What Does Jeremiah 18:1 Mean in the King James?

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Jeremiah 18:1 · KJV

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 word is not detached information; it is speech that arrives as an encounter.

THE MEANING

This verse speaks to you as a movement: a word has a source, comes near, and speaks. It places you in the position of a person addressed, where revelation is encounter rather than distant information.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It dissolves the belief that God’s word is only information to study from a distance.

THE ROOT

דָּבָר

dābār

GROWS FROM

דבר

To speak or utter; as a noun, the speech or matter spoken.

Dābār can name both an utterance and the matter at hand, so “the word” is not a detached sentence. Its movement toward Jeremiah is part of its meaning: what is spoken becomes an encounter.

ALSO GROWS

dibber: He spoke; uttered.

דִּבֵּר

The noun “word” grows from the same root as the act of speaking, keeping the utterance alive in the verse.

devarim: Words; matters or affairs.

דְּבָרִים

Because this root can name both words and matters, the arriving word carries something real into the encounter.

THE PATTERN

God’s word appears as an arrival that meets a person and becomes a living encounter.

After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

Genesis 15:1 · KJVThe word arrives to Abram and immediately addresses what he fears and what sustains him.

The word of the LORD came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was there upon him.

Ezekiel 1:3 · KJVThe arriving word is presented as a meeting that touches the person who receives it.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

John 1:14 · KJVHere the Word takes embodied form and dwells among people.

THE THREAD

Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Jeremiah 1:4 · KJV

This repeats the same Hebrew word, ⁨דָּבָר⁩ (dābār, word or matter), and the same arrival pattern. The opening of Jeremiah’s words and this line share a single movement: speech comes near and addresses a person.

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