To Root Out and to Plant

Jeremiah is called with six verbs: four of tearing down, two of building (Jer. 1:10). The book makes the verbs conditional at the potter’s house and carries out the tearing down. The Lord says that as He has watched over His people “to pluck up,” so He will watch over them “to build, and to plant” (Jer. 31:28).

Six verbs

“See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (Jer. 1:10). In Hebrew all six stand together only here and at 31:28; groups of them return at 12:14–17, 18:7–9, 24:6, 31:40, 42:10 and 45:4.¹ The KJV hides some of the repetition: the Hebrew verb behind “throw down” here is “pull down” in 24:6 and “break down” in 45:4.¹

The next thing Jeremiah hears is that the Lord is watching: “I will hasten my word to perform it” (Jer. 1:12), where “hasten” is the Hebrew verb “keep watch of, be wakeful over.”² The note on the almond rod in Jeremiah 1 explains the wordplay.

The condition

At the potter’s house the verbs return: “to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it” (Jer. 18:7); “to build and to plant it” (Jer. 18:9). Each has an “if”: if the nation turns, “I will repent of the evil” (Jer. 18:8), that is, “relent regarding the punishment.”³ In 12:14–17 Judah’s neighbors are plucked out, yet if they learn Israel’s ways, “then shall they be built in the midst of my people” (Jer. 12:16). See Jeremiah 18.

Torn down

To Baruch: “that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land” (Jer. 45:4), four of the six verbs.¹ When the Chaldeans “brake down the walls of Jerusalem” (Jer. 39:8), the narrator’s verb is the one the KJV renders “pull down” in 1:10.¹ See Jeremiah 45.

Built and planted

To the exiles: “I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up” (Jer. 24:6). Then:

And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD. (Jer. 31:28)

The Lord “watches” both ways, with the verb of 1:12.¹ On one reading, this is where the commission turns: the prophet “has hitherto been engaged in fulfilling… the first part of the commission… hereafter, he will be engaged in building up.”⁴

“It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever” (Jer. 31:40); “I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul” (Jer. 32:41). After the fall the remnant is offered the same: “If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down” (Jer. 42:10). They refuse and go to Egypt, and there the watching turns back: “I will watch over them for evil, and not for good” (Jer. 44:27).¹ See Jeremiah 24, 31 and 42.

What is planted

What is built and planted “in the desolate ruins left by the rebellion of the covenant people” is “the Branch of righteousness” (Jer. 33:15), “the promised Messiah,” who brings “a new covenant” (Jer. 31:31).⁵ Three comparisons follow that no footnote makes; they are this page’s own.

• The promise and the covenant. The promise “to build, and to plant” and the new covenant are neighbors, and they open alike: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD” (Jer. 31:27; Jer. 31:31). See The Covenant Written in the Heart.
• The Branch is a sprout. “Will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David” (Jer. 33:15). The Hebrew word is a “future ruler, under figure of sprout from Davidic tree.”² Set beside “to root out” in 1:10, the Branch is a plant the Lord makes grow. See The Shepherds and the Branch.
• The Savior’s words. Jesus uses the pair of 1:10: “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matt. 15:13). His Greek verbs for “planted” and “rooted up” are the ones the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, uses for “plant” and “root out” in Jer. 1:10.⁶⁷ And where the Lord says of Israel, “I had planted thee a noble vine” (Jer. 2:21), in the Septuagint a “true” vine,⁷ Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (John 15:1).⁶

Sources

1. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
2. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. ↩ ↩
3. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ↩
4. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. ↩
5. October 26–November 1. “I Will Turn Their Mourning into Joy”: Jeremiah 31–33; 36–39; Lamentations 1; 3, Come, Follow Me—For Home and Church: Old Testament 2026. ↩
6. The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition, Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010; read in the interlinear on Bible Hub. ↩ ↩
7. The Septuagint (Rahlfs Greek text, with Brenton’s English translation), Elpenor Bilingual Septuagint. ↩ ↩