What Does Jeremiah 9:24 Mean?
But let the one who boasts boast in this, that he discerns and perceives me, that I am the LORD who does faithful love, judgment, and alignment in the earth. For in these things I delight, says the LORD.
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
But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The LORD’s nature becomes knowable through faithful love, justice, and alignment enacted on earth.
THE MEANING
The LORD is known as faithful love, justice, and alignment take shape in the world now. The verse locates the deepest ground for boasting in knowing this nature, the very things in which the LORD delights.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wisdom, strength, or wealth is the deepest ground for boasting; the verse places that ground in knowing the LORD’s nature.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful kindness and loyal care expressed in relationship.
Chesed is faithful love: affection held steady as dependable action. Beside justice and alignment, it shows that the LORD’s nature is not an abstraction but a way of acting in the earth.
ALSO GROWS
chasid: A faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
The related word describes someone marked by the same loyal character that chesed names.
hithassēd: To show faithful kindness.
הִתְחַסֵּד
This verbal form makes the connection active: chesed is loyalty expressed in what one does.
יָדַע
yada
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know or recognize, often through encounter and relationship.
“perceives” in this verse is yada. English can make “know” sound like possessing correct information; yada can also describe knowing through direct encounter. Here, knowing the LORD means recognizing the divine nature expressed in faithful love, justice, and alignment.
ALSO GROWS
da’at: Knowledge or knowing.
דַּעַת
This noun names the knowing that Jeremiah pairs with perceiving the LORD’s nature.
mōdaʿ: An acquaintance or known relation.
מוֹדָע
This related word gives knowing a relational texture: the known one is someone with whom there is connection.
עָשָׂה
asah
GROWS FROM
עשה
To do, make, or bring about.
The LORD does these things in the earth: faithful love, justice, and alignment are enacted qualities. The verse joins knowing the LORD to seeing this nature in action.
ALSO GROWS
ma’aseh: A deed, work, or action.
מַעֲשֶׂה
The noun makes visible the work produced by the root’s act of doing.
oseh: One who does or makes.
עֹשֶׂה
This form names the actor, underscoring that the qualities in the verse belong to the LORD’s enacted nature.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s nature becomes knowable through what is enacted on earth as faithful love, justice, and alignment.
He loves alignment and judgment; the earth is filled with the faithful love of the LORD.He has shown you, O human, what is good. And what does the LORD seek from you, but to do justice, and to hold fast to faithful love, and to walk low with your God?But if I do them, even if you do not trust me, lean your weight on the works, so that you may come to perceive, and keep on perceiving, that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.THE THREAD
For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.Hosea joins חֶסֶד (chesed, faithful love) and דַּעַת (da’at, knowledge, from יָדַע [yada, knowing]), the same love-and-knowing pair carried by Jeremiah’s verse. That pairing makes the boast precise: knowing the LORD means recognizing the nature in which the LORD delights.
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