Jeremiah 9:5 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 9:5
And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
an untruth · noun, common masculine singular absolute
weary
נִלְאֽוּnil.'U
H3811
to tire · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
iniquity
הַעֲוֵ֥הha.'a.Veh
H5753
to crook · verb, hiphil infinitive absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 15:5 For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.
Isaiah 57:10 Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope: thou hast found the life of thine hand; therefore thou…
Isaiah 59:13-15 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from t…
Micah 6:12 For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
Habakkuk 2:13 Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?
Job 11:3 Should thy lies make men hold their peace? and when thou mockest, shall no man make thee ashamed?
Psalms 7:14 Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
Psalms 50:19 Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 9:1-11
The prophet, being commissioned both to foretel the destruction coming upon Judah and Jerusalem and to point out the sin for which that destruction was brought upon them, here, as elsewhere, speaks of both very feelingly: what he said of both came from the heart, and therefore one would have thought it would reach to the heart.
I. He abandons himself to sorrow in consideration of the calamitous condition of his people, which he sadly laments, a one that preferred Jerusalem before his chief joy and her grievances before his chief sorrows.
1. He laments the slaughter of the persons, the blood shed and the lives lost (Jer 9:1): "O that my head were waters, quite melted and dissolved with grief,…
weary themselves--are at laborious pains to act perversely [MAURER]. Sin is a hard bondage (Hab 2:13).
John Gill on Jeremiah 9:5
And they will deceive everyone his neighbour,.... In conversation, with lying words; and in trade and commerce, by art and tricking:
and will not speak the truth; with respect to facts they report, or goods they sell:
they have taught their tongue to speak lies; and become so accustomed to lying that they cannot do otherwise; it is as it were natural to them:
and weary themselves to commit iniquity; spared no pains to come at it, nor any in it, and go on even to weariness; are more laborious and indefatigable in committing sin than good men are in doing good; which shows great folly and stupidity. The Targum is,
"they are become foolish, they have erred.''
John Calvin on Jeremiah 9:5
Jeremiah 9:5
5. And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
5. Et vir proximo sue (socio) mentitur (hoc est, quisque; nam 'ys ponitur indefinite apud Hebroeos pro nota universali; quisque ergo proximum suum circumvenit, nempe mendacio; nam htl significat mentiri,) et veritatem non loquitur; docuerunt linguas suas loqui mendacium (hoc est, linguas suas formarunt ad mendacia,) male agere fatigati sunt (hoc est, male agendo fatigantur.)
Jeremiah goes on with the same subject. He says that fidelity had so disappeared among the Jews, that every one endeavored to deceive his ne…
The Church Fathers
Everyone is so inflamed by the love of sin and desire to carry out what they like, that they look out with watchful care for an opportunity to commit wickedness. They are afraid of being too slow to enjoy their lusts, even glorying in their shame and the great number of their crimes, as the apostle says in censure. They seek credit for themselves out of their own confusion. The prophet Jeremiah also maintains that they commit their heinous crimes not only willingly and with ease of heart and body but with laborious efforts to such an extent that they come to toil to carry them out. They are even impeded from their deadly quest of sin by the burdensome effort the actualizing of their evil desires requires, as he says: "They have labored to do wickedly."
The insincere are to be admonished to learn how heavy is the labor of deception. They endure it with guilt. They are afraid of being found out. They are ever seeking dishonest defenses. They are agitated by fearful suspicions. But there is nothing safer to defend than sincerity, nothing easier to say than truth. For, when obliged to defend its deceit, the heart is wearied with hard labor. For it is written, "The labor of their own lips shall cover them." For what now fills them then covers them, since it then presses down with sharp retribution one whose soul it now elevates with a mild uneasiness. It is said through Jeremiah, "They have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity." Said more plainly: "They who might have been friends of truth without labor, labor to sin."
What are we to do with such a useful member? From it we pray to God, we confess our sins, we give praise, we sing to God with one voice in harmony, and in our daily lives, we either show mercy when we converse with others, or we give counsel. What are we to do now? Our very tongue offers you service. What are we to do so that we do not sin with our tongue? Especially since it has been said: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue," and again it has been said: "I have seen many fall by the edge of the sword, but not as many as by the tongue." Again it has been said: "The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. Consider how a great forest is set on fire by a small spark." Again the same Lord said: "They have taught their tongue to speak lies." Oh, they have taught it! For habit causes it to speak lies; even if you do not wish to, it speaks lies. Just as if you turn a wheel once, having pushed it with your hand, it runs because of its shape and roundness and by its own unstable and almost natural course, so too does our tongue; it does not need to be taught to speak lies. For already, once started, it runs by itself to what it can more easily move toward. Sometimes you have something in your heart, and it speaks something else out of habit.
Dictionary and topics
Deceit · Use, to each other — Use, to each other
Dishonesty · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Falsehood · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Lying · The wicked: Prepare their tongues for — The wicked: Prepare their tongues for
Prophets · Felt deeply on account of the calamities which they predicted — Felt deeply on account of the calamities which they predicted
Truth · .Speak not — .Speak not
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Jer 9:1. "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfarers! then would I leave my people, and go away from them. For they be all adulterers, a crew of faithless ones. Jer 9:2. They bend their tongue like their bow with lying; and not according to faithfulness do they manage in the land, but go on from evil to evil, and me they know not, saith Jahve. Jer 9:3. Beware each of his neighbour, and trust not in any brother; for every brother supplanteth, and every friend goeth slandering. Jer 9:4. And one overreaCheth the other, and truth they speak not; they teach their tongue to speak lies, to deal perversely they weary themselves. Jer 9:5. Thy dwelling is in the midst of deceit; in d…
The lie of idolatry was at the root of an entire culture of deceit. • The word brother, as a synonym for neighbor, indicates that even the closest relationships were polluted with fraud.
Rashi on Jeremiah 9:5
Your habitation is in the midst of deceit When they sit, they devise plans of deceit, and with deceit they have exchanged fear of Me and refused to know Me.
because of deceit Heb. בּמרמה.
