What Does Jeremiah 31:35 Mean?
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, and the statutes of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs the sea until its waves roar. The LORD of hosts is his name.
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
Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:THE KEY
The sea does not need to be quiet to remain under the LORD’s command; even its roar is within the order he sustains.
THE MEANING
The lights above you keep their appointed courses, while the sea can roar within the same continuing order. The verse presents the LORD’s sustaining power as reaching both the steady sky and the surging waters.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The world’s turbulence means creation has slipped beyond the one who sustains it.
THE ROOT
מְרַגֵּעַ
meraggaʿ
GROWS FROM
רגע
To stir or rouse; in another branch of the root family, to quiet or come to rest.
The verb rendered “divideth” also carries the force of stirring or rousing. The sea’s roar itself unfolds within the command of the one who gives the lights their order.
ALSO GROWS
regaʿ: A moment, a brief instant (Isaiah 54:7).
רֶגַע
This related form gives the root family a sense of suddenness, echoing the sea’s movement as an event within the LORD’s order.
margoaʿ: Rest, quietness, a place of repose (Jeremiah 6:16).
מַרְגּוֹעַ
This branch names repose, showing the root family’s reach from disturbance toward rest.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s authority encompasses both the fixed order of creation and its surging waters.
You set a boundary they may not cross; they do not return to cover the earth.And said, This far shall you come, but no further, and here shall your swelling waves be held?And waking, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Be silent. Be muzzled. And the wind wore itself out, and a great calm came.THE THREAD
But I am the LORD your God, who stirs the sea, and its waves roar. The LORD of hosts is his name.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew verb for the LORD’s action toward the roaring sea, revealing a repeated connection between that verb and the waters’ surge. The shared ending, “The LORD of hosts is his name,” ties the sea’s roar to the nature named in both verses.
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