What Does Jeremiah 5:16 Mean?
Their quiver is like an open grave, and they are all strong men.
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
Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men.THE KEY
The weapon is not merely capable of killing: its very container is pictured as an open grave.
THE MEANING
The danger here is already prepared and exposed: the quiver is like an open grave, holding death ready to travel outward. The men’s strength makes that death-bearing readiness formidable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that danger begins only when an arrow is released: the grave is already open in the weapon’s readiness.
THE ROOT
קֶבֶר
qeber
GROWS FROM
קבר
To bury, to place in a grave.
English can make “sepulchre” feel like a static place, while its Hebrew root keeps it connected to the act of burial. Calling the quiver an open grave binds the weapon’s readiness to burial before the arrow is even released.
ALSO GROWS
qābar: To bury
קָבַר
The verb names the act the grave is made for, joining the quiver’s image to death’s consequence.
qevurah: Burial
קְבוּרָה
This branch makes the burial meaning explicit inside the same word family.
פָּתוּחַ
pātuach
GROWS FROM
פתח
To open, make an opening.
The Hebrew root connects “open” with the act of opening and with an entrance. The grave is not sealed or distant in this image: its opening makes death’s presence immediate and exposed.
ALSO GROWS
pātaḥ: To open
פָּתַח
The verb evokes the act that leaves the grave exposed.
petaḥ: Opening, entrance
פֶּתַח
This branch brings out the passage-like quality of the open grave.
גִּבּוֹרִים
gibborim
GROWS FROM
גבר
To be strong, prevail.
“strong men” in this verse is gibborim. The word belongs to a root of strength and prevailing. Beside the open grave, that strength makes the death-bearing readiness more formidable.
ALSO GROWS
gibbor: Mighty one, warrior
גִּבּוֹר
This singular form names the kind of strength the verse assigns to the men.
gābar: To be strong, prevail
גָּבַר
The verb gives “mighty” its sense of force that prevails.
THE PATTERN
What is readied within can become a passage through which death comes out.
There is no firmness in their mouth; their insides are ruin; their throat is an open grave; they smooth with their tongue.Their tongue is a slaughtering arrow, and it speaks deceit. One speaks wholeness to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he sets his ambush.Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have worked deceit. The venom of asps lies under their lips.THE THREAD
There is no firmness in their mouth; their insides are ruin; their throat is an open grave; they smooth with their tongue.Both verses use the Hebrew image קֶבֶר פָּתוּחַ (qeber patuach), “an open grave.” In the psalm the opening is a throat; here it is a quiver, so the image connects death carried out through speech with death carried by a weapon.
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