What Does Jeremiah 5:4 Mean in the King James?
Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.
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 verse treats knowing the LORD’s way and recognizing God’s judgment as one joined perception.
THE MEANING
The reader’s lack of contact with the LORD’s way reaches beyond direction: God’s judgment, the discernment of what is right, is also unknown. The verse names that condition as poverty and foolishness without softening either word.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that sound judgment can remain intact while the LORD’s way is unknown.
THE ROOT
יָדְעוּ
yade'u
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or perceive; in some contexts, to know through relationship.
Yada can name knowing through recognition and lived relation, though its precise force depends on context. Here, “know not” reaches beyond missing information: the LORD’s way and God’s judgment fail to register as realities that can orient life.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know, recognize, perceive
יָדַע
This verb’s range shows that the verse concerns recognition, not merely memorizing directions.
da'at: Knowledge, understanding
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root connects knowing with the understanding that makes a path discernible.
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
To tread, step, or travel a course.
Derekh is a way understood as a course someone treads. The verse’s “way of the LORD” is therefore more than a direction to know: it is a path whose character becomes visible in how it is walked.
ALSO GROWS
darakh: To tread, step, travel
דָּרַךְ
The verb makes the path bodily and concrete: a way is a course taken.
derekh: Way, path, course
דֶּרֶךְ
The noun carries that trodden course into the verse’s question of knowing the LORD’s way.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge, decide, or govern.
Mishpat can name judgment as a decision or an order that distinguishes what is right, not only a sentence after wrongdoing. Paired with derekh, it joins the course of life to the discernment that orders it.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge, decide
שָׁפַט
The verb reveals the act beneath the judgment named in the verse.
shofet: Judge, one who decides
שֹׁפֵט
This related word shows judgment as discernment exercised by a judge.
THE PATTERN
God’s way is a path that becomes known through learning, walking, and discernment.
Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.THE THREAD
Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.Hosea repeats the words for “way” (דֶּרֶךְ, derekh) and “know” (יָדַע, yada), then connects them to walking. It makes Jeremiah’s missing knowledge visible: the LORD’s way is known as a path one can walk.
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