What Does Jeremiah 11:4 Mean in the King James?
Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God:
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
Here, “obey” is the Hebrew “hear”: the voice that meets the people beyond the furnace calls for a response that takes shape in action.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks into your present constriction: the iron-furnace image is met by the movement of being brought out. Hearing the voice carries response into action, and belonging is spoken both ways, God’s people, and God as their God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The furnace is the final definition of you.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוּ
shimʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen, heed, respond.
“Obey” in this verse is shimʿu. The Hebrew imperative means “hear,” while its use here carries the force of heeding and obeying. One root holds reception and response together: the voice is heard in a way that moves into action.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; listen and respond.
שְׁמַע
This familiar form shares the root of the verse’s “obey,” revealing that the call begins with hearing that opens into response.
shemuʿah: A report or message that is heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The branch keeps the focus on what reaches the ear; in this verse, hearing the voice carries the next step of doing.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
Press in, bind, constrict, distress.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries the sound of tzar, “narrow,” with the ending -ayim as the two narrows. The iron furnace intensifies that image of confinement, while the verse’s movement is out of it.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow; constricted.
צַר
This is the narrowness carried in the name Mitzrayim, echoing the furnace as a place of pressure.
tsarah: Distress; trouble.
צָרָה
This branch names the distress felt within constriction, sharpening the force of the furnace image.
הוֹצִיאִי
hotsiʾi
GROWS FROM
יצא
Go out, emerge.
“Brought them forth” in this verse is hotsiʾi. The form in the verse means “my bringing out”: the root’s movement of going out appears here as a causative act. The line holds both the bringing and the passage out, from within the furnace toward open space.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: Go out; emerge.
יָצָא
This is the root motion beneath “brought forth”: the people move from inside the furnace to outside it.
yetziʾah: Going out; departure.
יְצִיאָה
This noun keeps the focus on passage out as a movement, illuminating the verse’s deliverance from constriction.
THE PATTERN
Belonging is voiced as a bond where hearing becomes enacted response and shared life.
Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:THE THREAD
Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.Jeremiah’s “obey” is the Hebrew verb שָׁמַע (shama, hear), the same root that opens this verse as “Hear.” Deuteronomy places hearing beside doing, so the shared root reveals hearing as a response that takes form in action.
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