What Does Jeremiah 6:13 Mean?
For from the small of them even to the great of them, every one cuts for gain; and from the prophet even to the priest, every one works a lie.
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
For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.THE KEY
By joining the pursuit of gain with practiced falsehood across every rank, the verse shows how greed makes truth another thing to trade.
THE MEANING
The passage names a corruption that reaches every rung: each one pursues gain, and every spiritual authority practices falsehood. A title or position does not make a voice trustworthy; the same appetite can occupy the margins and the center.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that status, spiritual office, or a low position guarantees integrity; the verse says the appetite for gain and false dealing can run through the whole order.
THE ROOT
בֹּצֵעַ בָּצַע
bōṣēaʿ bāṣaʿ
GROWS FROM
בצע
To cut off or break off; by extension, to acquire or gain, often unjustly.
“cuts for gain” in this verse is bōṣēaʿ bāṣaʿ. The Hebrew doubles the root: each one is a gain-seeker, pursuing gain. “Covetousness” can sound like a private desire, while this root gives the appetite an edge of taking, acquiring at another’s expense.
ALSO GROWS
bātsaʿ: To cut off or break off; also to gain.
בָּצַע
The root’s cutting sense lets the pursuit of gain carry the image of something taken away.
betsaʿ: Gain or profit, often unjust gain.
בֶּצַע
This noun names what the gain-seeker pursues, making the verse’s doubled wording, gain-seeking gain, hard to miss.
עֹשֵׂה שָׁקֶר
ʿōśēh sheqer
GROWS FROM
שקר
To lie or deceive; falsehood.
“works a lie” in this verse is ʿōśēh sheqer. The Hebrew says each one “does falsehood,” presenting deception as practiced action. Beside the repeated gain-root, it exposes gain-seeking and deceit as one public pattern.
ALSO GROWS
sheqer: Falsehood, deceit, or a lie.
שֶׁקֶר
The noun names the falsehood that each one is said to do.
shāqar: To lie or deceive.
שָׁקַר
The related verb makes the movement from falsehood as a thing to deception as an act explicit.
THE PATTERN
When gain becomes the aim, authority bends truth and turns its power toward exploitation.
Its heads judge for a bribe, and its priests teach for a price, and its prophets divine for silver. Yet they lean their full weight upon the LORD and say, Is not the LORD in our midst? No harm can come upon us.Her princes within her are like wolves tearing the prey, to pour out blood, and to make living souls perish, to cut for gain.For the love of silver is a root of all evil, which some, reaching out for it, have wandered away from trust, and pierced themselves through with many pains.THE THREAD
The prince who lacks discernment is also a great presser, but the one who hates snatched gain shall lengthen his days.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew root, בצע (betsaʿ), for covetous gain. Jeremiah shows this appetite spreading through the ranks; Proverbs connects refusing it with a different kind of rule.
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