What Does Jeremiah 17:7 Mean?
Blessed is the man who leans his full weight upon the LORD, and the LORD is his leaning.
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
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.THE KEY
The Hebrew uses one root for “trusteth” and “hope,” naming the LORD as the confidence that grows from trusting.
THE MEANING
You are blessed as your trust rests in the LORD; the verse names the LORD as your confidence itself. What English presents as trust and hope shares one Hebrew root, holding reliance and settled expectation together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That you must be strong enough to supply your own security: the verse places confidence in the LORD.
THE ROOT
בָּטַח
batach
GROWS FROM
בטח
Trust, be secure.
“leans his full weight upon the LORD” in this verse is batach. English gives you two words, but both grow from בטח: yivtaḥ means “trusts,” while mivtaḥo means “his confidence” or “his security.” The verse says more than that you trust the LORD and hope in the LORD; it names the LORD as the very confidence of the one who trusts.
ALSO GROWS
yivtaḥ: He trusts; he is secure.
יִבְטַח
This is the verb rendered “trusteth” in the verse.
mivtaḥ: Confidence, security.
מִבְטָח
This noun underlies “hope”; it shows that the verse’s hope is confidence rooted in the LORD.
גֶּבֶר
gever
GROWS FROM
גבר
Be strong, prevail.
The verse calls this person gever, a man marked by strength or capacity; the same root forms words for the mighty one and for might. Strength stays in view, while the verse locates his confidence in the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
gibbor: Mighty one, warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
This related form makes the strength carried by gever more visible.
gevurah: Might, strength.
גְּבוּרָה
The same root holds strength and capability alongside the verse’s trust in the LORD.
THE PATTERN
The heart’s security takes its shape from the one it rests on.
Flourishing is the man who sets the LORD as the place he leans, and does not turn toward the proud, nor those who turn aside to what fails.Lean your full weight upon the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.who through him lean their full weight on God, the one who raised him from the dead and clothed him in weight, so that your trust and hope might be in God.THE THREAD
Flourishing is the man who sets the LORD as the place he leans, and does not turn toward the proud, nor those who turn aside to what fails.Psalm 40:4 uses the same Hebrew noun, מִבְטָחוֹ (mivtaḥo, “his confidence”), that Jeremiah uses for “hope.” The shared root makes the connection precise: in both verses, the LORD is named as the person’s confidence itself.
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