What Does Jeremiah 9:3 Mean?
And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies, and they do not stand firm upon the earth. For they go out from evil to evil, and they do not perceive me, 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
And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The tongue is drawn like a bow for lies, while truth names the firmness that could keep its aim from turning destructive.
THE MEANING
When the tongue is bent toward lies, speech becomes a weapon that sends one harm into the next. The fracture is deeper than saying false things: the life described lacks steadiness toward truth and lived recognition of God. Deceit and estrangement move together in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that words are harmless when they remain words: this verse depicts deceitful speech as aimed force that carries evil forward.
THE ROOT
אֱמוּנָה
emunah
GROWS FROM
אמן
ʾ-m-n
To be firm, reliable, or supported.
The KJV’s “truth” here is אֱמוּנָה (emunah, firmness or reliability), a word that carries the sense of what holds steady. The verse pairs deceitful speech with a failure to stand firm in what can be trusted.
ALSO GROWS
ne'eman: Reliable, steady, trustworthy.
נֶאֱמָן
This branch shows that firmness in truth is a quality of trustworthiness, not merely correct information.
amen: Truly; firm and affirmed.
אָמֵן
The familiar affirmation carries the same root sense of something being held as sure.
וַיִּדְרְכוּ
wayyidrekhu
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread, step, or press; used of drawing a bow.
“bend” in this verse is wayyidrekhu. The Hebrew verb for drawing the bow is applied to the tongue, so the speech is pictured as deliberately tensioned and aimed. The same root forms דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, way or path), joining the weaponized tongue to the track its words set.
ALSO GROWS
derekh: Way, road, path.
דֶּרֶךְ
A path is the way tread carries someone; here, deceitful speech becomes a direction that leads from one evil to another.
dorekh: One who treads or steps.
דֹּרֵךְ
This form preserves the root’s active pressure: the tongue is not merely described, but drawn and directed.
יָדָעוּ
yada'u
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“perceive” in this verse is yada'u. The verse ends with a relational fracture: they do not know God. ידע (yada, to know or recognize) can describe lived recognition, and its noun דַּעַת (da’at, knowledge) appears in Hosea’s words about knowing God.
ALSO GROWS
da'at: Knowledge, understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root is used for the knowledge of God in Hosea 6:6, which opens the verse’s final phrase further.
noda: Known, recognized.
נוֹדָע
This form makes the relational dimension visible: knowing involves recognition, not simply possession of facts.
THE PATTERN
Speech bent toward deceit becomes a force that carries harm outward.
Your tongue plans ruin, like a sharp razor, goading deceit.The lip of truth stands firm for the ages, but a lying tongue lasts only for a blink.And the tongue is fire, a world of crookedness. It is set among our limbs, staining the whole body and setting the wheel of becoming ablaze, and it is lit by Gehenna.THE THREAD
For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.Jeremiah uses יָדַע (yada, to know or recognize) when it says they do not know God; Hosea uses דַּעַת (da’at, knowledge), a noun from the same root. The shared root connects the absence Jeremiah names with Hosea’s picture of knowing God as something deeper than outward religious practice.
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