Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Michael Abernathy <mabernathy AT conwaycorp.net>]

I'm having some trouble getting a handle on Jeremiah 17:9.
עָקֹ֥ב הַלֵּ֛ב מִכֹּ֖ל וְאָנֻ֣שׁ ה֑וּא מִ֖י יֵדָעֶֽנּוּ׃

A number of Christian translations read something like

The heart is more deceitful than anything else and incurable who can understand it?

This translation seems to be influenced by the doctrine of total depravity.  I don’t have a real problem with that but I’m not sure the context fits this.  The context of verse 10 seems to make this look like it focuses more on the difficulty of understanding the human mind.

 

עֲקֻבָּ֖ה is used in Psalm 64:6 in the sense of deep and the Septuagint translation of Jeremiah 17:9 fits that definition.

That suggests the following translation, “The heart is deeper (more complicated) than anything. . .”

 וְאָנֻ֣שׁ suggests a number of options, sick, incurable, man (both the Syriac and LXX interpret it that way),

The second half may be translated in the following ways:

“and incurable, who can understand it?”

“and sick, who can understand it?”

“and who will understand it is sick?”

“and it is man, who can understand him (or it)?”

I see that Jeremiah 17:14 may give some credence to the idea of the heart being sick but I’m not sure how this would be understood.  Would that be sick as in mentally ill, raving lunatic, moral sickness?

I’d appreciate any help in sorting this out.

Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy