What Does Jeremiah 35:12 Mean?
Then came the word of the LORD to Jeremiah, 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
Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah, saying,THE KEY
The verse presents the LORD’s word as an event entering Jeremiah’s present before its content is revealed.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you at the threshold: the LORD’s word comes to Jeremiah, and its arrival is named before its message is opened. Hebrew holds “word” and “matter” close, so the address appears as something taking place, not only information waiting to be understood.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a word matters only after its content is spelled out: here, the arrival itself already marks an encounter.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
devar construct form
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; word, matter, or thing.
This root ties a spoken word to a matter or thing, so English “word” can sound thinner than what the verse holds: the LORD’s address arrives as speech with presence in the scene. The arrival itself is part of the meaning before any content is given.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter or thing.
דָּבָר
The same form can name speech and what is spoken about, joining the LORD’s address to something taking place.
dibber: Spoke or uttered.
דִּבֶּר
This verbal branch makes clear that the arriving “word” is speech, not merely an abstract idea.
וַיְהִי
wayhi
GROWS FROM
היה
Be, become, happen.
The Hebrew verb translated “came” also carries the sense of being or happening: before the message is quoted, the clause registers the word as present. English “came” preserves the movement, while the Hebrew also lets the word be heard as something happening.
ALSO GROWS
hayah: To be, become, or happen.
הָיָה
This base form reveals the sense of “came” as an arrival into being or occurrence.
ehyeh: I am or I will be.
אֶהְיֶה
This form uses the same root to speak of presence, echoing the verse’s focus on the word becoming present.
THE PATTERN
The divine word arrives as a present reality whose presence precedes, embodies, or exposes its message.
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.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.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.THE THREAD
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.Both passages use דְּבַר (devar, “word of”) for the LORD’s address. Genesis shows what Jeremiah 35:12 leaves just beyond the threshold: the arriving word becomes a direct promise, so speech is already a present event before the message unfolds.
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