What Does Jeremiah 18:20 Mean?
Shall evil be repaid for good? For they have dug a pit for my living soul. Remember that I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn the burning of your anger away from them.
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
Shall evil be recompensed for good? for they have digged a pit for my soul. Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.THE KEY
The word for repayment shares its root with wholeness: this verse asks what kind of exchange can make a person whole.
THE MEANING
You can offer good and receive harm in return; the verse names the betrayal plainly. The speaker stands before God to speak good for the people who dig a pit for his living self, asking that God’s anger turn away from them. The plea for them sits beside the threat to him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the expectation that good will be repaid with good: the speaker’s good words coexist with a pit dug against him.
THE ROOT
יְשֻׁלַּם
yeshullam
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
sh-l-m
To be complete or whole; also to settle or repay.
“repaid” in this verse is yeshullam. The verb translated “recompensed” comes from the same root as שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness). The verse exposes an exchange where harm answers good, leaving the question of what could make anyone whole.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, peace
שָׁלוֹם
The shared root brings wholeness into the verse’s question about what is returned for good.
shillem: To repay, recompense
שִׁלֵּם
This branch makes the exchange explicit: the speaker’s good is met with harm as a return.
לְנַפְשִׁי
le-nafshi
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
The living self or person.
“my living soul” in this verse is le-nafshi. Here “soul” names the living self, the whole person whose life is threatened. The pit is dug against someone living, not merely an inward or abstract part.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: Living soul, living person
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word in the verse: the danger reaches the speaker’s living self.
naphash: To rest, be refreshed
נָפַשׁ
The same root also describes respite for a living person, giving the threat against his life its full weight.
לְהָשִׁיב
lehashiv
GROWS FROM
שוב
sh-w-b
To turn, return, or bring back.
“turn the burning of your anger away from them” in this verse is lehashiv. The speaker asks for a turning: that God’s anger be turned away from the people targeting him. Beside the pit dug against him, this is the verse’s counter-movement, the speaker asks that wrath move away from them.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn, return
שׁוּב
The root names the motion at the center of the speaker’s plea.
teshuvah: Return, turning
תְּשׁוּבָה
This related form carries the same movement of turning back that shapes the request.
THE PATTERN
A return can mirror the gift, invert it into harm, or interrupt that exchange.
And when they had gone out from the city, not yet far away, Joseph said to his steward, Rise, pursue the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, Why have you repaid harm for good?They repay me evil for good, to the bereaving of my living soul.Give back to no one evil for evil. Look ahead to what is beautiful in the eyes of all people.THE THREAD
They repay me evil for good, to the bereaving of my living soul.Psalm 35:12 repeats Jeremiah’s exchange of evil for good, using the same repayment root שׁלם (sh-l-m) and the same word נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul). Together, the verses show that the returned harm threatens the living person who gave good.
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