What Does Jeremiah 7:30 Mean?
For the children of Judah have done evil in my eyes, says the LORD. They have placed their sickening things in the house which is called by my name, to make it unclean.
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
For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.THE KEY
A house bearing God’s name carries God’s nature, yet what is placed inside it can contradict that nature and pollute it.
THE MEANING
The house bears God’s name, yet detestable things are set inside it and make it unclean. The verse names the force of that contradiction: what occupies a space matters, even when the space is identified with God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that claiming a sacred identity makes what is housed within it irrelevant; the things placed there can pollute it.
THE ROOT
נִקְרָא
niqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
To call, proclaim, or summon.
The phrase says God’s name, שֵׁם (shem, name), is called over the house. A name carries nature, so the house bears an identity that its contents now contradict.
ALSO GROWS
qore: A caller or reader.
קוֹרֵא
The house is marked by a name spoken over it, not merely by a private label.
miqra: A proclamation, reading, or gathered assembly.
מִקְרָא
The root reaches beyond a name written on a place to something publicly proclaimed and recognized.
שִׁקּוּצֵיהֶם
shiqquṣeyhem
GROWS FROM
שקץ
To be detestable or to regard something as detestable.
“sickening things” in this verse is shiqquṣeyhem. The verse uses the same root family for what is placed inside the house and for the deep aversion it evokes. Its pollution begins with detestable things taking up space where God’s nature is named.
ALSO GROWS
sheqets: Something detestable.
שֶׁקֶץ
It shows that the objects in the house are themselves named by their repellent quality.
shiqquts: A detestable thing or practice.
שִׁקּוּץ
This noun shares the verse’s root and keeps the focus on what has been set inside the house.
לְטַמְּאוֹ
letamme’o
GROWS FROM
טמא
To be or make unclean.
“make unclean” in this verse is letamme’o. The verse names the outcome directly: the house is made unclean by what is placed within it. The name it bears does not erase that effect.
ALSO GROWS
tame: Unclean.
טָמֵא
It names the condition the house is made to carry.
tum’ah: Uncleanness or impurity.
טֻמְאָה
It names the state produced when the detestable things occupy the house.
THE PATTERN
A space identified with God is polluted when what occupies it contradicts that identity.
But they set their recoiling things in the house that is called by my name, to make it unclean.Therefore as I live, says the Lord GOD, Surely, because you have made unclean my set-apart place with all your loathsome things, and with all your recoiling things, therefore I will also diminish you. Neither shall my eye spare, nor will I have pity.And what setting down together has the temple of God with images? For you are the temple of the living God, as God has said, "I will dwell in them, and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people."THE THREAD
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,Here the LORD’s name is proclaimed in words that disclose character: mercy, graciousness, longsuffering, goodness, and truth. That gives weight to Jeremiah’s phrase “called by my name”: the house bears an identity whose nature its contents contradict.
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