What Does Jeremiah 8:9 Mean?
The wise are ashamed, they are shattered and seized; look, they have rejected what the LORD has spoken, and what wisdom is in them?
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
The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom is in them?THE KEY
The verse tests wisdom by whether the LORD’s word is received, exposing the “wise” title as empty when that word is rejected.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes the gap between being regarded as wise and having wisdom within: the LORD’s word is refused, and the question of what wisdom remains is immediate. It speaks now wherever confident judgment sets itself against what the LORD says.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A reputation for wisdom proves that wisdom is truly present.
THE ROOT
חָכָם
ḥākām
GROWS FROM
חכם
to be wise or skillful
“The wise” in this verse is ḥākām. “Wise men” and “wisdom” grow from the same Hebrew root. The question cuts through the title and asks whether wisdom is actually present in those who refuse the LORD’s word.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: a wise or skillful person
חָכָם
This is the identity assigned to the people whose choices the verse examines.
ḥokhmāh: wisdom or skill
חָכְמָה
The verse repeats the same root to ask whether the quality itself is present, not merely its title.
דָּבָר
dāvār
GROWS FROM
דבר
to speak; a word, matter, or affair
“what the LORD has spoken” in this verse is dāvār. The Hebrew dāvār can name both a spoken word and a matter or thing. The rejected word is therefore the LORD’s utterance and the matter it sets before the reader; wisdom is not detached from that reality.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: he spoke
דִּבֵּר
This verb shares the root and makes the spoken quality of the LORD’s word explicit.
devarim: words or matters
דְּבָרִים
This plural shows the root’s range: what is spoken can also be the matter at hand.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom becomes visible in how the LORD’s word is received and enacted, not in the title someone carries.
The awe of the LORD is the head of knowledge, but fools make light of wisdom and straightening.Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O earth. Behold, I am bringing harm upon this people, the fruit of their plan, because they did not bend their ears to my words, and have spurned my instruction.Jeremiah 6:19 shares the roots for “words” (דָּבָר, dāvār) and “rejected” (מָאַס, mā’as) with Jeremiah 8:9. It opens the current verse further by showing the same refusal: the LORD’s words are not heard, and they are rejected.
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