What Does Jeremiah 5:5 Mean in the King James?
I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
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 places intimate knowledge of the LORD’s path beside the deliberate shattering of its bonds, exposing that recognition alone does not bind a person to what they know.
THE MEANING
You can know the LORD’s way and the judgment of your God and still break the yoke and tear away the bonds. The verse holds recognition and refusal together: knowing the path does not erase the choice to break its restraints.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Knowing God’s way automatically keeps you within it.
THE ROOT
יָדְעוּ
yāḏəʿû
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive through encounter.
“known” in this verse is yāḏəʿû. Yada carries the sense of lived recognition, not detached possession of facts. The verse places that knowing beside broken bonds: what is recognized can still be refused in practice.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know, recognize, experience.
יָדַע
The leaders’ knowing is real, which makes their refusal more exposed.
daʿat: Knowledge, recognition.
דַּעַת
This branch keeps knowledge connected to perception, while the verse shows that perception alone does not ensure fidelity.
דֶּרֶךְ
derek
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread or step; to make a way by walking.
The LORD’s way is a track to be trodden, not merely information to possess. The leaders know the path, yet the next clause shows them breaking away from its restraints.
ALSO GROWS
dārak: To tread, step, or walk.
דָּרַךְ
This verb makes the path concrete: a way is something walked.
derek: A road, path, or way.
דֶּרֶךְ
The same root turns the abstract idea of direction into a track marked by movement.
שָׁבְרוּ
shāḇərû
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
To break into pieces, shatter.
“broken” in this verse is shāḇərû. The verb carries the force of shattering, not simply setting a restraint aside. The text does not let the leaders’ knowledge soften the rupture they cause.
ALSO GROWS
shābar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
This is the action applied to the yoke: the restraint is broken apart.
shever: A fracture, breach, or ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun shows the broken state left by the action in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Recognizing what is right does not by itself prevent a person from refusing or violating it.
And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.THE THREAD
For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.Jeremiah 2:20 uses the same Hebrew roots, שבר (shābar, break) and נתק (nātaq, sever), for the yoke and bonds. There the LORD breaks them; here, the leaders break them after knowing the way, making agency the hinge between freedom and refusal.
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