What Does Jeremiah 18:18 Mean in the King James?
Then said they, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “smite” keeps its force when the tongue becomes the weapon: words can be blows.
THE MEANING
A mind can defend the authorities it trusts while plotting against the voice that challenges them, turning a prophet into a target before weighing his words. The tongue delivers the strike and the ear is deliberately closed; the verse speaks wherever speech is used to injure and attention is withheld to avoid being unsettled.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that words are harmless when they are only words dissolves here: the verse names speech as a strike and refusal to listen as part of the attack.
THE ROOT
וְנַכֵּהוּ
venakkehu
GROWS FROM
נכה
to strike, smite
“smite” in this verse is venakkehu. The Hebrew keeps the verb for striking even when the tongue is named as the instrument. The same root gives words for a blow and for being stricken, so the attack here is not harmless talk: it is a strike with a target.
ALSO GROWS
nāḵāh: to strike, smite
נָכָה
This is the verb whose force remains when the tongue is named as the instrument.
makkāh: blow, wound, plague
מַכָּה
This noun comes from the same striking root, with its initial nun assimilated into the kaf; the action becomes a blow or wound.
nāḵeh: stricken, maimed
נָכֶה
This form retains the root’s nun, kaf, and heh, naming the condition left by a strike.
נַחְשְׁבָה
naḥshevah
GROWS FROM
חשב
to think, reckon, plan
“devise devices” in this verse is naḥshevah. The verse uses the same root for “let us devise” and “devices”: the attack is first assembled in thought, then carried by the tongue. The repeated root makes the plan itself part of the violence.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāšaḇ: to think, reckon, plan
חָשַׁב
This verb is the root action behind the plot against Jeremiah.
maḥăšāḇāh: thought, plan, device
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This noun names the plan formed by the same act of thinking expressed in the verb.
נַקְשִׁיבָה
naqshiva
GROWS FROM
קשב
to attend, listen closely
“give heed” in this verse is naqshiva. The verse pairs a tongue ready to strike with an ear that refuses close attention. The Hebrew for listening carries the sense of attentive regard, making the refusal an active closing-off rather than mere silence.
ALSO GROWS
qāšaḇ: to attend, listen closely
קָשַׁב
This is the root verb for the attention they refuse to give.
hiqšîḇ: to listen attentively
הִקְשִׁיב
This form of the same root makes the attentiveness implied by “give heed” explicit.
maqšîḇ: one who listens attentively
מַקְשִׁיב
This related form names the listener whose posture the verse’s plot rejects.
THE PATTERN
When speech becomes a weapon, hearing can be shut before a word is weighed.
Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.THE THREAD
Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.The same Hebrew root נכה (nāḵāh), meaning “to strike,” appears in both verses: in Jeremiah 18:18 the tongue is the instrument, while in Jeremiah 20:2 Jeremiah’s body is struck. The shared verb holds verbal harm and physical harm within one field of violence.
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