What Does Jeremiah 11:15 Mean?
What has my beloved to do in my house, doing the scheming with many, and the set-apart flesh passes from you? When you do evil, then you leap.
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
What hath my beloved to do in mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.THE KEY
Being beloved and standing in the house does not make rejoicing in evil compatible with what is set apart.
THE MEANING
You can claim the place of the beloved and still be joined to many; this verse holds that betrayal beside belonging. It says the holy flesh passes from you while you do evil and rejoice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being beloved or standing in God’s house makes betrayal harmless is undone: the verse places belovedness beside the passing of what is set apart.
THE ROOT
מְזִמָּה
mezimmah
GROWS FROM
זמם
z-m-m
To devise, plan, or plot.
“doing the scheming” in this verse is mezimmah. The word for lewdness grows from the seed of devising: it can describe a purpose or plan, and here it names wickedness enacted with many. That root gives the charge the weight of deliberate entanglement, rather than a vague stain.
ALSO GROWS
zamam: To plan, devise, or plot.
זָמַם
This verb exposes the planning sense beneath the verse’s charge of lewdness.
mezimmah: Purpose or discretion; in this verse, lewdness or wicked intent.
מְזִמָּה
The same word family can describe discernment or a wicked scheme, showing how the purpose being devised gives the act its direction.
קֹדֶשׁ
qodesh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart or consecrate.
“holy flesh” in this verse is qodesh. Here, set-apartness is attached directly to flesh, not only to an abstract status. The verse says that this consecrated thing passes from you as evil becomes your rejoicing.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective carries the same set-apart quality named in the phrase “holy flesh.”
qadash: To set apart or consecrate.
קָדַשׁ
This verb makes the root’s action visible: the flesh belongs to what has been set apart.
THE PATTERN
Sacred proximity does not erase the contradiction between what is set apart and what is practiced.
Has this house, which is called by my name, become a cave of robbers, in your eyes? Look, I myself have seen it, says the LORD.But to the wicked, God says, What is it to you, to recount my statutes, or to lift my covenant upon your mouth? And you hate straightening, and throw my words behind you.If anyone ruins the temple of God, God will ruin him, for God's temple is set apart, and you are that temple.THE THREAD
Israel was set apart to the LORD, the first of what he brought in; all who devour him shall bear guilt; evil shall come upon them, says the LORD.Both verses use קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh, set-apartness): here as “holy flesh,” and there as Israel’s holiness unto the LORD. The shared root lets you hear what passes away in Jeremiah 11:15 as the loss of what had been set apart to him.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us