What Does Jeremiah 32:31 Mean?
For this city has been to me a provocation of my anger and my fury, from the day they built it to this day, that I should remove it from before my face.
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 this city hath been to me as a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face,THE KEY
The city’s long-burning fury reaches its stated end in being turned away from God’s face.
THE MEANING
The city stands before God as a source of anger and burning fury, a condition the verse says has lasted from its building until now. Its removal from before God’s face names the judgment as a withdrawal from divine presence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that what is established and long-standing must also be secure before God.
THE ROOT
לַהֲסִירָהּ
lahăsîrāh
GROWS FROM
סור
s-w-r
turn aside, depart, or take away
The word for “remove” comes from a root that also carries the sense of turning aside or departing. Joined to “from before my face,” it gives the judgment a relational shape: the city is taken out of God’s sight.
ALSO GROWS
sûr: turn aside; depart
סוּר
This branch shows the motion held within removal: a presence turns away or departs.
hēsîr: remove; take away
הֵסִיר
This causative form makes the turning into an act of taking something away.
פָּנַי
panay
GROWS FROM
פנה
p-n-h
turn toward; face
The word for face belongs to a root of turning or facing toward. So “before my face” evokes the sphere of direct regard and presence, and removal from it is a rupture in that relation.
ALSO GROWS
panim: face; presence
פָּנִים
This is the word behind “my face,” where the verse locates the city’s removal.
panah: turn toward; face
פָּנָה
This verb connects face with orientation: being before someone’s face is being within their regard.
חֲמָתִי
ḥămātî
GROWS FROM
חמה
ḥ-m-h
be hot; burn
Fury carries the image of heat, so the verse speaks of burning anger rather than detached disapproval. Its duration, from the city’s building until now, makes that heat feel sustained.
ALSO GROWS
ḥom: heat
חֹם
This branch makes explicit the heat carried within the word for fury.
ḥēmāh: fury; burning anger
חֵמָה
This noun names the burning force applied to the city in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures judgment as removal from God’s presence, while nearness to that presence is something sought and treasured.
Then the LORD said to me, Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my living soul could not be toward this people. Send them from my face, and let them go out.Do not throw me away from your face, and do not take your Set-Apart Breath from me.who shall pay the penalty of ruin of the ages, away from the face of the Lord and from the weight of his strength.THE THREAD
And the LORD said, "I will remove Judah also from before my face, as I have removed Israel, and will throw away this city Jerusalem, which I chose, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there."The same root סור (sûr, “turn aside” or “depart”) appears in the removal language, alongside the same image of being taken from God’s sight. The parallel makes Jeremiah’s phrase part of a recurring scriptural picture of judgment as withdrawal from divine presence.
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