What Does Jeremiah 32:3 Mean?
For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Why do you prophesy, saying, Thus says the LORD, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it.
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
For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;THE KEY
The hand that confines Jeremiah cannot keep the forecast from naming the city’s coming handover.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks into the moment when power confines the person naming what that power is doing: confinement controls where the voice is, but does not cancel what it says. Jeremiah’s cell contains a forecast that the city will be placed in another king’s hand. The verse holds bodily restraint and public truth in the same frame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A voice loses all force once a ruler can lock its speaker away.
THE ROOT
כְּלָאוֹ
kĕlāʾô
GROWS FROM
כלא
k-l-ʾ
To restrain, withhold, or confine.
The same root describes both Jeremiah being confined and speech being restrained. English “shut him up” can sound like silencing, but the root connects bodily confinement with the act of holding something back.
ALSO GROWS
kālûʾ: Confined or imprisoned (Jeremiah 32:2).
כָּלוּא
The related form names Jeremiah as confined, making the verb in this verse part of the same root’s language of enclosure.
ʾeklāʾ: Restrain; in Psalm 40:9, “I will not restrain my lips.”
אֶכְלָא
The root can describe restraint of speech as well as confinement of a person, sharpening the tension between Jeremiah’s locked body and the words he speaks.
נֹתֵן
nōtēn
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
The verb translated “give” also carries the sense of setting or placing. Paired with בְּיַד (bəyad, “into the hand” or power of), it depicts the city being placed under Babylon’s rule; “he shall take it” names the receiving side of that transfer.
ALSO GROWS
nātûn: Given or placed.
נָתוּן
This related form makes the placement within the root’s range visible: the city is set under another ruler’s power.
mattān: A gift or grant.
מַתָּן
The noun preserves the root’s sense of something handed over, illuminating the transfer described in the prophecy.
צִדְקִיָּהוּ
Ṣidqiyyāhû
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
To be right or just; the name combines this root with Yahu, a form of the divine name.
Zedekiah’s name carries the meaning “Yahweh is righteousness” or “Yahweh is justice.” In this verse, the king bearing that name confines the prophet who announces the city’s transfer; the name sharpens the scene’s tension without settling the king’s character.
ALSO GROWS
ṣedeq: Justice or rightness.
צֶדֶק
This noun supplies the justice carried in the king’s name.
ṣaddîq: A just or righteous person.
צַדִּיק
This related form brings the root’s quality into a person, echoing the meaning compressed into the name.
THE PATTERN
Confinement can hold a messenger while the word continues to arrive and move.
And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still held back in the court of the guard, saying,In this I bear ill, even unto bonds, as one who works ill; but the word of God is not bound.THE THREAD
And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still held back in the court of the guard, saying,The same Hebrew root כלא (k-l-ʾ), meaning “confine” or “restrain,” describes Jeremiah as shut up in both verses. Yet here the word comes to him again in the prison, opening the tension in Jeremiah 32:3: the enclosure holds the prophet without holding back the message.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us