What Does Jeremiah 34:12 Mean?
And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
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
Therefore the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,THE KEY
Hebrew דָּבָר (davar, word or matter) can name both speech and what is spoken, so the LORD’s word arrives carrying substance, not just information.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks at the moment before its message unfolds: the LORD’s word reaches Jeremiah, then “saying” opens what follows. Its sequence places the source before the recipient and the recipient before the speech; you encounter the message as something received, not self-produced.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that the message originates in the one who receives it: the LORD is named as its source, and Jeremiah as its point of arrival.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
Dābar: to speak or utter.
The KJV’s “word” can sound like a message detached from its content, but דָּבָר (davar, word or matter) shares its seed with the verb for speaking and can also name matters or things. The verse places spoken address at the threshold of what is real and unfolding.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The same root forms the verb for speaking, so the arriving word is speech in motion.
devarim: Words; matters or things.
דְּבָרִים
This form can name matters or things as well as words, showing how speech and its subject remain joined.
לֵאמֹר
lemor
GROWS FROM
אמר
’Amar: to say or speak.
The phrase that follows the incoming דְּבַר (devar, word) is לֵאמֹר (lemor, saying): the verse moves from a word that arrives to speech that opens. The two Hebrew roots make the address both a received matter and an act of speaking.
ALSO GROWS
amar: To say; he said.
אָמַר
This is the verb at the heart of “saying,” making explicit the speech that follows the arriving word.
imrah: Utterance; saying.
אִמְרָה
This noun names an utterance from the same root and echoes the verse’s movement from message to speech.
THE PATTERN
A word from God is an active address whose speech and effect belong together.
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.Psalm 33:6 uses דָּבָר (davar, word or matter), the same Hebrew root carried by “word” here. In the psalm, that word is joined to the making of the heavens; Jeremiah’s verse presents the same word as an address arriving to be spoken.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us