What Does Jeremiah 41:7 Mean?
And it was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael son of Nethaniah slaughtered them, and threw them into the midst of the pit, he and the men with him.
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
And it was so, when they came into the midst of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them, and cast them into the midst of the pit, he, and the men that were with him.THE KEY
The man named “God hears” leads the slaughter, and the text follows the bodies into a pit.
THE MEANING
Men enter the city’s center, are slaughtered, and are cast into the center of a pit; the verse keeps killing and disposal in one unbroken sequence. The perpetrator is Ishmael (יִשְׁמָעֵאל, Yishmaʿel, “God hears”), a name that stands starkly beside what he does.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the thought that violence becomes unheard when its victims are hidden: the account names the killer, the slaughter, and the pit.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמָעֵאל
Yishmaʿel
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen; joined with El, “God,” the name means “God hears.”
“Ishmael” in this verse is Yishmaʿel. The name means “God hears.” Here it belongs to the man leading the slaughter, placing hearing beside a scene of violence without turning the name into an excuse.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen
שָׁמַע
The name’s first element comes from this root of hearing.
shemuʿah: Report, news; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch makes hearing something that can carry news of what has happened.
וַיַּשְׁלִיכוּם
vayyashlikhum
GROWS FROM
שׁלך
sh-l-k
Throw, hurl, cast
“threw them into” in this verse is vayyashlikhum. The verb makes disposal a physical act: after the men are slaughtered, they are hurled into the pit. The casting remains attached to the men who do it.
ALSO GROWS
shalakh: Throw, cast
שָׁלַךְ
This is the verb’s basic action, made explicit in the verse.
nishlakh: Was thrown, was cast
נִשְׁלַךְ
This form shows the same root from the perspective of the one acted upon.
הַבּוֹר
habbôr
GROWS FROM
בור
bor
A dug cavity; a pit or cistern
The same Hebrew noun can name a cistern and a pit or dungeon. A hollow that can hold water now receives slaughtered men, and the word carries both containment and confinement.
ALSO GROWS
bor: Cistern, a cavity dug to hold water
בּוֹר
This sense reveals the pit as a container, not just a place-name.
bor: Pit, dungeon, prison-like hollow
בּוֹר
Here that same word names where the slaughtered men are cast.
THE PATTERN
Pits in Scripture make abandonment and confinement physical: a person is cast down, contained, or sunk below reach.
And they took him and threw him into a pit, and the pit was empty, there were no waters in it.Then they took Jeremiah and threw him into the pit of Malchiah the king's son, which was in the courtyard of the prison, and they lowered Jeremiah with cords. In the pit there were no waters, only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud.You lay me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the sunken deeps.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.Here Ishmael names the man who leads the slaughter; Genesis gives that name’s meaning through the LORD hearing affliction. The shared hearing-root makes the name land with force beside the violence, while this verse still says plainly what Ishmael does.
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