What Does Jeremiah 5:11 Mean in the King James?
For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, 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 Hebrew doubles the verb of betrayal before naming either house, making a shared breach, not an isolated failure, the verse’s first emphasis.
THE MEANING
The verse meets the reader where trust and shared identity are real: closeness to the LORD does not make betrayal unreal. Its repeated verb names the breach as collective, placing both houses under the same charge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that religious belonging by itself guarantees faithfulness to God.
THE ROOT
בָּגֹד בָּגְדוּ
bāgōd bagdû
GROWS FROM
בגד
To act treacherously or deal faithlessly.
“dealt very treacherously” in this verse is bāgōd bagdû. The Hebrew places an infinitive absolute before a plural verb from the same root, intensifying the act: they have indeed betrayed. English conveys the force with “very,” while the repeated Hebrew root makes the betrayal itself echo across both houses.
ALSO GROWS
bāgad: To act treacherously or deal faithlessly.
בָּגַד
This verb names betrayal as an act that breaks trust, the central charge in the verse.
bōgēd: A traitor; one who acts treacherously.
בֹּגֵד
The related form names the person by the same act, showing how the root holds both the breach and the one who commits it.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names betrayal as a rupture inside a bond of trust, not merely an error against a rule.
Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.They have dealt treacherously against the LORD: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions.And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.THE THREAD
Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.Jeremiah 3:20 uses the same root, בגד (b-g-d; bagad, to act treacherously), for a wife’s betrayal of her husband. That image makes the charge here a breached bond, while the doubled verb extends it emphatically to both houses.
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