What Does Nehemiah 12:43 Mean?
Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the wives also and the children rejoiced; so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names the people’s rejoicing, God’s causing them to rejoice, and the great joy heard far away.
THE MEANING
Joy here is something God gives across a whole community, including women and children, and it reaches beyond Jerusalem as sound. Sacrifice, shared gladness, and distant hearing belong to one public expression of joy.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that joy is only private or self-produced: it names God as its source and includes the whole community in its far-reaching sound.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׂמְחוּ
vayismechu
GROWS FROM
שמח
to rejoice, be glad
“rejoiced” in this verse is vayismechu. One root binds the people’s rejoicing, God’s causing them to rejoice, and the repeated word for “joy.” What can sound in English like an inward feeling appears here as something received and shared across the community.
ALSO GROWS
simchah: joy, gladness
שִׂמְחָה
The verse repeats this noun as “great joy,” making the shared rejoicing explicit.
sameach: glad, joyful
שָׂמֵחַ
This branch describes the state carried by those who rejoice; here that gladness includes the women and children.
simmeach: to gladden, make joyful
שִׂמֵּחַ
This causative form matches the verse’s statement that God makes the people rejoice.
וַתִּשָּׁמַע
vatishama
GROWS FROM
שמע
to hear, listen, receive sound
The verse makes joy audible: Jerusalem’s joy is heard from far away. The same root also gives words for what is heard as a report, so the sound carries news beyond its source.
ALSO GROWS
shama: to hear, listen
שָׁמַע
This is the basic verb behind Jerusalem’s joy being heard from a distance.
shemuah: report, tidings
שְׁמוּעָה
What is heard can become a report carried beyond the place where it began.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
to be whole, complete
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The city’s name carries שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness) with a dual ending, a name-shape of two wholenesses. The verse makes this wholeness audible beyond the city: joy fills the community and travels outward.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: wholeness, completeness
שָׁלוֹם
This branch echoes the wholeness carried in Jerusalem’s name as the city’s joy reaches beyond it.
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
The verse presents rejoicing shared across the community, including women and children.
THE PATTERN
When joy gathers across a community, its sound reaches beyond the people expressing it.
So that the people could not tell apart the voice of the shout of joy from the voice of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard afar off.Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with a ringing cry. Then they said among the nations, The LORD has grown great in doing with these.Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard harmony and dancing.THE THREAD
This is the day the LORD makes; let us leap and be glad in it.The Hebrew root behind Nehemiah’s “rejoiced” also appears in the Psalm’s “be glad.” The shared root makes both verses speak of joy as a response that is joined to what God has made.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us