What Does Jeremiah 36:31 Mean?
And I will visit him and his seed and his servants for their crookedness, and I will bring upon them, and upon those who settle in Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have spoken against them, but they did not hear and respond.
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 I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they hearkened not.THE KEY
Refusing to hear does not erase the announced harm; it is the hinge between the warning and its visitation.
THE MEANING
This verse meets the reader with a severe sequence: the announced word is refused, yet the harm declared still arrives. It names the judgment as reaching from one man to his descendants and servants, then to Jerusalem’s inhabitants and Judah’s men. The final clause describes more than missed sound: the hearers do not receive and respond.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that refusing a warning makes its announced consequences disappear.
THE ROOT
וּפָקַדְתִּי
u-faqadti
GROWS FROM
פקד
p-q-d
To attend to, muster, appoint, or visit; here, to visit with judgment and call to account.
“visit” in this verse is u-faqadti. Here, “punish” is a visitation: the announced judgment comes as an attending-to, a reckoning that counts those named. The root also carries the sense of oversight and mustering, while the verse’s declared harm remains severe.
ALSO GROWS
paqad: Count, muster, or visit.
פָּקַד
The counting sense links visitation with being called to account; no one named in the verse is outside its scope.
paqīd: Appointed officer or overseer.
פָּקִיד
This branch carries the sense of oversight, illuminating the verse’s language of an accounting that reaches those under the ruler’s charge.
pequddah: Appointment, charge, or oversight.
פְּקֻדָּה
The word’s oversight sense helps show why “punish” can be heard as a visitation that attends to what has been done.
וְלֹא שָׁמְעוּ
ve-lo sham'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
To hear, listen, and respond.
“hear and respond” in this verse is ve-lo sham'u. “They hearkened not” is more than sound passing the ear: this root carries listening with response. The closing clause names refusal of the message itself, the point at which the verse’s declared visitation meets its hearers.
ALSO GROWS
shama: Hear, listen, and respond.
שָׁמַע
This is the verb behind “hearkened not”; the refusal includes a withheld response, not merely an unheard sound.
shemu'ah: Report, tidings, or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names a message that reaches the ear, making the refusal a rejection of what is heard.
THE PATTERN
A warning refused still reaches its appointed consequence.
But it shall be, if you do not hear and respond to the voice of the LORD your God, to guard and to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.Because I call out and you refuse; I stretch out my hand, and no one bends an ear.See that you do not refuse the one who speaks. For if those who refused the one who gave the oracle on earth did not escape, how much more shall we not escape if we turn away from the one from the heavens.THE THREAD
But it shall be, if you do not hear and respond to the voice of the LORD your God, to guard and to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.Both verses use שָׁמַע (shama), hear and respond. The shared verb makes the hinge visible: the issue is response to a spoken word, and both verses attach consequences to refusal.
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