What Does Jeremiah 44:16 Mean?
As for the word that you have spoken to us in the nature of the LORD, we will not hear and respond to you.
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
As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee.THE KEY
They identify the word as spoken in the LORD’s nature, then refuse to hear and respond, showing that recognizing a source does not guarantee reception.
THE MEANING
The message is presented in the LORD’s name, and the hearers answer with an unambiguous refusal. Their words expose the gap between recognizing what is being said and responding to it. That gap remains alive wherever a heard message meets a settled no.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that naming a message as coming in the LORD’s name guarantees that it will be received: the speakers invoke that source and still reject the word.
THE ROOT
שֹׁמְעִים
shom'im
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear and listen; in this context, hear and respond.
“hear and respond” in this verse is shom'im. The speakers’ refusal concerns more than sound reaching the ear: they reject the response carried by hearing. The verse names the break between hearing a message and receiving it.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond
שְׁמַע
This familiar imperative carries the same root; it makes clear that hearing can include a response, the very thing the speakers refuse.
shemuʿah: Report, news; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The report can reach someone as information, while the root’s force of heeding points toward the response that may still be withheld.
הַדָּבָר
haddavar
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; a word or matter expressed.
The Hebrew uses the same root for “word” and “spoken”: haddavar asher dibarta, “the word that you spoke.” English separates the noun from the speaking, while the Hebrew holds the message and its utterance together; the refusal follows both.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter
דָּבָר
This is the noun rendered “word” in the verse, naming the message as a matter that has been expressed.
dibber: Speak, utter
דִּבֵּר
This verb shares the root with davar; the verse links the word directly to the act of speaking it.
THE PATTERN
A message can reach the ear without reaching response; a hearer can refuse what has been said.
But they refused to bend the ear, and turned a shoulder aside, and made their ears heavy so they would not hear and respond.Then they cried out with a loud voice, and held shut their ears, and rushed upon him with one passion.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
And now, because you have done all these works, says the LORD, and I spoke to you, rising early and speaking, but you did not hear and respond; and I called you, but you did not answer.Here, “heard” and “answered” stand side by side, opening the response held within the root of hearken. Jeremiah 44:16 gives that refusal its direct voice: “we will not hearken unto thee.”
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