What Does Jeremiah 36:11 Mean in the King James?
When Michaiah the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, had heard out of the book all the words of 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
The verse turns hearing from a passive endpoint into the first handoff in the movement of the LORD’s words.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s words reach you through a page and a voice; hearing is where written words become present within you. What you receive is already poised to be spoken onward, so listening and transmission belong to one movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing Scripture is only passive exposure: here, hearing becomes the first link in carrying the words onward.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁמַע
vayyishma
GROWS FROM
ש־מ־ע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, heed; the verse’s form means “he heard.”
English “heard” can sound like sound simply reached the ear. This root can hold listening that receives and answers; Michaiah’s hearing becomes the beginning of a message carried onward.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; in the imperative, hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
The same root frames hearing as an opening to response, not merely exposure to sound.
shemuah: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
What enters through hearing can become a report that travels to others.
דִּבְרֵי
divrei
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
Speak; word, matter, or thing.
The words Michaiah hears are not detached sounds: this root also names a matter or thing. The LORD’s words move from the page into hearing, then into the events shaped by their telling.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
It holds speech and what speech concerns together, deepening “all the words” beyond sound alone.
dibber: Spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The spoken form shows the same root moving from words as content to the act of speaking.
THE PATTERN
Hearing the word begins a movement from reception into response.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.THE THREAD
Then Michaiah declared unto them all the words that he had heard, when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people.Here Michaiah hears the whole message; in the next verse, he carries those words to others. The movement from hearing to telling shows how the received word travels without losing its source.
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