What Does Jeremiah 4:15 Mean?
For a voice declares from Dan, and makes trouble heard from Mount Ephraim.
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
For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth affliction from mount Ephraim.THE KEY
The warning is already arriving as sound: the Hebrew says affliction is being made heard before it is fully in view.
THE MEANING
A warning takes shape for you before danger is fully seen; the announcement makes affliction hearable. Dan carries the name tied to judgment, while Ephraim carries the name tied to fruitfulness. The alarm reaches even the ground where things are growing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a threat is unreal until it reaches you is undone here: a voice can make affliction present before it arrives.
THE ROOT
מַשְׁמִיעַ
mashmia
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear; in this causative form, make heard or announce.
“makes trouble heard” in this verse is mashmia. The verb behind “publisheth” means to cause people to hear. The announcement does more than describe affliction: it makes the threat audible to its hearers.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This branch shows hearing as a response, not merely sound reaching an ear.
shemuah: Report, news, or tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
The report shares the announcement’s hearing-root: news travels by being made heard.
דָּן
Dan
GROWS FROM
דין
d-y-n
Judge; contend or render judgment.
Dan’s name carries the nature of judging. The voice comes from a place whose name already sounds with judgment, before the verse names the affliction being announced.
ALSO GROWS
din: Judgment.
דִּין
This branch makes the judgment carried in Dan’s name audible in the verse’s opening source.
dayyan: Judge.
דַּיָּן
The judge is one who renders judgment; this branch opens the name’s connection to the voice coming from Dan.
אֶפְרַיִם
Efrayim
GROWS FROM
פרה
p-r-h
Bear fruit; become fruitful.
Ephraim’s name is tied to fruitfulness. Affliction is announced from Mount Ephraim, placing the warning in the midst of what is bearing fruit.
ALSO GROWS
parah: Bear fruit; be fruitful.
פָּרָה
This verb gives Ephraim its name-nature of fruitfulness.
peri: Fruit.
פְּרִי
The fruit is the visible branch of the same root, giving the announcement’s location a sense of what is growing.
THE PATTERN
Approaching trouble becomes present to others through a sound or report that makes it hearable.
If, when he sees the sword come upon the land, he blows the horn and warns the people;You are about to hear of wars and of the sounds of wars. See that you are not startled, for these things must come to be, but the end is not yet.For if the trumpet gives an unclear sound, who will arm himself for battle?THE THREAD
My belly, my belly! I writhe. The walls of my heart! My heart moans within me. I cannot hush, for you have heard, my living soul, the sound of the ram's horn, the blast of war.The same root ש־מ־ע (sh-m-ʿ, hear) that makes the announcement heard here appears as “thou hast heard”; the same word קול (qol, voice or sound) returns as the trumpet’s sound. The warning moves from being announced across the land to being registered within the hearer.
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