What Does Jeremiah 42:15 Mean?
So now hear and respond to the word of the LORD, you who are left of Judah. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; if you wholly set your faces to enter Egypt and sojourn there.
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 now therefore hear the word of the LORD, ye remnant of Judah; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; If ye wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there;THE KEY
A journey into constriction begins when the face is fixed toward it, before the feet arrive.
THE MEANING
The verse catches the moment when a chosen direction becomes a road: if the face is fixed toward Egypt, the feet follow into the narrowing. Hearing the word of the LORD stands at that threshold, where the turn is visible before arrival.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that constriction begins only after arrival; the verse locates its beginning in the direction already being set.
THE ROOT
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
מצר
A narrow place or strait; constriction.
The place-name מִצְרַיִם (Mitzrayim, Egypt) carries the consonants מצר, also heard in מֵצַר (mēṣar, narrow strait) and מְצָרִים (metsarim, straits or tight places); its ending ־ַיִם (ayim, the dual ending) gives the name a doubled shape. The destination is therefore more than geography here: it also names movement toward constriction.
ALSO GROWS
mēṣar: A narrow place or strait.
מֵצַר
Psalm 118:5 uses this word for the constricted place from which the speaker is brought into a broad place, making Egypt’s narrowing audible.
metsarim: Straits, distress, tight places.
מְצָרִים
This form lets constriction name surrounding pressures as well as a location, carrying the place-name inward into lived experience.
שִׁמְעוּ
shim'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, heed, receive and respond.
“hear and respond to” in this verse is shim'u. The root שמע (shama, hearing that receives and responds) joins listening to response. The call to hear comes just before a choice of direction, so hearing is shown at the point where movement takes shape.
ALSO GROWS
shama: He heard, listened, heeded.
שָׁמַע
This verbal form holds hearing and heeding together, giving the command to hear a responsive force.
shemu'ah: Report, tidings, something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch shows how what is heard can arrive as a message that calls for a response.
תְּשִׂימוּן
tesimun
GROWS FROM
שים
To put, place, or set in position.
“wholly” in this verse is tesimun. The Hebrew construction intensifies set with a doubled form: setting, you set. The root reveals the face as something actively placed toward a destination, so the journey is already taking shape before arrival.
ALSO GROWS
simah: Placement, setting.
שִׂימָה
This noun preserves the root’s act of positioning, which in the verse is directed toward a destination.
mesimah: Task, assignment.
מְשִׂימָה
An assignment is something placed before someone; this branch echoes the deliberate placement of the face toward a chosen way.
THE PATTERN
A direction becomes consequential before the journey is complete: what the eyes, heart, and face turn toward shapes the path.
Make my eyes pass over the sight of emptiness, and bring me to life in your way.And it came to pass, when the days of his being taken up were filling full, he firmly set his face to go to Jerusalem.For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.The KJV’s distress translates מֵצַר (mēṣar, narrow place), sharing the consonants מצר with מִצְרַיִם (Mitzrayim, Egypt). Psalm 118:5 moves from that narrowness into a large place, showing the release toward spaciousness that Jeremiah’s warning holds at the threshold.
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