What Does Jeremiah 34:14 Mean?
At the end of seven years, each of you shall send free his brother, a Hebrew, who has been sold to you; and when he has served you six years, you shall send him free from you. But your fathers did not hear and respond to me, nor did they bend their ear.
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
At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear.THE KEY
The verse uses the same word for “let go” twice, then exposes refusal to release as refusal to hear and respond.
THE MEANING
A person held in service is sent out free after six years, in the seventh year; the verse sets a limit on another person’s claim. It then names the failure plainly: the word is not heard, and the ear is not turned toward it. The verse speaks now wherever power over another’s labor is treated as permission to hold them without end.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that a person’s sale or service makes them yours without limit: the verse sets a boundary and names release as owed. It also rejects the idea that hearing a command counts when no response follows.
THE ROOT
תְּשַׁלְּחוּ
teshallechu
GROWS FROM
שלח
send forth, release, let go
“send free” in this verse is teshallechu. The command names release as sending someone out from your claim, not merely easing their treatment while they remain under it. The same root appears twice, first for the community’s duty, then for the master’s act, before the verse exposes refusal as refusal to hear and respond.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: one sent; a messenger
שָׁלִיחַ
The messenger is defined by being sent forth, as the servant here is to be sent out from another’s control.
Shiloach: sent; the name of the waters of Shiloah
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the idea of something sent onward, echoing the verse’s release as a sending out.
וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ
velo shame'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
hear, listen, respond
“did not hear and respond to me” in this verse is velo shame'u. Here, hearing is not mere reception of sound: it is the response the command calls for. The refusal to hear sits beside the refusal to incline the ear, joining release in action with hearing that takes effect.
ALSO GROWS
shema: hear; hear and respond
שְׁמַע
It makes clear why “hearkened not” names a failure to answer the call to release.
shemu'ah: a report; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
A report can reach the ear without being answered; the verse points to that gap between hearing words and responding to them.
THE PATTERN
Release becomes real when a person held in service is sent out from another’s claim.
If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he serves, and in the seventh he goes out free for nothing.And if your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall send him out from you unbound.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
And if your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall send him out from you unbound.Deuteronomy uses the same Hebrew root שָׁלַח (shalach, send forth and release) for “let him go free.” It makes Jeremiah’s repeated wording concrete: release is the act of sending a bound person out from one’s control.
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