What Does Jeremiah 36:4 Mean in the King James?
Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book.
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 written scroll does not replace the voice: it carries the LORD’s words from speech through Jeremiah’s mouth into Baruch’s hand.
THE MEANING
The verse presents a living chain: the LORD speaks, Jeremiah gives the words by mouth, and Baruch sets them on a scroll. The voice and the hand are different, yet the writing remains identified as the LORD’s words. What is spoken can take a durable form and still carry its source.
THE ROOT
דִּבְרֵי
divrei
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; as a noun, a word or matter.
The same consonants recur here in “words” and “spoken”: English separates the noun from the verb, while Hebrew keeps the utterance and its content visibly kin. Davar can also mean a matter or thing, so what is spoken has substance that can be carried into writing.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
It shows that the “words” on the scroll can also be understood as matters with substance.
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This form of the same root appears in “which he had spoken,” binding the written words to the speaking act in this verse.
וַיִּכְתֹּב
wayyikhtov
GROWS FROM
כתב
k-t-v
To write or inscribe.
“wrote” in this verse is wayyikhtov. The verb names the hand’s act of giving speech a durable form. The scribe records the words, while the verse keeps their source in the LORD’s speech.
ALSO GROWS
ketav: Writing or script.
כְּתָב
It names the written form that lets the spoken words remain visible.
mikhtav: A letter or written message.
מִכְתָּב
It shows how the act of writing can carry a message beyond the moment it is spoken.
THE PATTERN
Spoken testimony can be inscribed and carried onward while its source remains named.
And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.THE THREAD
Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book.Both verses use the ד־ב־ר root for the words and for the act of speaking. Jeremiah 30:2 makes the movement from spoken words to written book explicit, opening this scroll as a vessel for speech that continues to be read.
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