What Does Jeremiah 3:20 Mean in the King James?
Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.
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 wife’s departure and Israel’s betrayal of God use the same Hebrew verb, giving both ruptures the shared weight of broken fidelity.
THE MEANING
Departure here carries the wound of broken fidelity inside a bond of belonging. The reader meets the LORD naming that rupture directly, so the language of intimacy gives covenant betrayal its full relational weight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that leaving a covenantal bond is merely a change of circumstance dissolves here; the verse names it as broken trust.
THE ROOT
תִּבְגֹּד
tibgod
GROWS FROM
בגד
b-g-d
To act faithlessly, deal treacherously, or violate trust.
“treacherously / dealt treacherously” in this verse is tibgod. The Hebrew repeats בגד (bagad), meaning “to act treacherously,” first for the wife and then for Israel. That shared root makes the intimate rupture and the covenant rupture expressions of the same broken fidelity.
ALSO GROWS
tibgod: She acts treacherously, breaks faith.
תִּבְגֹּד
This form describes the wife’s action and makes the comparison begin with a breach of trust.
begadtem: You have acted treacherously, broken faith.
בְּגַדְתֶּם
The same root shifts to Israel, tying the people’s betrayal directly to the wife’s act.
boged: One who acts treacherously; a faithless person.
בֹּגֵד
This form names the person by the posture of broken trust, showing how the root can describe both an act and a relational stance.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses the language of fidelity between intimate partners to name the breach of covenant with God.
But turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow.Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.THE THREAD
Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.The verb בגד (bagad), meaning “to act treacherously,” appears in both verses for a breach within an intimate bond. Malachi names the wife as both “thy companion” and “the wife of thy covenant,” making the shared structure visible.
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