What Does Jeremiah 15:10 Mean?
Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and a man of contention to all the earth! I have not lent on usury, and no one has lent to me on usury; yet every one of them curses me.
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
Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.THE KEY
The curse carries the sense of being made light of: the pain is not only opposition, but being treated as if you weigh nothing.
THE MEANING
This verse gives you language for being treated as a source of conflict everywhere, even when no loan or debt binds you to the people cursing you. Their hostility is real, but the verse does not present a financial grievance as its cause.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Everyone’s hostility must be repayment for a debt I owe does not hold here: neither side has lent to the other, yet the speaker is cursed.
THE ROOT
מְקַלְלֻנִי
məqalləlūnî
GROWS FROM
קלל
To be light or slight; to make light of, treat as insignificant, or curse.
“curses me” in this verse is məqalləlūnî. The verb for “curse” grows from קלל, whose range includes treating someone as slight or insignificant. The word lets the verse register contempt as well as hostility: the speaker is diminished while being cast as a source of strife.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light, slight.
קַל
This branch opens the word’s weight imagery: to curse can carry the sense of making someone count for little.
qəlālāh: A curse or malediction.
קְלָלָה
This noun shows the root’s movement from being slight to speech that places someone under contempt.
niqleh: Despised, regarded as slight.
נִקְלֶה
This branch makes visible the social effect of the curse: the person is treated as unworthy of regard.
רִיב
rîb
GROWS FROM
ריב
To contend, dispute, or plead a case.
The word translated “strife” can name both conflict and a dispute brought forward for judgment. The verse holds that tension together: the speaker is described as a source of contention, while the image of a case leaves open who is actually in the wrong.
ALSO GROWS
merîvāh: Quarrel, strife.
מְרִיבָה
This branch shows the root’s familiar face as open conflict.
rîb: Dispute, controversy, or legal case.
רִיב
This branch reveals that contention can also be a claim awaiting judgment, not simply a person’s temperament.
yārîb: He contends or pleads.
יָרִיב
This verbal branch keeps the conflict active: someone is making a case, not merely carrying a fixed identity as “contentious.”
THE PATTERN
The text can name hostility as real without treating its presence as proof that the hated person caused it.
They circle me with words of hatred, and they fight against me for nothing.But this comes to pass, so that the word written in their instruction may be filled, "They hated me without cause."THE THREAD
And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the ground will be blessed.The Hebrew for “him that curseth thee” uses the same קלל root as “curse me” in Jeremiah 15:10. The shared root lets both verses carry cursing as an act that makes someone slight or contemptible, alongside its force as hostility.
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