What Does Jeremiah 7:5 Mean in the King James?
For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;
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
A changed path becomes visible in what happens between you and your neighbor.
THE MEANING
Your way is not repaired in isolation; it is made good in the ordinary space between you and another person, where justice is either done or withheld. The verse ties a changed course to concrete, fair dealings.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that intending to change is enough while your dealings with a neighbor remain unjust.
THE ROOT
עָשׂוֹ תַעֲשׂוּ
ʿāśō taʿăśû
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-ś-h
to do, make, bring about
“execute judgment” in this verse is ʿāśō taʿăśû. The Hebrew repeats עשה (ʿ-ś-h, do or make) for emphasis: “if you do, you truly do justice.” Justice is not a status or a claim here; it takes the form of something done between neighbors.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāsâ: do, make
עָשָׂה
This verb is repeated in the verse’s emphatic phrase, making justice an enacted thing.
maʿăśeh: deed, work, action
מַעֲשֶׂה
This related word shows how the root’s sense of doing extends into the actions that shape a person’s conduct.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpāṭ
GROWS FROM
שפט
š-p-ṭ
to judge, decide
English “judgment” can sound like an abstract standard; מִשְׁפָּט belongs to a word family about judging and the one who judges. Set beside “between a man and his neighbour,” it makes justice a concrete decision within a relationship.
ALSO GROWS
shāphaṭ: judge, decide
שָׁפַט
The verb shows the action beneath the word “judgment.”
shōphēṭ: judge, adjudicator
שֹׁפֵט
This branch names the person who carries out the act, linking justice to someone’s actual decision.
הֵיטֵב תֵּיטִיבוּ
hēṭēv tēṭîvû
GROWS FROM
טוב
ṭ-w-b
to be good, to be well
The Hebrew intensifies the verb with a repeated form: if you do good, truly do good to your ways and deeds. “Amend” carries an active movement toward what is good, which the next clause makes concrete in justice.
ALSO GROWS
ṭov: good, well
טוֹב
This is the root’s basic sense, the quality the verse calls a person’s ways and deeds toward.
hēṭîv: do good, make good
הֵיטִיב
This related verb shows that goodness here is something enacted, not merely claimed.
THE PATTERN
A changed way becomes real through just action between people.
Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.THE THREAD
Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.Jeremiah’s מִשְׁפָּט (mishpāṭ, judgment) and Leviticus’s תִּשְׁפֹּט (tishpōṭ, you shall judge) come from the same root שפט (š-p-ṭ, judge). Leviticus shows what this shared root looks like between neighbors: judgment gives neither poverty nor power an unfair advantage.
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