Jeremiah 16:16: “Behold, I will send many fishermen says the Lord and they shall fish them and afterward I will send for many hunters and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and out of the holes of the rocks.”
I recently had someone write to me with the following observation:
“It seems pretty straight forward and I am not necessarily trying to find something that isn’t there but I found it interesting that the words translated ‘send’ are two different words. Also where it says send fishermen the word dayag is repeated but the word for hunters tsayad is not repeated. Would you mind giving a peek at the verse and see if there is anything that might jump out at you that I am not seeing.” B.H.
Well, B.H. as Art Baker used to say: “You asked for it.” Speaking of hunting, it reminds me of a story my uncle once told of how he had hunted on a farm where the farmer had just laid fertilizer. My uncle went up to the farmer and asked: “What is that horrible smell?” The farmer replied: “What smell?” My reader smelled something in this passage that I did not smell. He smelled something in this passage which the ancient rabbis used to call a hint or remez. There is a hint here of something very deep that you would probably not usually pick up on a first reading. I just get that feeling there is a little treasure buried in Jeremiah 16:16. I know some people will accuse me of trying to find something that is not really there and there is much merit to this bit of wisdom. Yet a bird does not see the worm in ground but he can smell him. If the bird thinks, “Well, I don’t want to necessarily find something that isn’t there,” he will never get the worm. I really don’t want to be like that old farmer who is so used to the smell of fertilizer that he does not even smell it anymore. If someone catches a whiff of something I do not see in Scripture, I am going to investigate it. The more I look at this verse the more I see a neon sign with flashing lights – “DIG HERE!” You see the hint I find here is in the word dayag (fisherman) but I will get to that later.
With regards to the first question from my reader, I can answer that as any good old Christian Hebrew teacher would. The two words for send are really not different words but words that come from the same root. They just take on a different form to represent a different part of speech. Just as in English the words send and sending are the same word but the ing suffix is added to make it a participle. In this passage the word shalach (send) has a holem (vowel o) added to make it a participle where it should be translated: “I am sending fishermen.” The second time the word shalach is used an Aleph is added to the word to put it into an imperfect tense, so it would be translated as “I will send for many hunters.” Had the masorites chose to put a pathah (vowel a) under the Shin rather than a sheva (half vowel often rendered as an e) it would have made it into a Piel form and thus you would render it as I will rapidly deploy many hunters.
In the Hebrew text the word for fisherman is repeated, this is not reflected in the English text. You will find the same for the word for hunter but it is not so obvious. The word ledugim is the noun form of dayag (fishermen) and the word ledyagim is the verbal form, “fishermen fish. The same with tsayad. Tsadum is the noun form for hunter and tsayadim is the verbal form (Qal perfect). Which raises the question as to why send is in a future tense when this word hunt is in a past tense. Literally, I will send hunters who have hunted.
The literal understanding of the passage is that the Egyptians were noted as fishermen and the Babylonians were famous as hunters and thus Jeremiah was comparing God’s deliverance from Egypt with their future deliverance from Babylon. The idea of sending hunters who have hunted would suggest that their deliverance is already being prepared. Things may look pretty dismal for us right now but we can be assured the hunters or our deliverance is already in preparation.
Yet, there is something embedded in that word fishermen that really catches my attention. The word is spelled Daleth, Vav and Gimmel. This would represent a gateway (Daleth) for man to enter (Vav) God’s lovingkindness (Gimmel). When Jesus told his disciples he would make them fishers of men He was not just making a cute comparison to their trade, He was speaking like a rabbi offering a much deeper meaning through an esoteric understanding of the word fishermen: “Follow me and I will make you a doorway for others to find the lovingkindness of God.” I remember growing up a Baptist church were getting people saved was the master calling. We were called fishers of men. Somehow in all the evangelistic programs and techniques I lost sight of the fact that getting people saved was more than getting them to recite a sinner’s prayer, it was also leading them to the lovingkindness of God who not only forgives sins, gives you a heavenly home, but has also made a way for you to have a personal relationship with Him so you can walk continually in His lovingkindness. I am beginning to understand that being fishers of men is not only to the unsaved but to the saved as well.
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