What Does Jeremiah 1:4 Mean in the King James?
Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “word” can also mean a matter or event, so the LORD’s address arrives with substance, not as bare information.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s address reaches you as speech that bears substance: it comes, then it speaks. The Hebrew noun can mean both a word and a matter, so this address is more than detached information.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a word from God is only an idea detached from reality: in Hebrew, the word also names a matter.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak or utter; the related noun can mean a word, matter, or affair.
The word that comes to you is also a “matter”, speech with substance. English “word” can sound like information alone, while Hebrew holds utterance and matter within the same root-family.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word; matter; thing; affair
דָּבָר
This noun names both an utterance and a matter, showing the substance carried by “the word of the LORD.”
dibbēr: To speak; to say
דִּבֵּר
The related verb makes the word’s movement audible: it arrives, then speaks.
THE PATTERN
God’s word is living address with substance and effect.
He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.Jeremiah’s phrase uses דְּבַר־יְהוָה, and Psalm 33:6 uses the same דָּבָר root-family in “by the word of the LORD.” The shared root opens the address as speech with creative force, not merely information.
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