What Does Jeremiah 5:7 Mean?
How shall I release you for this? Your children have let go of me, and have sworn by those who are not gods. When I had fed them until they were filled, they committed adultery and gathered in bands in the houses of the harlot.
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
How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names both their oath to no-gods and God’s act of filling them, placing their divided allegiance inside the very fullness they received.
THE MEANING
You can be filled by what sustains you while your allegiance turns elsewhere; fullness does not make loyalty automatic. The verse names the rupture plainly: those nourished by God swear by what is no god, then commit adultery and gather in prostitutes’ houses. Its question about pardon asks what release means when care has been met by betrayal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Receiving care does not guarantee that your allegiance is whole; fullness can coexist with betrayal.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשָּׁבְעוּ
vayyishaveʿu
GROWS FROM
שׁבע
sh-b-ʿ
To swear an oath; to be full or satisfied. The verse uses two forms of this same root.
“filled” in this verse is vayyishaveʿu. English separates “sworn” from “fed them to the full,” while Hebrew places both under שׁבע (sh-b-ʿ). The verse does not make the acts identical; it makes their collision audible: fullness received from God stands beside allegiance given to what is no god.
ALSO GROWS
sāvēaʿ: Full, sated, satisfied.
שָׂבֵעַ
This is the root’s fullness sense, echoing God’s act of satisfying them in the verse.
nishbaʿ: Swear, take an oath.
נִשְׁבַּע
This is the oath sense heard in their swearing by what is no god.
THE PATTERN
Received fullness can coexist with, and even precede, allegiance turned toward a substitute.
But Jeshurun, the Straight One, grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, you grew thick, you were covered in fatness; then he let go of God who made him, and made light of the Rock of his deliverance.According to their pasture, so they were filled; they filled themselves, and their heart rose up; therefore they have forgotten me.who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and bowed down and served the creation beside the one who created, who is praised for the ages. Amen.THE THREAD
According to their pasture, so they were filled; they filled themselves, and their heart rose up; therefore they have forgotten me.Hosea uses שׁבע (sh-b-ʿ, “be full or satisfied”) for being filled, the same root heard in Jeremiah’s “sworn” and “fed them to the full.” It traces the same fracture: fullness received, then allegiance turned away.
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