What Does Jeremiah 22:13 Mean?
Woe to the one who builds his house out of alignment, and his upper rooms without judgment, who makes his neighbor serve for nothing, and does not give him the wage of his work.
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 unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work;THE KEY
This house is built out of another person’s unpaid labor.
THE MEANING
A home or success can rise while justice is absent from its foundation. The person’s service does not become free just because the builder withholds the wages owed. The verse names that arrangement as woe in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that an impressive, secure house proves its builder obtained it rightly.
THE ROOT
צֶדֶק
tsedeq
GROWS FROM
צ־ד־ק
ṣ-d-q
To be right or just; alignment.
“out of alignment” in this verse is tsedeq. The verse says the house is built without tsedeq, without the alignment the English word “unrighteousness” can leave abstract. The house itself carries the mark of what was withheld to build it.
ALSO GROWS
tsaddiq: A righteous or aligned person.
צַדִּיק
The builder’s conduct is measured against a way of being aligned, not simply against the appearance of success.
tsedaqah: Righteousness or justice expressed in action.
צְדָקָה
This branch brings alignment into what a person does, including how another person’s labor is treated.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
ש־פ־ט
sh-p-t
To judge or decide; to establish what is just.
“without judgment” in this verse is mishpat. The chambers are built “without mishpat”, without justice or right judgment. The word links the private house to the public measure of justice: even a person’s rooms reveal whether that measure is present.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge or govern justly.
שָׁפַט
It points to the action of judging fairly that is absent from the way the house is built.
shofet: A judge or one who governs.
שֹׁפֵט
This branch shows that mishpat is a standard for how power is exercised, including by the person who controls another’s pay.
יַעֲבֹד
ya'avod
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ד
ʿ-b-d
To work or serve.
The neighbor is made to serve, from the same root that names work and a servant. The verse makes the labor relation visible: one person’s house grows through another person’s work, while the wage that should answer that work is withheld.
ALSO GROWS
eved: A servant or worker.
עֶבֶד
This branch names the person placed in service by the builder’s arrangement.
avodah: Work or service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch names the labor itself, the very contribution the house depends on.
THE PATTERN
A household secured through another person’s withheld wages stands under judgment regardless of its outward strength.
You shall not press your neighbor, nor tear from him; the wage of the hired hand shall not lodge with you all night until the morning.On his day you give him his wage, and the sun does not go down upon it, for he is bowed down and carries his living soul toward it. Lest he call out against you to the LORD, and it be missing in you.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
Will you reign because you burn to outdo in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and do judgment and alignment? Then it was good for him.Jeremiah 22:13 names the house as built without צֶדֶק (tsedeq, alignment) and without מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, justice). Verse 15 uses those same roots positively: doing justice and righteousness is what stands beside a cedar palace as the measure of a reign.
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