Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Shead <sshead.email AT gmail.com>]

Hi Michael,

Your Hebrew didn't come out properly for me, not sure why... Anyway, a few points:

1. Are you sure you haven't confused עקב in Jer 17:9 with עמק in Psa 64:7[6]? It's true that the latter means "deep" in the sense of "mysterious, impenetrable", but עקב in Jer 17:9, according to my lexica, means "uneven bumpy terrain" and, metaphorically, "deceitful, sly" - perhaps related to the verb עקב as well, and the name "Jacob" with its allusion to heel-grasping?? But it's certainly not עמק.

2. Jer 17:10 is not in fact about the difficulty of understanding the human heart (though v.9 implies that it is difficult for a mere human to understand the heart). In fact, the question at the end of v. 9 - "Who can understand it?" - is answered by the first words of v.10, which is actually an extended noun phrase identifying who: אני יהוה, "I, Yhwh, searching the heart, testing the mind...".

The combination of God "searching" (חקר) and "testing" (בחן, as of testing and smelting metal) the human heart isn't to express difficulty, it's to express his role as judge, even of the inner thoughts of a person (for this use of חקר, compare Psa 139:23-24 and Job 13:9, or Prov 18:17 for a human law-court scenario). Job 13:9 also makes it clear that such understanding is not beyond the "searching" of God - nothing escapes his scrutiny.

The final clause of Jer 17:10 confirms this judicial sense: "...to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds".

3. Returning to v.9, the second descriptor for the heart - אנשׁ (or אנושׁ) - connotes not just sickness, but, in contexts referring to some metaphorical "wound", being incurable (Job 34:6; Isa. 17:11; Jer 15:18; 30:12, 15; Micah 1:9). If we add that to the first descriptor, it seems to me we have a description of the heart as deceitful, and incurably so.

Best regards,

Stephen Shead

Centro de Estudios Pastorales,

Santiago, Chile

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Abernathy <mabernathy AT conwaycorp.net>
To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc: 
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2012 11:49:11 -0500
Subject: [b-hebrew] Jeremiah 17:9

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