What Does Jeremiah 31:38 Mean?
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when the city shall be built to the LORD, from the tower of Hananeel to the gate of the corner.
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
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner.THE KEY
Hebrew lets “built” echo “son”: the restored city is pictured as a household raised for the LORD, from tower to gate.
THE MEANING
The promise meets the reader as a concrete horizon: a city is built for the LORD, with its full span marked from tower to gate. Restoration here has a visible, communal shape, and its whole extent belongs within the LORD’s claim.
THE ROOT
וְנִבְנְתָה
venivnetah
GROWS FROM
בנה
To build or build up; here, the city will be built.
The root family connects building with בֵּן (ben), “son,” traditionally understood as one who is built up. That echo lets the city’s rebuilding carry the sense of a household being raised for the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son; traditionally linked with the idea of one who is built up.
בֵּן
This branch gives the city’s rebuilding a household resonance: what is built is also a place where a people can belong.
binyan: Building or structure.
בִּנְיָן
This branch keeps the image concrete: the verse describes a city taking shape, with its extent marked by actual landmarks.
פִּנָּה
pinnah
GROWS FROM
פנה
To turn or face; a corner is a place where a line turns.
“the gate of the corner” in this verse is pinnah. The city’s boundary ends at a turning point. The root’s sense of turning or facing gives the corner a directional quality: the rebuilt city has an orientation and a defined shape.
ALSO GROWS
panah: Turned, faced, or turned toward.
פָּנָה
The city’s corner marks where its course turns, making the boundary part of the verse’s image of a fully shaped city.
panim: Face or presence.
פָּנִים
This related word carries the sense of facing; together, the root family links the city’s turning edge with its orientation.
THE PATTERN
Restoration takes visible form as a community rebuilt and oriented toward the LORD’s presence.
Again I will build you, and you will be built, virgin of Israel. Again you will adorn yourself in your tambourines, and you will go out in the dances of those who laugh.Thus says the LORD. I have returned to Zion, and I will settle in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts, the set-apart mountain.In whom the whole building, joined at the joints, grows into a set-apart temple in the Lord.THE THREAD
Again I will build you, and you will be built, virgin of Israel. Again you will adorn yourself in your tambourines, and you will go out in the dances of those who laugh.Both verses use בנה (banah), “to build.” Here the city is built for the LORD; in verse 4, Israel itself is rebuilt, joining the city’s restoration to the renewal of its people.
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