What Does Jeremiah 36:32 Mean?
Then Jeremiah took another roll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, son of Neriah, who wrote in it from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire, and many words like these were added 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
Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words.THE KEY
The king burns a written copy, but the words return from a living mouth to the page, and this time they multiply.
THE MEANING
A word is not exhausted by one written copy: even when a page is destroyed, its words can be written again, with more added. Fire consumes the scroll, while voice, hand, and page carry the words onward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that destroying the record can erase what has been spoken.
THE ROOT
נוֹסַף
nosaf
GROWS FROM
יסף
To add, increase, or continue.
The words are not only restored; the verse says more are added. The Hebrew root carries both addition and continuation, so the new scroll becomes an enlargement of what survived in speech.
ALSO GROWS
Yosef: Joseph; a name formed from the root meaning “add.”
יוֹסֵף
The name echoes this verse’s added words: what continues can also increase.
yasaph: To add or do again.
יָסַף
The root joins repeating what was lost with adding beyond what came before.
סֹפֵר
sofer
GROWS FROM
ספר
To count, recount, or tell; the same root forms words for a written record and its keeper.
The Hebrew words for “scribe” and “book” share a root: the one who records and the record belong to the same act of recounting. Here the words move from Jeremiah’s mouth through the scribe’s hand back onto a scroll.
ALSO GROWS
sefer: Book, document, or scroll.
סֵפֶר
The scribe’s name for his work and the name for the record share the root.
mispar: Number or count.
מִסְפָּר
The same root links the act of recording with counting what is there.
בָּרוּךְ
Barukh
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; the root also carries the image of bending the knee.
Baruch’s name means “blessed,” and he is the one entrusted to carry the words from spoken form back into writing. His name places blessing beside the transmission that lets the words continue.
ALSO GROWS
barak: Bless.
בָּרַךְ
This verb is the root of Baruch’s name.
berakah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
The related noun makes the blessing contained in the name explicit.
THE PATTERN
What is broken or destroyed can be restored through the word and continue beyond its first form.
And the LORD said to Moses, Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones. I will write upon these tablets the words that were upon the first tablets, which you broke.The grass dries, the flower withers, but the word of our God stands for the ages.But the word of God kept growing and multiplying.THE THREAD
And she called his name Joseph, may he add, and said, The LORD shall add to me another son.Jeremiah’s “were added” comes from יסף (yasaph), the same root in the name Joseph (Yosef), associated with adding. The shared root makes the multiplication of the words echo a name that carries addition within it.
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