What Does Jeremiah 23:21 Mean in the King James?
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
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
Spiritual momentum can imitate divine commission: these prophets run without being sent and speak without receiving a word.
THE MEANING
The verse names a voice that moves before it has been sent and speaks before it has received a word. Its distinction reaches the reader now: movement, confidence, and religious language do not by themselves reveal a message’s source.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that speed, confidence, or religious language proves a message comes from God; activity alone does not establish commission.
THE ROOT
שָׁלַחְתִּי
shalachti
GROWS FROM
שָׁלַח
shalach
to send, send forth, release, let go
The root holds sending and release together. A messenger is defined by having been sent; the prophets’ movement has no such source.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: messenger or envoy; one sent
שָׁלִיחַ
This branch makes the source part of the messenger’s identity, sharpening the contrast with prophets who run without being sent.
shulchan: table; provision extended outward
שֻׁלְחָן
The root’s outward movement can extend provision to others; here, outward motion alone does not make the prophets’ words a message from God.
דִּבַּרְתִּי
dibbarti
GROWS FROM
דָּבַר
davar
to speak; word or matter
“spoken” in this verse is dibbarti. In Hebrew, word and speaking belong to one root family. The verse makes the absence of God’s word the measure of the prophets’ speech, revealing an utterance without a received source.
ALSO GROWS
davar: word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
The word that should have been received is absent before the prophets’ own speech begins.
dibber: to speak, declare
דִּבֵּר
This speech-form belongs to the same root family as “word,” linking the denied message with the prophets’ claimed utterance.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats being sent as the source that gives a messenger’s movement and speech their provenance.
Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!THE THREAD
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.Isaiah’s אֶשְׁלַח (eshlach, “I will send”) shares the root שָׁלַח (shalach, “send, release”) with Jeremiah’s “I have not sent.” Isaiah’s speaker answers a call to be sent; Jeremiah’s prophets are already running, though no sending or word from God precedes them.
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