What Does Jeremiah 11:5 Mean?
That I may make stand the oath I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then I answered, and said, Amen, O LORD.
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
That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O LORD.THE KEY
The oath does not stay in the air: its root says the promise is made to stand as nourishing ground.
THE MEANING
You encounter the promise as something that takes shape in nourishing provision: a land flowing with milk and honey. Its fulfillment is spoken in the present, “as it is this day”, and the answer is Amen, a word of firmness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a promise is only words; here, the sworn word becomes a place and provision present to the eye.
THE ROOT
הָקִים
haqim
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Rise, stand; in this form, cause to stand or establish.
“make stand” in this verse is haqim. The verb translated “perform” carries the sense of making the oath stand. The promise takes a shape that can be inhabited: a land.
ALSO GROWS
qum: Rise, stand
קוּם
The oath is not merely spoken; its promise stands.
maqom: Place, standing place
מָקוֹם
The promise made to stand becomes a place the people can dwell in.
heqim: Establish, raise up
הֵקִים
This is the same verb family used for bringing the oath into effect.
שְׁבֻעָה
shevuah
GROWS FROM
שבע
sh-b-ʿ
Swear, take an oath; the same consonants also appear in the word for seven.
The oath is a binding pledge. Its consonants echo שֶׁבַע, “seven”; Genesis 21 links seven ewe lambs with Abraham’s oath, making that sound-shape visible without reducing the pledge to a number.
ALSO GROWS
shava: Swear, take an oath
שָׁבַע
The verse uses this verb for the pledge sworn to the fathers.
sheva: Seven
שֶׁבַע
Genesis 21:28–31 places seven ewe lambs beside an oath, giving the shared consonants a concrete echo.
אָמֵן
Amen
GROWS FROM
אמן
ʾ-m-n
Firm, steady, reliable.
The Hebrew answer is literally Amen, from the family of firmness and trust. The response echoes the quality of the word being affirmed: something steady enough to stand.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: Firmness, steadiness, trust
אֱמוּנָה
The oath is received with trust in the firmness of what is pledged.
ne'eman: Reliable, steady
נֶאֱמָן
The word family joins the answer of Amen to the reliability of the promise.
THE PATTERN
A pledged word becomes steady through fulfillment and takes visible shape as provision.
Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and I will bless you; for to you and to your seed I will give all these lands, and I will make the oath stand which I swore to Abraham your father.For the LORD your God brings you into a good land, a land of streams of waters, of springs and deeps that rise from valleys and hills.In this, God, desiring all the more to point out to the heirs of the promise the unshifting of his purpose, placed himself in the middle with an oath.THE THREAD
Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and I will bless you; for to you and to your seed I will give all these lands, and I will make the oath stand which I swore to Abraham your father.Genesis 26:3 repeats the same oath-word and the same swear-root, showing the pledge as a promise made to stand across generations. Jeremiah’s “as it is this day” brings that standing promise into the present.
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