What Does Jeremiah 32:36 Mean?

And now, therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city, of which you say, It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.

Jeremiah 32:36 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And now therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city, whereof ye say, It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence;

THE KEY

The city’s “delivery” is a giving-over: the Hebrew root holds being given and being placed in another hand together.

THE MEANING

The verse holds the city’s expected handover to Babylon before you: sword, famine, and pestilence are named as its means. Nothing softens the violence, hunger, and disease in this sentence.

THE ROOT

נִתְּנָה

nittənāh

GROWS FROM

נ־ת־ן

n-t-n

to give, place, or set

Beneath “delivered” stands ⁨נִתְּנָה⁩, “is given,” from the root of giving and placing. The word holds transfer and placement together: the city is placed into Babylon’s hand, and the sentence names the forceful means of that handover.

ALSO GROWS

give: give, grant, or hand over

נָתַן

This is the root’s basic sense, present in the city being given into Babylon’s hand.

set: place or set in position

נָתַן

The same root can describe placement; it makes the handover here feel like a change in where the city is held.

THE PATTERN

A handover makes a transfer of power visible while naming what follows from it.

And afterward, says the LORD, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those left behind in this city from the plague, from the sword, and from the hunger, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, into their enemies' hand, and into the hand of those who seek their living soul. He shall strike them with the mouth of the sword. He shall not spare them, nor pity them, nor have compassion.

Jeremiah 21:7 · SDVThe handover is explicit, and the verse names both the receiving power and the violence that follows.

Therefore God gave them over in the cravings of their hearts into uncleanness, for their bodies to be made weightless among themselves.

Romans 1:24 · SDV“Gave them up” describes a transfer into the consequences that follow.

This one, handed over by the marked-out counsel and foreknowing of God, you nailed to the cross by the hands of the unbounded, and you killed him.

Acts 2:23 · SDVThe verse holds divine purpose and the violence of human hands in the same account of a delivery.

THE THREAD

And God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to shine upon the earth.

Genesis 1:17 · SDV

The verb translated “set” is another form of ⁨נתן⁩, the same give-and-place root beneath “delivered.” That shared seed describes both lights placed in the heavens and this city placed into Babylon’s hand; the surrounding words tell what each placement means.

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