What Does Jeremiah 18:18 Mean?

Then they said, Come, and let us plan plans against Jeremiah, for instruction shall not lose the way from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not bend our ear to any of his words.

Jeremiah 18:18 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.

THE KEY

The Hebrew word for “smite” keeps its force when the tongue becomes the weapon: words can be blows.

THE MEANING

A mind can defend the authorities it trusts while plotting against the voice that challenges them, turning a prophet into a target before weighing his words. The tongue delivers the strike and the ear is deliberately closed; the verse speaks wherever speech is used to injure and attention is withheld to avoid being unsettled.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that words are harmless when they are only words dissolves here: the verse names speech as a strike and refusal to listen as part of the attack.

THE ROOT

וְנַכֵּהוּ

venakkehu

GROWS FROM

נכה

to strike, smite

The Hebrew keeps the verb for striking even when the tongue is named as the instrument. The same root gives words for a blow and for being stricken, so the attack here is not harmless talk: it is a strike with a target.

ALSO GROWS

nāḵāh: to strike, smite

נָכָה

This is the verb whose force remains when the tongue is named as the instrument.

makkāh: blow, wound, plague

מַכָּה

This noun comes from the same striking root, with its initial nun assimilated into the kaf; the action becomes a blow or wound.

nāḵeh: stricken, maimed

נָכֶה

This form retains the root’s nun, kaf, and heh, naming the condition left by a strike.

נַחְשְׁבָה

naḥshevah

GROWS FROM

חשב

to think, reckon, plan

“plan plans” in this verse is naḥshevah. The verse uses the same root for “let us devise” and “devices”: the attack is first assembled in thought, then carried by the tongue. The repeated root makes the plan itself part of the violence.

ALSO GROWS

ḥāšaḇ: to think, reckon, plan

חָשַׁב

This verb is the root action behind the plot against Jeremiah.

maḥăšāḇāh: thought, plan, device

מַחֲשָׁבָה

This noun names the plan formed by the same act of thinking expressed in the verb.

נַקְשִׁיבָה

naqshiva

GROWS FROM

קשב

to attend, listen closely

“bend our ear” in this verse is naqshiva. The verse pairs a tongue ready to strike with an ear that refuses close attention. The Hebrew for listening carries the sense of attentive regard, making the refusal an active closing-off rather than mere silence.

ALSO GROWS

qāšaḇ: to attend, listen closely

קָשַׁב

This is the root verb for the attention they refuse to give.

hiqšîḇ: to listen attentively

הִקְשִׁיב

This form of the same root makes the attentiveness implied by “give heed” explicit.

maqšîḇ: one who listens attentively

מַקְשִׁיב

This related form names the listener whose posture the verse’s plot rejects.

THE PATTERN

When speech becomes a weapon, hearing can be shut before a word is weighed.

Who sharpen their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even the bitter word.

Psalm 64:3 · SDVThe tongue and bitter words are pictured as sharpened weapons aimed at another.

Then they cried out with a loud voice, and held shut their ears, and rushed upon him with one passion.

Acts 7:57 · SDVThe hearers close their ears and rush to violence, joining refusal to listen with attack.

And the tongue is fire, a world of crookedness. It is set among our limbs, staining the whole body and setting the wheel of becoming ablaze, and it is lit by Gehenna.

James 3:6 · SDVThe tongue is shown as a force that spreads harm beyond the words themselves.

THE THREAD

Then Pashur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and set him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.

Jeremiah 20:2 · SDV

The same Hebrew root ⁨נכה⁩ (nāḵāh), meaning “to strike,” appears in both verses: in Jeremiah 18:18 the tongue is the instrument, while in Jeremiah 20:2 Jeremiah’s body is struck. The shared verb holds verbal harm and physical harm within one field of violence.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us