What Does Jeremiah 23:28 Mean in the King James?
The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD.
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
A dream can be named as a dream, but what carries God’s word must have the substance of grain, not chaff.
THE MEANING
You can recognize a dream for what it is without mistaking it for God’s word. What is spoken as God’s word is measured by emet, firm truth, and by whether it has the substance of grain rather than chaff.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that every vivid dream or spiritual-sounding message carries the same weight as God’s word.
THE ROOT
אֱמֶת
emet
GROWS FROM
אמן
aman
To be firm, reliable, or established.
“faithfully” in this verse is emet. The Hebrew says to speak God’s words as truth: something firm and dependable, not merely something delivered with confidence. Beside the image of chaff and grain, this firmness is what gives a word substance.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: Trust; steadiness.
אֱמוּנָה
It shares the sense of firmness beneath emet, showing how truth can be something a person leans their full weight on.
amen: Firm; truly; so be it.
אָמֵן
Amen echoes the same rooted sense of what is established and can be relied upon.
ne’eman: Steady; dependable.
נֶאֱמָן
This branch describes reliability, the quality the verse joins to speaking God’s words.
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; a spoken word or matter.
“word / speak” in this verse is davar. The verse repeats this root across both the word and the act of speaking: the one who has God’s davar is to speak it. Hebrew holds the message and its expression together, while emet names the quality that makes that expression true.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
It names the act of speaking that appears in the verse’s command to speak God’s word.
davar: Word; matter; thing.
דָּבָר
The same root can name both an utterance and a matter, giving God’s word the sense of something with substance.
dibbur: Speech; speaking.
דִּבּוּר
This branch keeps the spoken form connected to the word itself, echoing the verse’s repeated root.
THE PATTERN
What has substance endures and nourishes, while what is empty is carried away or separated from it.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.THE THREAD
Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.The Hebrew word translated “true” is emet, the same word Jeremiah uses where the KJV says “faithfully.” Here, emet is joined directly to God’s word, showing why Jeremiah’s image sets the grain of truth apart from the chaff.
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