What Does Jeremiah 36:21 Mean?
So the king sent Jehudi to take the roll, and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe. And Jehudi called it out in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes who stood beside the king.
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
So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the roll: and he took it out of Elishama the scribe’s chamber. And Jehudi read it in the ears of the king, and in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king.THE KEY
The king summons the scroll, but when it is read aloud, the written word also summons him into its hearing.
THE MEANING
The written word comes within the reach of power and becomes audible among those gathered around it. When a word is read aloud, it addresses the hearer in the present; hearing begins the encounter, while the response remains open.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרָא
wayyiqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
Call, proclaim, or read aloud.
“called out” in this verse is wayyiqra. Here, reading is not merely consulting a document: Jehudi voices it into the king’s hearing. The root also means calling or proclaiming, so the English word “read” carries the force of a summons spoken aloud.
ALSO GROWS
qara: To call or name.
קָרָא
The same root that describes reading aloud also describes calling something by its name, joining voiced words with the act of calling.
miqra: A reading or convocation, an assembly called together.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows how the root can join voiced reading with a gathered assembly, as the king and princes hear the scroll together.
וַיִּשְׁלַח
wayyishlach
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, release, or let go.
The king’s command sends the scroll out from the scribe’s chamber and into the room’s shared hearing. This root also carries the sense of release, so dispatch and letting-go remain joined beneath the English “sent.”
ALSO GROWS
shallach: Send away or release.
שַׁלַּח
This is the root behind the command “Let my people go” in Exodus 5:1, linking the king’s dispatch of Jehudi with the language of release.
Shiloach: Sent; the name of the pool rendered Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name of the pool is associated with “sent,” recalling the same root’s movement from sending forth toward restoration.
THE PATTERN
A written word becomes an encounter when it is voiced into the hearing of a gathered people.
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.And he began to say to them, Today this writing has been filled in your ears.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.The verb behind “Let my people go” is שׁלח (shalach, send forth or release), the same three-letter root as the king’s “sent” here. The connection binds dispatch to release: in one scene the root sends a reader to the ruler; in the other it names the release of people from a ruler’s hold.
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