Bible Strands
Jeremiah 5:27
Like cages full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become powerful and rich.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Jeremiah addresses the people of Judah during a period of systemic corruption and spiritual abandonment. He targets the wealthy elite who exploit legal and social structures to accumulate wealth at the expense of the vulnerable.
The words — The text employs כְלוּב (kLuv), literally "cage," and מִרְמָה (mirMah), literally "deceit," to depict homes stocked with fraud rather than sustenance. This lexical pairing establishes a direct comparison between bird-trapping enclosures and the domestic spaces of the powerful.
The thread — The motif of predatory entrapment continues in Jeremiah 5:26, which describes wicked men setting snares to catch people, while Hosea 12:7 parallels the commercial fraud with dishonest scales. Jeremiah 9:6 further reinforces the theme by condemning a population that dwells in deception and refuses to know God.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to identify wealth accumulated through fraud as inherently corrupt and spiritually empty. It demands a clear rejection of any system that normalizes deceit as a legitimate path to power or prosperity.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 1:11 If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause,
- Jeremiah 9:6 You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.
- Hosea 12:7 A merchant loves to defraud with dishonest scales in his hands.
- Amos 8:4 Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,
- Micah 1:12 For the dwellers of Maroth pined for good, but calamity came down from the LORD, even to the gate of Jerusalem.
- Habakkuk 2:9 Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, to place his nest on high and escape the hand of disaster!
- Revelation 18:2 And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, every unclean bird, and every detestable beast.
- Micah 6:10 Can I forget any longer, O house of the wicked, the treasures of wickedness and the short ephah, which is accursed?