Jeremiah 17:9 – Cherev

Verse 9 Hebrew Text

17:9עָקֹ֥ב הַלֵּ֛ב מִכֹּ֖ל וְאָנֻ֣שׁ ה֑וּא מִ֖י יֵדָעֶֽנּוּ׃

Verse 9 Sentence Flow

הַלֵּ֛ב - article + NMS = the heart
  עָקֹ֥ב - NMS = deceitful/deep/rough
  מִכֹּ֖ל - preposition + NMS = from all (implied comparison)

וְאָנֻ֣שׁ - conjunctive waw + AMS = and sick (incurable)
  ה֑וּא - pronoun, 3MS = he

יֵדָעֶֽנּוּ - Qal Imperfect Third Person Masculine Singular + 3MS Pronomoinal Suffix = know
  מִ֖י - Interrogative pronoun = who

Verse 9 Translation Rationale

Jeremiah 17:9 is admittedly a difficult verse to translate well for a few reasons. To begin, the first clause is a verbless clause. In the position where one might expect a predicate adjective we instead find a noun. Interestingly, in the Septuagint, the translators chose to translate עָקֹ֥ב as βαθεῖα which is an adjective meaning “deep.” This word is very hard to deal with. The majority of the appearances of βαθεῖα in the Septuagint clearly mean “deep” based on their context. עָקֹ֥ב can mean rough, hilly, or deceitful. Thompson translates this verse to mean “The heart is rougher than anything and incurable; who understands it?”¹ The Hebrew root for deceive is present in the word, it’s to grab someone by the heal, betrayal. Although, at my current depth of understanding, I have to make a bit of a logical leap because I can’t see how the translators came to the conclusion that they did. In fact, I think Thompson’s translation above fits the wording and the context better than most English translations, in my opinion. Deceitful doesn’t totally break the context and even agrees so we will use that word. The next word we come to is הַלֵּ֛ב and it’s the basic noun for heart with an article on it. We would translate this as “the heart.” Following this we have מִכֹּ֖ל which means “from all” if we were to translate it woodenly. However, it’s relatively easy to spot here that there is an intended comparison implied by the author so rather than translate מִן as “from” we can translate it as “than” and supply the word “more” prior to deceitful to illustrate the intended comparison. At this point in the verse our translation reads “The heart is more deceitful than all.” In our translation also at the words “of man” to heart. The rationale for this is that there’s a 3MS personal pronoun in the following clause. By supplying “of man” we then supply the antecedent for the pronoun and bring marginal clarity to the overall statement.

The second clause is also a verbless clause and we will supply linking verbs to make proper English. The first word is וְאָנֻ֣שׁ and is prefixed with the conjunctive waw. We translate this particle as “and.” The following adjective means incurably sick when used metaphorically as an adjective as it is in this context.² The following word is our 3MS pronoun and the antecedent is our supplied “man,” the owner of the heart, in the previous clause. We would translate this pronoun as “he.” In my opinion this covers the breadth of the issue slightly better since out of the heart flows all of life. Therefore, if the heart is sick, the whole is sick. At this point our translation looks like this: “The of man is more deceitful than all, and he is incurably sick.” As mentioned, since this is a verbless clause we are demanded to supply a linking (is) verb in English.

The final clause, of this verse begins with the interrogative מִ֖י? We translate this word as “who?” This is the subject of the verb יָדַע. יָדַע means “to know” and has a 3MS pronominal suffix attached to the end of the word which will serve as the object of the verb. Very woodenly this could be translated “Who knows it?” Given what we will see in the immediately following verse, God searching the heart and knowing this heart, it’s probably a bit clearer to include a linking verb here as well. In addition, the 3MS pronominal suffix has an antecedent of “the heart” back in the first clause. As such, we have chosen to render the antecedent rather than the pronoun for the sake of clarity. See the final translation below.

Verse 9 English Translation

The heart of man is more deceitful than all, and he is incurably sick. Who can know the heart of man?

Verse 9 Interpretive Questions/Comments

The colloquial “follow your heart” is exceptionally bad counsel. Instead the counsel should say “follow the Scripture.”

References

Thompson, J. A. The Book of Jeremiah. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980. ↩︎
Brown, Francis, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs. Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977, 60. ↩︎