What Does Jeremiah 38:16 Mean?
So Zedekiah the king swore in hiding to Jeremiah, saying, As the LORD lives, who made us this living soul, I will not put you to death, nor will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your living soul.
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 Zedekiah the king sware secretly unto Jeremiah, saying, As the LORD liveth, that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, neither will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life.THE KEY
The life God made and the life Jeremiah’s enemies seek are the same Hebrew word, joined beneath the king’s oath.
THE MEANING
The verse holds your life as something made by the living LORD, while naming how vulnerable a life can be to those who seek it. One Hebrew word, נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), meaning “living soul” or “life,” is rendered first as “soul” and then as “life,” joining the created person and the person under threat. Zedekiah’s secret oath places a promise of protection inside that danger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The life threatened by power belongs to the powerful to dispose of.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
n-p-sh
Living self; life.
“living soul” in this verse is nefesh. The same word appears twice in the verse: God made this nefesh, and Jeremiah’s enemies seek his nefesh. The KJV’s “soul” and “life” can sound like separate things, but the Hebrew holds the created person and the endangered person together.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul, life, or person.
נֶפֶשׁ
The verse uses this word both for what the LORD made and for the life Jeremiah’s enemies pursue.
naphash: To refresh oneself or be refreshed.
נָפַשׁ
This related verb carries the sense of renewal, giving the root’s language of life another branch beyond the English split between “soul” and “life.”
THE PATTERN
Human life remains God’s making even when people have power to threaten or protect it.
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.In whose hand is the living soul of every living thing, and the breath of all flesh.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.Genesis uses the same Hebrew word, נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), in “living soul.” That makes the oath’s “this soul” resonate as a living person made by God, the very life another person now seeks.
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