What Does Jeremiah 7:27 Mean?
So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not hear and respond to you; you shall also call to them, but they will not answer 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
Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee.THE KEY
The verse separates speaking from reception: every word can be spoken and every call made while the listener remains closed.
THE MEANING
Here you stand in the distance between speech and reception: the words are spoken, the call is made, and no answer comes. A voice cannot make itself received.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a message must be received if the speaker says it clearly or often enough.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמְעוּ
yishmeʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, heed; when the sense is responsive, hear and respond.
“hear and respond to” in this verse is yishmeʿu. The verb reaches beyond sound landing in the ear to the receiving of what is heard. The refusal here reaches that point of reception.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen, heed or respond.
שָׁמַע
This is the verb in the verse, where hearing carries the possibility of receiving what is said.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This noun keeps the receiving side of the root visible: a message is something heard and taken in.
וְקָרָאתָ
weqaraʾta
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
Call, cry out, summon or proclaim.
The verse places a call alongside the spoken words. Even a direct summons cannot compel an answer.
ALSO GROWS
qaraʾ: Call, cry out, summon or proclaim.
קָרָא
The verse’s call is directed toward people, a summons that still meets silence.
miqraʾ: Convocation or assembly; reading.
מִקְרָא
This branch carries the sense of people being called together, extending the root beyond an individual cry.
הַדְּבָרִים
hadevarim
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; the related noun can mean a word, matter or thing.
Devarim names the words, while davar can also name a matter or thing. What goes unreceived is more than sound: the spoken matters themselves are refused.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, thing or affair.
דָּבָר
This noun holds speech and its subject in one family, so the words carry matters rather than mere sounds.
dibber: Spoke; to speak.
דִּבֵּר
The verb and the words share the same root: what is spoken and what is spoken about belong together.
THE PATTERN
Words and calls do not compel reception; a message can be fully offered and still refused.
Because I call out and you refuse; I stretch out my hand, and no one bends an ear.And he said, Go, and say to this people, Hear and hear again, but do not discern; see and see again, but do not perceive.Hard-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always fall against the Set-Apart Breath, as your fathers did, so also you.THE THREAD
And it happened, just as he called out and they would not hear and respond, so they called out and I would not hear and respond, says the LORD of hosts.Zechariah uses the same Hebrew root שׁמע (shamaʿ, hear and heed) and makes the refusal reciprocal: those who will not receive the call find their own cry unanswered. The shared root makes hearing the hinge between the two silences.
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