What Does Jeremiah 39:15 Mean?
Now the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, while he was held back in the court of the prison, 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
Now the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, while he was shut up in the court of the prison, saying,THE KEY
The place that confines Jeremiah is already a place the word of the LORD can reach.
THE MEANING
Your confinement does not make you unreachable. The word meets you inside the place that limits your movement, before that boundary opens. The prison sets a real limit on your body, but not on what can reach you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“If I am trapped here, I have been cut off from the word.” This verse places the word inside the confinement itself.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
dəvar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; as a noun, a word, matter, or thing.
Davar can name both speech and a matter or thing. The word here is present inside the scene that seems to define Jeremiah’s limits: confinement determines where he is, not whether the message can reach him.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: To speak.
דִּבֵּר
The spoken word and the word that reaches Jeremiah share the same root.
davar: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The message is not only sound; the word can name the matter that is present with him.
עָצוּר
ʿāṣūr
GROWS FROM
עצר
ʿ-ṣ-r
To restrain, detain, or hold back.
The word translated “shut up” carries the sense of being restrained or held back. That restraint is real, but the verse places the word of the LORD within it: the confinement holds Jeremiah without containing the message.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāṣar: To restrain, stop, or hold back.
עָצַר
It names the force acting on Jeremiah’s movement.
maʿatsar: Detention or restraint.
מַעֲצָר
This related noun makes the confinement in the verse concrete: a held place does not mean the word is absent.
THE PATTERN
A closed place can restrict the body without restricting the reach of God’s presence or word.
If I climb into the heavens, you are there; if I spread my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.In this I bear ill, even unto bonds, as one who works ill; but the word of God is not bound.In the middle of the night Paul and Silas prayed and sang praise to God, and the prisoners listened to them.THE THREAD
In this I bear ill, even unto bonds, as one who works ill; but the word of God is not bound.This verse makes the distinction explicit: a person can be bound while the word remains free. It opens Jeremiah’s scene as a place the message reaches, not a boundary that can contain it.
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