, narrowness; its dual ending -ayim lets it be heard as the two narrows. The verse’s image of being brought out of Egypt is movement from constriction toward spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: narrow or tight
צַר
It gives the place-name its image of constriction.
metzar: a strait, distress, or narrow place
מֵצַר
It makes Egypt’s role in the verse legible as a condition of tightness from which the people are brought out.
כָּרַתִּי
karatti
GROWS FROM
כ־ר־ת
to cut or cut off
The Hebrew says the covenant was cut, where the English says it was made. The same root family can speak of a covenant cut and of cutting off, giving the verse’s broken bond a sharper edge.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: to cut a covenant
כָּרַת בְּרִית
It shows the covenant as a bond entered through the language of cutting.
keritut: a cutting off; a certificate of divorce
כְּרִיתוּת
It brings covenant and separation into the same word family, echoing the verse’s tension between a broken bond and a continuing relationship.
בָּעַלְתִּי בָם
ba'alti bam
GROWS FROM
ב־ע־ל
to be husband or master; to possess or hold authority
The Hebrew word translated husband belongs to a word family that also means master or owner. That added weight holds intimacy and claim together as the verse names the relationship after the people break the covenant.
ALSO GROWS
ba'al: husband, master, or owner
בַּעַל
It reveals the wider range carried by the word translated husband.
be'ulah: married or wedded
בְּעוּלָה
It keeps the marital sense visible while the same word family also carries authority and claim.
THE PATTERN
Divine deliverance reaches through human breach while the relationship remains claimed.
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.For the mountains will be moved, and the hills will totter, but my faithful love will not move away from you, nor will the covenant of my wholeness totter, says the LORD who has compassion on you.But God sets his own love beside us, in that while we were still missing the mark, the Anointed One died for us.THE THREAD
Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the loads of the Egyptians, and I will snatch you from their service, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.Jeremiah’s phrase to bring them out uses הוֹצִיאָם (hotsi’am), from יָצָא (yatsa, to go out), the same root as Exodus’s I will bring you out. The shared root makes the covenant’s setting concrete: a hand leads people out of bondage and constriction.
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