What Does Jeremiah 36:15 Mean?
And they said to him, Sit down now, and call it out in our ears. So Baruch called it out in their ears.
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
And they said unto him, Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So Baruch read it in their ears.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “read” also means “call aloud,” so the written word enters shared hearing as a voice.
THE MEANING
A written message becomes a shared event when one voice carries it into the hearers’ awareness. The repeated phrase “in our ears” centers listening as a direct encounter with the word. The response remains open; the act of hearing is clear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A text is not limited to private, silent reading; another person’s voice can carry it into shared hearing.
THE ROOT
קָרָא
qārāʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
Call out, summon, proclaim; when the object is a text, read aloud.
“call it out” in this verse is qārāʾ. The root opens reading onto calling and proclamation: the text is sounded into the listeners’ presence. The repeated “in our ears” makes that shared reception the center of the verse.
ALSO GROWS
qĕrîʾāh: A calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It keeps reading tied to spoken words that reach listeners.
miqrāʾ: A summoned gathering or public reading.
מִקְרָא
This branch links voiced words with people gathered to hear them.
THE PATTERN
A written word becomes shared by being voiced into a community’s 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.So then trust comes out of hearing, and hearing comes through the word of God.THE THREAD
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.Both verses use קרא (qārāʾ, “call aloud; read”) for reading the text. Deuteronomy makes explicit the shared hearing that Jeremiah’s repeated phrase brings to the foreground.
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