What Does Jeremiah 30:1 Mean in the King James?

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

Jeremiah 30:1 · 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

Here, “word” is davar (⁨דָּבָר⁩), which can mean both speech and a matter or thing, so the LORD’s message arrives as something happening, not merely something said.

THE MEANING

The LORD’s address reaches the reader as something that meets a person in the present. The message is bound up with the matter unfolding in the life of the one who receives it. The verse names the moment when speech becomes encounter.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a divine word is only information or a slogan: here, the word is also a matter that arrives in a hearer’s life.

THE ROOT

דָּבָר

dāḇār

GROWS FROM

דבר

speech; a matter, thing, or affair

Davar can name a spoken word, a matter, or an affair, holding utterance and what is at stake within the same word. Here the message comes to Jeremiah as an address that enters the present, rather than detached information.

ALSO GROWS

dibber: he spoke

דִּבֵּר

This verb from the same root shows that the word is active speech: it is spoken and reaches a hearer.

devarim: words; matters or things

דְּבָרִים

The plural carries both senses of davar, keeping speech and the matters it concerns together.

THE PATTERN

A word from the LORD reaches a hearer as an address that can be carried forward in speech or writing.

Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day.

Jeremiah 36:2 · KJVThe words spoken to Jeremiah become a written record that carries the address onward.

And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

Habakkuk 2:2 · KJVThe LORD’s answer is received and made legible so another person can encounter it.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

Hebrews 1:1 · KJVGod’s address reaches people through the speech of prophets.

THE THREAD

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

Jeremiah 1:4 · KJV

Jeremiah 1:4 uses the same word, davar (⁨דָּבָר⁩), and the same arrival formula. The opening of chapter 30 places its message within that continuing encounter: the word comes to a hearer.

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