What Does Jeremiah 44:20 Mean?
Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and to the women, and to all the people who had given him that answer, saying,
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 Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people which had given him that answer, saying,THE KEY
Jeremiah’s speech begins by turning the people’s own answer back toward them, before its content is even quoted.
THE MEANING
Your spoken answer remains present as something that can be addressed again; it does not end the exchange. The verse gathers men and women into a shared hearing and leaves the content of their response poised to be spoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that giving an answer closes the exchange. Here, the answer is precisely what the next speech addresses.
THE ROOT
הָעֹנִים
haʿonim
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
To answer, respond.
The underlying phrasing identifies the group as the ones answering him and says they answer him a word before the quotation begins. That makes the answer a relational turn in speech rather than a sealed statement: Jeremiah’s next words meet the response the people have already given.
ALSO GROWS
haʿonim: Those answering or responding.
הָעֹנִים
The people are identified by their response, which becomes the reason Jeremiah addresses them.
maʿaneh: An answer or reply.
מַעֲנֶה
This noun form shows an answer as a turn in an exchange, something another person can hear and respond to.
THE PATTERN
A spoken answer remains part of an exchange: it can be heard, addressed, and answered in turn.
Then call, and I will answer, or let me speak, and you turn back to me.The one who returns a word before he hears it, folly and shame are his.But Peter and John answered and said to them, "Whether it is aligned before the face of God to hear and respond to you rather than to God, judge it."THE THREAD
Then call, and I will answer, or let me speak, and you turn back to me.Both verses use ענה (ʿanah), meaning to answer or respond. Job sets the exchange in both directions, call and answer, speak and be answered, while Jeremiah opens a speech addressed directly to a community’s prior response.
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