Say
As with many common verbs, the meaning of “to say” in the Bible is highly dependent on context. Who is speaking? Who is hearing? What is it about? Is it a command, a message, an apology, instruction? All these things enter into the meaning of “say.” In general, though, “saying” has to do with sharing truth at various levels -- from the most exalted power people can have to perceive the Lord's desires directly to the most basic of orders issued to people at their lowest.
Jeremiah 3:1-10
1
"They say, 'If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and become another man's, will he return to her again?' Wouldn't that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me," says Yahweh.
2
"Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat for them by the ways, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.
3
Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; yet you have a prostitute's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.
4
Will you not from this time cry to me, 'My Father, you are the guide of my youth?'
5
"'Will he retain [his anger] forever? Will he keep it to the end?' Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things, and have had your way."
6
Moreover, Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has played the prostitute.
7
I said after she had done all these things, 'She will return to me;' but she didn't return; and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8
I saw, when, for this very cause that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, didn't fear; but she also went and played the prostitute.
9
It happened through the lightness of her prostitution, that the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
10
Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense," says Yahweh.
