What Does Jeremiah 36:13 Mean in the King James?
Then Michaiah declared unto them all the words that he had heard, when Baruch read the book in the ears of the people.
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 word does not end at the first hearing: it becomes testimony as it passes from voice to voice.
THE MEANING
You meet the word as something carried: what enters one person’s hearing can pass through another and become testimony before those with power. Michaiah’s name, מִיכָיְהוּ (Mikayahu, “Who is like YHWH?”), holds a question in the name of the one who carries the report.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hearing is private and ends when the sound reaches you; here, hearing can become a report that enters public life.
THE ROOT
שָׁמַע
shamaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen.
The same root can name both hearing and a report or tidings, the thing heard. English separates receiving a message from carrying it onward, while the Hebrew word links them in one chain.
ALSO GROWS
shemuʿah: Report, news, tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
A report is what has been heard and can now be carried to others.
shemaʿ: Hear, listen; in a command, hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
The verse’s heard word is already moving toward another response through Michaiah’s retelling.
בִּקְרֹא
biqroʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
Call out, proclaim, read aloud.
“read” in this verse is biqroʾ. The verb for reading also carries the sense of calling something out. Baruch’s reading is voiced into the people’s ears, making the book’s words publicly heard.
ALSO GROWS
qaraʾ: Call, proclaim, read aloud.
קָרָא
The same verb can describe both reading a text and calling its words into the open.
miqraʾ: Convocation, public reading.
מִקְרָא
This branch joins spoken reading with a gathered audience, echoing the people listening together.
וַיַּגֵּד
wayyagged
GROWS FROM
נגד
n-g-d
Make known, tell, declare.
“declared” in this verse is wayyagged. The verse uses a telling-word for Michaiah’s report: what he received by hearing is set before others as something known. The movement is from spoken words, to hearing, to making them known again.
ALSO GROWS
maggid: One who tells or reports.
מַגִּיד
The teller is a carrier of words, like Michaiah in this verse.
haggadah: Telling, narration.
הַגָּדָה
A narration gives form to what has been received and passes it onward.
THE PATTERN
A word becomes shared witness as it is read, heard, and carried onward in speech.
When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.For we can not but speak the things which we have seen and heard.THE THREAD
Now it came to pass, when they had heard all the words, they were afraid both one and other, and said unto Baruch, We will surely tell the king of all these words.The same root שמע (shamaʿ, “hear”) appears again in “heard,” so the listening continues into another report. The words Michaiah carries are heard again, then carried toward the king: the message moves through witnesses instead of stopping with its first speaker.
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