What Does Jeremiah 6:7 Mean?
As a well keeps its waters cold, so she keeps her harm cold. Violence and ravaging are heard in her; before my face continually are sickness and blows.
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
As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds.THE KEY
The city’s violence is no passing spill: like fountain water, it keeps flowing from her, and its wounds remain before God.
THE MEANING
Jerusalem’s wickedness pours out as steadily as a fountain releases water; violence and plunder are heard within her, while sickness and wounds remain continually before God. The verse speaks now wherever a community’s harm becomes its steady outflow: the harm is audible, and those it wounds remain in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that repeated harm becomes ordinary and therefore unseen: its violence remains audible, and its wounds stay continually before God.
THE ROOT
מָקוֹר
maqor
GROWS FROM
קוּר
To dig or bore; its derivative maqor names a spring or source.
“well” in this verse is maqor. The Hebrew image points to an issuing source, the origin that keeps the flow going. The same source-word can name a fountain of life or a bodily flow, so what pours out depends on what is at the source.
ALSO GROWS
maqor: Source, fountain, spring
מָקוֹר
Psalm 36:9 calls God the fountain of life; the same source-word can describe life-giving or harmful outflow.
qur: To dig or bore
קוּר
The source is pictured as an opening in the ground from which something keeps issuing.
חָמָס
ḥāmās
GROWS FROM
חמס
To act violently, wrong, or exploit.
“violence” in this verse is ḥāmās. The word names active injury, not just a vague atmosphere of evil. Its noun and verb forms keep the doing of harm visible in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmās: Violence, wrongdoing, injury
חָמָס
This is the harm heard within the city, paired with the ruin of spoil.
ḥāmas: To act violently or wrong another
חָמַס
The related verb shows the action carried by the noun: violence is something done, again and again.
מַכָּה
makkah
GROWS FROM
נכה
To strike or hit.
The line ends with the bodily trace of violence: sickness and blows remain before God’s face. Harm is not abstract here; it is present in wounded bodies.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague
מַכָּה
The wound is the visible result of striking.
nakah: To strike or hit
נָכָה
The verb beneath the wound keeps the act that produced it connected to its consequence.
THE PATTERN
What continually comes out of a source makes its inner condition visible.
Above every watch you keep, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.All these evil things come from within and make the man common.Does the same spring gush from the same opening, the sweet and the bitter?THE THREAD
For my people have done two evils; they have let go of me, the spring of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, shattered cisterns that cannot grip water.Both verses use the Hebrew source-word מָקוֹר (maqor, fountain). Read together, they set the fountain of living waters beside a city whose own outflow is violence and wounds, making the question of the source impossible to miss.
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