What Does Jeremiah 5:14 Mean?
Therefore, thus says the LORD God of hosts. Because you speak this word, look, I will set my words in your mouth as fire, and this people as wood, and it shall eat them.
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
Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.THE KEY
Here the word in the mouth becomes an active force: it consumes the people pictured as wood.
THE MEANING
The verse places denial in the mouth against the words God places in the mouth. God’s word becomes fire, and the people become wood; what is spoken reaches them as a consuming force.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie undone is that denying danger makes it disappear: the denial in the mouth does not neutralize the word’s consuming consequence.
THE ROOT
דְּבָרַי
devarai
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or utter; as a noun, a word or matter.
“my words” in this verse is devarai. The root can name both speaking and what is spoken, joining the mouth to the word it carries. Here the words placed in the mouth become an event with force, reaching the people like fire.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing
דָּבָר
The word in the verse is joined to the act of speaking and to what that speech sets in motion.
dibber: Spoke or uttered
דִּבֵּר
This verb shares the seed of “word,” keeping speech and the spoken message within one root family.
וַאֲכָלָתַם
va'akhalatam
GROWS FROM
אכל
To eat or consume.
“eat” in this verse is va'akhalatam. The verb translated “devour” comes from the ordinary root for eating, giving the image a bodily force. The people become what the fire consumes, as wood becomes fuel.
ALSO GROWS
akhal: He ate
אָכַל
This is the basic eating verb beneath the verse’s image of devouring.
ma'akhal: Food; that which is eaten
מַאֲכָל
This noun makes the consuming image concrete: the people are pictured as what the fire feeds on.
THE PATTERN
God’s word acts with force on what it reaches, carrying out what it speaks.
Is not my word like fire? says the LORD; and like a hammer that shatters the rock?So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
Is not my word like fire? says the LORD; and like a hammer that shatters the rock?Both verses center on דָּבָר (davar, “word, matter”) beside fire. Jeremiah 23:29 names the word as fire; this verse shows its force consuming the people pictured as wood.
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