What Does Jeremiah 5:4 Mean?
And I said, “Surely these are bowed low. They have become beastlike, for they do not perceive the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.”
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
Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.THE KEY
The verse treats knowing the LORD’s way and recognizing God’s judgment as one joined perception.
THE MEANING
The reader’s lack of contact with the LORD’s way reaches beyond direction: God’s judgment, the discernment of what is right, is also unknown. The verse names that condition as poverty and foolishness without softening either word.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that sound judgment can remain intact while the LORD’s way is unknown.
THE ROOT
יָדְעוּ
yade'u
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or perceive; in some contexts, to know through relationship.
“perceive” in this verse is yade'u. Yada can name knowing through recognition and lived relation, though its precise force depends on context. Here, “know not” reaches beyond missing information: the LORD’s way and God’s judgment fail to register as realities that can orient life.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know, recognize, perceive
יָדַע
This verb’s range shows that the verse concerns recognition, not merely memorizing directions.
da'at: Knowledge, understanding
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root connects knowing with the understanding that makes a path discernible.
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
To tread, step, or travel a course.
Derekh is a way understood as a course someone treads. The verse’s “way of the LORD” is therefore more than a direction to know: it is a path whose character becomes visible in how it is walked.
ALSO GROWS
darakh: To tread, step, travel
דָּרַךְ
The verb makes the path bodily and concrete: a way is a course taken.
derekh: Way, path, course
דֶּרֶךְ
The noun carries that trodden course into the verse’s question of knowing the LORD’s way.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge, decide, or govern.
Mishpat can name judgment as a decision or an order that distinguishes what is right, not only a sentence after wrongdoing. Paired with derekh, it joins the course of life to the discernment that orders it.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge, decide
שָׁפַט
The verb reveals the act beneath the judgment named in the verse.
shofet: Judge, one who decides
שֹׁפֵט
This related word shows judgment as discernment exercised by a judge.
THE PATTERN
God’s way is a path that becomes known through learning, walking, and discernment.
Show me your ways, LORD; teach me your paths.And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you, but to stand in awe of the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your living soul,Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.THE THREAD
Who is wise, and discerns these things? Who is prudent, and perceives them? For the ways of the LORD are straight, and those who are aligned walk in them, but those who break away stumble in them.Hosea repeats the words for “way” (דֶּרֶךְ, derekh) and “know” (יָדַע, yada), then connects them to walking. It makes Jeremiah’s missing knowledge visible: the LORD’s way is known as a path one can walk.
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