What Does Jeremiah 5:6 Mean?
Therefore a lion from the thicket shall strike them, and a wolf of the desert plains shall plunder them, and a leopard shall keep watch over their cities. Everyone who goes out from there shall be torn to pieces, for their rebellions are many, and their turnings away have grown strong.
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
Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.THE KEY
The leopard’s vigilance shares its Hebrew root with the LORD’s watching over his word, setting predatory watch beside divine watch.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks of a community where accumulated rebellion and turnings-away leave shared life exposed to predators: a lion strikes from the forest, a wolf ravages at evening, and a leopard watches over the cities. Whoever goes out is torn apart; the violence is stated plainly, with no safe exit promised.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that city walls keep danger outside is undone: the leopard watches over the cities themselves.
THE ROOT
שֹׁקֵד
shoqed
GROWS FROM
שקד
To stay awake, be watchful, or keep watch.
“keep watch” in this verse is shoqed. The leopard is described as keeping watch over the cities, making danger an active, alert presence. Jeremiah uses this same root in a wordplay between the almond tree and the LORD watching over his word, so the root links two very different kinds of vigilance.
ALSO GROWS
shaqad: To watch or remain awake.
שָׁקַד
This is the verb beneath the leopard’s watchful posture.
shaqed: Almond tree.
שָׁקֵד
In Jeremiah 1, its name sounds like “watching,” linking the early-blooming tree to the LORD’s vigilance.
מְשֻׁבוֹתֵיהֶם
meshuboteihem
GROWS FROM
שׁוב
To turn, return, or turn back.
“turnings away” in this verse is meshuboteihem. “Backslidings” carries the root of turning or returning: the word holds both the movement away from a path and the possibility of turning back. English makes the departure sound like a fixed condition, while Hebrew keeps the motion audible.
ALSO GROWS
shuvu: Turn back; return.
שׁוּבוּ
Jeremiah 3:22 uses this form in the appeal “Return, ye backsliding children,” bringing the root’s two directions together.
meshubah: Turning away; backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
This noun names the repeated turning-away that Jeremiah 5:6 says has increased.
פִּשְׁעֵיהֶם
pish'eihem
GROWS FROM
פשע
To rebel, revolt, or break away.
“rebellions” in this verse is pish'eihem. The root gives “transgressions” the force of rebellion and breaking away, beyond the sense of separate rule violations. Beside the turnings-away in the same verse, it names rupture as a repeated pattern.
ALSO GROWS
pashaʿ: To rebel or break away.
פָּשַׁע
The verb carries the force of the rebellion named here as having multiplied.
posheaʿ: One who rebels; a rebel.
פֹּשֵׁעַ
This related form makes the root’s emphasis on breaking away visible in a person, not only in an abstract act.
THE PATTERN
When danger takes hold of shared life, Scripture gives it the shape of a predator that watches, pursues, or devours.
The lion comes up from his thicket, and the destroyer of nations sets out; he goes forth from his place to empty your land, and your cities are uprooted, with none settling in them.Her princes within her are like wolves tearing the prey, to pour out blood, and to make living souls perish, to cut for gain.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to me, You have seen well, for I keep watch over my word to do it.The Hebrew word rendered “hasten” here comes from the same root as the leopard’s “watch” in Jeremiah 5:6. One verse pictures a predator watching over cities; the other uses the almond-tree wordplay to picture the LORD keeping watch over his word until it is done.
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