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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. Michael Abernathy |
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