What Does Jeremiah 5:27 Mean in the King James?
As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.
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
Here deceit is not a flaw beside the wealth; it is what fills the house and produces its apparent success.
THE MEANING
This verse names a living pattern: a household can grow great through what fills it, and that fullness can be deceit rather than soundness. The cage image makes the abundance feel like a packed catch, not free flourishing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Visible wealth does not prove that a household is sound; abundance can grow from deceit.
THE ROOT
מִרְמָה
mirmah
GROWS FROM
רמה
To deceive or deal treacherously.
The root links deceit with treachery, giving the house’s fullness the character of practiced betrayal rather than an occasional mistake. The verse places that fullness beside the household’s growing wealth, so its prosperity cannot be separated from what fills it.
ALSO GROWS
mirmah: Deceit, treachery.
מִרְמָה
This is the word in the verse: deceit fills the houses as birds fill a cage.
remiyyah: Deceit or treachery; in some contexts, slackness.
רְמִיָּה
This related word keeps the same root’s sense of unfaithful dealing, showing deceit as a way of acting, not just a false statement.
THE PATTERN
When deceit becomes a means of accumulation, wealth exposes harm rather than proving integrity.
The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death.For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.Hosea uses the same Hebrew word for deceit, מִרְמָה (mirmah), and places it in the merchant’s hand as he weighs goods. Jeremiah shows deceit filling a house; Hosea reveals it operating in exchange.
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