What Does Jeremiah 37:6 Mean?
Then came the word of the LORD to the prophet Jeremiah, saying,
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 came the word of the LORD unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying,THE KEY
Behind “came” stands the Hebrew “and it was”: the LORD’s word arrives as a present event before it becomes a saying.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word enters your present as address, not distant information. The verse holds presence and speech together: the word is with you, and it is speaking.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a word from God is only information about God, with no presence in the life receiving it.
THE ROOT
וַיְהִי
wayhî
GROWS FROM
היה
To be, become, or happen.
“came” in this verse is wayhî. The Hebrew begins, “and the word of the LORD was” to Jeremiah; the verb can also describe something happening or coming to pass. What English renders as arrival is also expressed as presence: the word is there, taking shape as address.
ALSO GROWS
hāyâ: Was, became, happened.
הָיָה
This is the root’s basic range, joining being with what takes place.
yehî: Let there be; may it be.
יְהִי
This form shows the same root expressing what comes into being.
דְּבַר
devar from dāḇār
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speech; a word or matter.
Davar can mean both “word” and “matter” or “thing,” while dibber means “spoke.” The verse joins speech to what is present and real: the word is not only sound, but a matter that takes place in address.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The word’s range joins what is spoken with the matter itself.
dibbēr: Spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal branch makes explicit that the word is speech in action.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s word becomes present to a person as direct address.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,The word of the LORD came, indeed came, to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar, and the hand of the LORD was there upon him.While Annas and Caiaphas were the chief priests, the word of God came upon John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.THE THREAD
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,The same Hebrew opening, wayhi devar, stands behind “came the word” in both verses. In each, the word is expressed as being present to someone before it speaks.
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