What Does Jeremiah 32:11 Mean?
So I took the scroll of the purchase, both the sealed one according to the command and the statutes, and the open one.
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
So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open:THE KEY
The same purchase is held in two forms: one sealed for safekeeping, the other open to view.
THE MEANING
The purchase is recorded in both a sealed form and an open one, under the stated law and custom. What is guarded from alteration and what is visible to be examined carry the same claim.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sealed record is not therefore absent or unknowable: the same purchase also has an open record.
THE ROOT
חָתוּם
ḥātûm
GROWS FROM
חתם
ḥ-t-m
to seal or close with a seal
The deed is not merely closed; it is marked and secured. Beside the open copy, the sealed form shows that protection and visibility can preserve one witness together.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōtām: signet or seal
חוֹתָם
The seal is the mark that secures the document’s authority.
ḥātam: to seal or affix a seal
חָתַם
The verb names the act that makes this copy protected.
גָּלוּי
gālûy
GROWS FROM
גלה
g-l-h
to uncover or reveal; the root also names going into exile
The word translated “open” carries the sense of what has been uncovered and brought into view. The passage places that revealed copy beside the sealed one, so disclosure and safekeeping serve the same record.
ALSO GROWS
gālāh: to uncover or reveal
גָּלָה
This is the action expressed by the open deed: its contents are uncovered to view.
gōlāh: exile or the exiles
גּוֹלָה
The same root’s range also includes being carried out from a place; here, by contrast, the deed itself is uncovered and made visible.
מִקְנָה
miqnāh
GROWS FROM
קנה
q-n-h
to acquire or gain possession
The document records an acquisition, a claim to something possessed. Both copies, the secured one and the visible one, bear witness to that same purchase.
ALSO GROWS
qānāh: to acquire or buy
קָנָה
The verb names the act at the center of the recorded transaction.
qōnēh: possessor or owner
קֹנֵה
This form shifts attention from acquiring to the one who holds possession, the claim the deed records.
THE PATTERN
A written witness can be sealed for preservation and opened when its contents are to be seen.
Bind up the witness, and seal the instruction in the midst of my learners.And I see in the right hand of the one who sits upon the throne a scroll written within and on its back, sealed with seven seals.And one of the older ones says to me, Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome to open the scroll and to untie its seven seals.THE THREAD
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Take these scrolls, this scroll of the purchase, both the sealed and the open, and set them in a clay jar, that they may last many days.The word rendered “open” repeats the root behind the uncovered copy in verse 11. The next verse places both forms in an earthen vessel to preserve them for many days, making the open record part of the same keeping as the sealed one.
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