What Does Jeremiah 18:23 Mean?
But you, LORD, perceive all their counsel against me, to slay me. Do not cover their crookedness, and do not wipe away their falling short from before your face. Let them stagger before your face. Do this with them in the time of the burning of your anger.
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
Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.THE KEY
The prayer asks God not to cover the plotters’ wrong or wipe it away, leaving their violence exposed before him.
THE MEANING
A plot to kill is brought into the LORD’s sight without being softened. The speaker asks that the wrong stay uncovered and unerased, then asks for the plotters to fall before God in the time of his anger. The verse holds this demand for retribution openly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that anger at violence must be hidden or immediately turned into forgiveness.
THE ROOT
כָּפַר
kaphar
GROWS FROM
כפר
cover, cover over
“Forgive not” uses כפר (kaphar, cover): the speaker asks that the wrongdoing not be covered over. The next clause uses a different image, wiping away, so the plea refuses both covering and erasure.
ALSO GROWS
kopher: A covering substance
כֹּפֶר
This tangible covering shows the image beneath the word translated “forgive.”
Covering: Covering, atonement
כִּפּוּר
The same root carries the sense of covering into the language of atonement.
חַטָּאתָם
chatta'tam
GROWS FROM
חטא
miss, miss the mark
“their falling short” in this verse is chatta'tam. English “sin” can sound like a fixed category; חטא (chata, miss) keeps the sense of a missed mark in view. Here the speaker asks that this missing not be blotted from God’s sight.
ALSO GROWS
Miss: To miss or fail
חָטָא
The verb keeps the active sense of missing inside the noun translated “sin.”
chatta't: Sin; an offering for sin
חַטָּאת
The related term preserves the same root as the passage’s “their sin.”
תִּמְחִי
timchi
GROWS FROM
מחה
wipe, erase
“wipe away” in this verse is timchi. This word pictures wiping away what remains visible. The speaker asks that the missing stay in God’s sight, then follows with a demand for overthrow and anger.
ALSO GROWS
machah: To wipe away or erase
מָחָה
This is the root verb behind “blot out,” making the request explicitly about erasure.
nimchah: Be erased or wiped out
נִמְחָה
The passive form shows the same root describing what happens to something removed from sight.
THE PATTERN
A cry against grave wrong keeps it visible before God and places its judgment before him.
Let the crookedness of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and let the falling short of his mother not be wiped away.Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.And they cry out with a great voice, saying, How long, Set-Apart and true Master, will you not judge and avenge our blood against those who settle upon the earth?THE THREAD
Hide your face from my falling short, and wipe away all my crookedness.Both passages use חטא (chata, missing) for sin and מחה (machah, wipe away) for blotting. Jeremiah asks that others’ missing remain before God; the psalm asks that his own be wiped away.
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