What Does Jeremiah 41:12 Mean?
Then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael son of Nethaniah, and found him by the many waters that are in Gibeon.
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 they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon.THE KEY
The man they pursue bears a name meaning “God hears,” and they find him beside great waters.
THE MEANING
You see a whole company move to confront Ishmael and find him at Gibeon’s great waters. His name means “God hears,” so the verse holds hearing, pursuit, and water together without saying the violence has ended.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמָעֵאל
Yishmaʿel
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
Hear, listen.
In English, Ishmael arrives only as the pursued man’s name. In Hebrew, Yishmaʿel means “God hears,” built from שׁמע (shamaʿ, hear); the name carries hearing into a scene of pursuit.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear or listen.
שָׁמַע
This verb is built into Yishmaʿel, giving the name its sense, “God hears.”
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The same root carries hearing into what is heard and passed on, showing how the name holds the act of hearing within it.
THE PATTERN
Pursuit concentrates conflict at a named place where the pursued comes within reach.
And the Egyptians pursued after them, every horse and chariot of the Great House, and his horsemen, and all his army, and overtook them encamped by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon.And Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain; and David hurried to get away from the face of Saul, for Saul and his men circled David and his men to take them.When Jesus had said these things, he went out with his disciples across the winter-torrent of Cedron, where there was a garden, and he entered it with his disciples. Judas also, the one who handed him over, knew the place, for Jesus often gathered together there with his disciples. Judas then, having received the coiled band of soldiers and attendants from the chief priests and the separated ones, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons.THE THREAD
And the messenger of the LORD said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael, God-hears; for the LORD has heard and responded to your bending low.The name Ishmael carries the sense “God hears,” and Genesis 16:11 makes that naming sense explicit: the LORD hath heard her affliction. The same Hebrew root, שׁמע (shamaʿ, hear), connects the name to the verse’s words about hearing.
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