What Does Jeremiah 38:24 Mean in the King James?
Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah, Let no man know of these words, and thou shalt not die.
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 Hebrew for “words” can also mean “matter,” so the king is demanding silence about the affair itself.
THE MEANING
Safety is offered on the condition that these words remain unknown: “Let no man know of these words, and thou shalt not die.” The promise of life carries the threat inside it, because survival is tied to concealment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A promise of protection does not make coerced silence harmless; here, the terms of safety expose the pressure behind it.
THE ROOT
הַדְּבָרִים
haddevarim
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; a spoken word or a matter, affair, or thing.
The Hebrew word can hold both speech and the matter itself, so “these words” are also the affair being concealed. Silence suppresses not only what is said but what can be known about what happened.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word; matter; thing.
דָּבָר
The same word can name the speech the king wants hidden and the matter that speech concerns.
dibber: He spoke; to speak.
דִּבֵּר
The spoken command becomes part of the affair that must remain concealed.
צִדְקִיָּהוּ
Tsidqiyyahu
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
To be right or aligned; tzedek means alignment.
Zedekiah’s name carries the root of צֶדֶק (tzedek, alignment) with the divine name Yahu: “YHWH is righteousness.” Beside the demand for concealment, the name brings alignment into the terms of the bargain.
ALSO GROWS
tzedek: Alignment; rightness.
צֶדֶק
The name carries this root into a verse where safety is made conditional on silence.
tsaddiq: An aligned or just person.
צַדִּיק
This branch carries the same root into a description of a person whose conduct is aligned.
THE PATTERN
Authority can make safety, belonging, or punishment depend on what is allowed to be spoken.
These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.For we can not but speak the things which we have seen and heard.THE THREAD
Then came all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him: and he told them according to all these words that the king had commanded. So they left off speaking with him; for the matter was not perceived.Its “words” are דְּבָרִים (devarim, words), from דָּבָר (dābār, word or matter), the same word family as “these words” here. Jeremiah repeats the king’s commanded words, and the matter remains unperceived: the silence bargain works by keeping the affair from being heard.
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