What Does Jeremiah 36:14 Mean?
Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi son of Nethaniah, son of Shelemiah, son of Cushi, to Baruch, saying, Take in your hand the roll from which you have called out in the ears of the people, and come. So Baruch son of Neriah took the roll in his hand and came to them.
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 all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, unto Baruch, saying, Take in thine hand the roll wherein thou hast read in the ears of the people, and come. So Baruch the son of Neriah took the roll in his hand, and came unto them.THE KEY
The princes’ word “sent” is שָׁלַח (shalach: send forth, release): the same root dispatches Jehudi and carries the sense of letting go as the scroll moves beyond its first hearing.
THE MEANING
A word heard among the people can travel onward into the rooms where power gathers. A messenger is sent, and Baruch carries the same scroll into another audience’s hands. The word moves through people, from one hearing to the next.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that public hearing is the endpoint: what is read among the people is carried onward to the princes.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ
vayishleḥu
GROWS FROM
שׁלח
shalach
To send forth; to release or let go.
“sent” in this verse is vayishleḥu. The princes send Jehudi to bring the scroll, and the Hebrew root also carries the sense of release. The word’s movement into a new hearing begins with the same root that can name letting go.
ALSO GROWS
shilluaḥ: Sending away; dismissal.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch makes the root’s movement away from a point of origin explicit, echoing the scroll’s passage to another audience.
Shiloach: Sent; the name of the water channel called Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name holds the image of something sent onward, like the scroll carried from the people’s hearing to the princes.
קָרָאתָ
qara'ta
GROWS FROM
קרא
qara
To call out, summon, or proclaim aloud.
“have called out” in this verse is qara'ta. The roll has been read “in the ears of the people”: this is voiced proclamation, not merely marks on a page. The same root joins reading with calling, so the written word summons a hearing.
ALSO GROWS
qeri'ah: A calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It makes the sound of the scroll’s words part of the act of reading.
miqra: A reading or convocation.
מִקְרָא
This branch links a spoken call with a gathered audience, fitting the people who hear the roll.
בָּרוּךְ
Barukh
GROWS FROM
ברך
barakh
To bless; the root also carries the bodily image of bending the knee.
Baruch means “blessed,” from the same root as blessing. The name belongs to the person who takes the scroll in his own hand and carries it into the next hearing.
ALSO GROWS
barakh: To bless; to bend the knee.
בָּרַךְ
This is the verbal root behind Baruch’s name and keeps the bodily image within its word family.
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
This related form makes the meaning held in Baruch’s name audible as a shared root.
THE PATTERN
The word moves through human voices and hands into new audiences’ hearing.
When all Israel comes to see the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, you will call out this instruction before all Israel, in their ears.And he called aloud from it before the wide place that was before the gate of the waters, from first light until the middle of the day, facing the men and the women, and those who could tell the difference, and the ears of all the people were turned toward the book of the instruction.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
And Moses and Aaron came in to Pharaoh, and said to him, Thus says the LORD God of the Hebrews. How long will you refuse to bend low before me? Let my people go, so that they may serve me.“Let my people go” uses שָׁלַח (shalach: send forth, release), the same root carried by “sent” here. In Jeremiah, a messenger brings the scroll to the princes; in Exodus, the root’s sending opens into release.
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