What Does Jeremiah 5:21 Mean?
Hear and respond to this now, O foolish people, with no heart. You who have eyes and do not see, who have ears and do not hear.
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
Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:THE KEY
The verse identifies the failure of sight and hearing as a heart that does not receive what the senses meet.
THE MEANING
Eyes and ears are present, but what they encounter does not reach the heart as understanding. The verse names a gap between sensing something and inwardly receiving it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that seeing or hearing something means you have truly understood it.
THE ROOT
לֵב
lev
GROWS FROM
לבב
levav
Heart, the inner center of thought, will, and feeling; in a verbal form, to stir or capture the heart.
“with no heart” in this verse is lev. The Hebrew phrase behind “without understanding” is literally “there is no heart in them.” English names an intellectual deficit; the Hebrew makes the missing inner center explicit, linking perception with what the heart receives.
ALSO GROWS
levav: Heart; the inner person.
לֵבָב
This form makes clear that the verse names the heart itself as absent, not simply a piece of information or intelligence.
libavtini: You have captivated my heart (Song of Songs 4:9).
לִבַּבְתִּנִי
This verbal form shows the heart as something that can be moved by what the eyes encounter, sharpening the contrast with eyes that see without inward reception.
שִׁמְעוּ
shim'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
shama
Hear, listen, heed; hearing that can carry a response.
“Hear and respond to this” in this verse is shim'u. English can make hearing sound like a passive event in the ear, but this root also carries listening and heeding. The people have ears while the hearing named by שָׁמַע (shama, hear and respond) remains unrealized.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; listen and respond.
שְׁמַע
The opening command invokes hearing as reception, while the verse exposes ears that do not fulfill that response.
shemu'ah: Report or tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The same root names both hearing and what is heard, yet the verse shows that sound can reach an ear without being received.
THE PATTERN
Perception is complete when what the senses meet is received inwardly.
And he said, Go, and say to this people, Hear and hear again, but do not discern; see and see again, but do not perceive.Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?THE THREAD
Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear and respond, to this day.Deuteronomy places a heart to perceive beside eyes to see and ears to hear, making explicit the inner link Jeremiah compresses into “without understanding.” Both verses use שָׁמַע (shama, hear and respond), showing that the line about ears reaches beyond sound to reception.
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