What Does Jeremiah 32:27 Mean?
Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me?
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, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?THE KEY
What feels impossible is named with the same Hebrew root as a wonder: beyond your reach does not mean beyond God’s.
THE MEANING
You stand within the reach of the God of all flesh, and the verse asks whether anything is beyond him. The word translated “too hard” also carries the sense of something wondrous or beyond the ordinary. The question shifts the measure of possibility from what you can do to what is possible before God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that whatever lies beyond your ability must also lie beyond God’s reach.
THE ROOT
יִפָּלֵא
yippale
GROWS FROM
פלא
To be extraordinary or wondrous; in this form, to be beyond one’s ability or too difficult.
“too hard” in this verse is yippale. The Hebrew word yippale comes from the same root as words for wonders. The language lets difficulty and wonder meet: what exceeds human ability can also be described as extraordinary.
ALSO GROWS
pele: A wonder or marvel.
פֶּלֶא
This noun shows the root’s sense of the extraordinary behind the question about what is too hard.
nifla’ot: Wonders or marvelous acts.
נִפְלָאוֹת
This plural form uses the same root for works that exceed the ordinary, echoing the possibility held open in Jeremiah’s question.
THE PATTERN
What exceeds human ability does not exceed God’s reach.
Is any word too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will turn back to you, at this season of life, and Sarah will have a son.You are the God who makes wonders; you make known your strength among the peoples.For with God nothing will be impossible.THE THREAD
Thus says the LORD of hosts. If it is marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, should it also be marvelous in my eyes? says the LORD of hosts.Zechariah uses the same root, פלא (pala, to be wondrous or beyond ordinary measure), for what seems marvelous to people and asks whether it is marvelous to God. Jeremiah’s question opens the same gap between human limits and God’s measure.
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