What Does Jeremiah 38:14 Mean?
Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet to him, into the third entrance in the house of the LORD, and the king said to Jeremiah, I will ask you a thing. Hide nothing from me.
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 Zedekiah the king sent, and took Jeremiah the prophet unto him into the third entry that is in the house of the LORD: and the king said unto Jeremiah, I will ask thee a thing; hide nothing from me.THE KEY
The root behind “hide” can also mean “make disappear,” so the king asks for truth that has not been erased from the conversation.
THE MEANING
You are in a room where power asks for an untrimmed answer. “Hide nothing from me” opens the conversation to the part of truth that may be costly to say. The verse holds the tension between inviting disclosure and controlling the room where it is spoken.
THE ROOT
תְּכַחֵד
təḵaḥēḏ
GROWS FROM
כחד
kḥd
Conceal or keep from view; in a causative form, make disappear or cut off.
English “hide” can sound like keeping a secret; כחד also reaches toward making something vanish. The king’s demand touches the boundary between an answer merely withheld and truth effectively erased from the conversation.
ALSO GROWS
kiḥadti: I have concealed; negated in Psalm 40:10 as “I have not concealed.”
כִּחַדְתִּי
The same root describes not withholding faithful love and truth from a gathered people; concealment gives way to declaration.
hikhchid: Make disappear; cut off.
הִכְחִיד
Psalm 83:4 uses this causative form for an attempt to erase a people from remembrance, carrying the root from concealment toward erasure.
צִדְקִיָּהוּ
Tsidqiyahu
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
Rightness, justice, alignment.
“Zedekiah” in this verse is Tsidqiyahu. The name compresses Yahweh and tzedek: “Yahweh is alignment.” That nature sits beside a demand for an unhidden answer, making alignment the silent measure of what is said.
ALSO GROWS
tzedek: Alignment; justice.
צֶדֶק
This is the name’s core root, so the request is voiced under a name that carries alignment.
tzaddiq: One who is aligned; a just person.
צַדִּיק
The same root names a person in right relation, making the king’s name more than a label.
וַיִּשְׁלַח
vayyishlaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
Send, send forth, release, let go, or stretch out the hand.
“sent” in this verse is vayyishlaḥ. שלח holds sending and release together. Here, the king’s dispatch brings Jeremiah into the encounter, and the next clause makes the crucial release one of withheld words into speech.
ALSO GROWS
Shiloach: Sent; sending.
שִׁלֹחַ
The root’s “send forth” shade echoes the opening action that brings Jeremiah into this conversation.
veshilleḥah: Send her away; release her.
וְשִׁלְּחָהּ
This branch makes the root’s release sense explicit; the encounter opens through sending, while its spoken answer is asked to hold nothing back.
THE PATTERN
Truth enters shared life when concealment gives way to disclosure.
I do not cover your alignment within my heart. I speak your steadiness and your deliverance. I do not hide your faithful love and your truth from the great assembly.For there is nothing covered that will not be uncovered, and nothing hidden that will not be known.But the one who does the truth comes to the light, so that their deeds may be made visible, for they have been worked in God.THE THREAD
I do not cover your alignment within my heart. I speak your steadiness and your deliverance. I do not hide your faithful love and your truth from the great assembly.“Hide” in Jeremiah and “concealed” in this psalm share the Hebrew root כחד. The king’s request opens into the psalm’s image of truth released from concealment and declared among many.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us