---
title: Jeremiah 1:9
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/jeremiah-1-9/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/jeremiah-1-9.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Jeremiah 1:9
testament: OT
section: Prophets
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Jeremiah 1:9

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Then the LORD reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and said to me:  “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Then Jehovah stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And Jehovah said to me: 'I have put my words in your mouth.'"

## JW Usage

Cited as ordinary prophetic-call language: "the word of Jehovah" comes to Jeremiah, Jehovah inspires the prophet, the prophet speaks. The personal detail — that "Jehovah stretched out his hand and touched my mouth" — is read figuratively, since the Watchtower holds that no one has ever literally seen God (cf. John 1:18, 1 John 4:12).

## Protestant Usage

The verse fits a wider Old Testament pattern in which "the word of Jehovah" appears as a visible, embodied person who acts as Yahweh. In Genesis 15:1, the word of the Lord comes to Abraham in a vision and speaks in first person as Yahweh. In 1 Samuel 3:10, "Jehovah came and stood" before Samuel; verse 21 says Jehovah "kept revealing himself by the word of Jehovah." Here Jehovah's hand touches Jeremiah's mouth. A message has no hand. John 1:1, 14 names the visible Word: "the Word was God" and "the Word became flesh." The Old Testament Word who appeared to the prophets is the same person who later took on flesh in Jesus.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Word of the Lord — Yahweh's Visible Person](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/word-of-the-lord.md) — The OT "Word of the Lord" appeared physically as God [Deity of Christ]