The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Jeremiah has just set two men side by side: one leans on human strength and dries up like desert scrub, the other trusts the Lord and stays green in a drought. Here is why the first choice comes so naturally to us — and the verdict raises two questions: how bad is the heart, and if no one can know it, who can?
Whose Heart Is Meant
Most people admit that some human beings do terrible things. Few of them include themselves. One writer presses the question of who exactly the prophet has in view:
C. H. MackintoshMany people say that only the worst examples of fallen humanity commit the disgusting sins Scripture forbids, and that the rest of us do not. This is a complete mistake. Hear what the Holy Spirit says in the seventeenth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Whose heart is he speaking of? Is it the heart of some terrible criminal, or of someone who has never been taught? No; it is the human heart, the heart of the writer and of the reader of these lines.
A Verdict, Not a Feeling
This is not a conclusion anyone reaches by looking inward. It is a judgment handed down, and one that our own sense of ourselves keeps disputing:
An Outline of Sound WordsThe teaching that the heart is desperately wicked applies to everyone. It is the verdict of the God who knows all things, however much our own experience questions it. Every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has doubted it about himself, until God Himself taught it to him... Receiving this doctrine in its power helps to keep the believer humble and watchful.
Deceitful — And Incurable
The ESV reads "desperately sick" here. Older versions read "desperately wicked," and one writer compares those versions and defends the stronger wording:
William Kelly"Desperately wicked" clearly renders the Hebrew word well when that word describes moral evil rather than physical sickness. "Incurable" might suit this verse, but it would not do in other passages... The old Latin version, the Vulgate, is far worse... it gives a much weaker reading, if not a false one.
Later in the chapter, God's dealings with Israel expose that same incurable heart:
H J VineThe human heart is incurable, and so deceitful that no child of Adam can see how corrupt it is (v. 9). It is set on doing evil and on leaving God, however many privileges it is given. In the Old Testament the Lord tested man, and He tested Israel, His chosen nation, under the law — but only to show how completely ruined man is (v. 10).
Who Can Know It
The question at the end of the verse is not rhetorical decoration. It marks the limit of self-examination, and one writer confesses that limit about himself:
J. N. DarbyIf I examine my own heart I cannot find it out. I know more of God's heart than I do of my own. My own is so slippery that I cannot get to the bottom of it, for "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" The best man on earth will be the first to admit this.
The One Who Searches
Jeremiah answers his own question in the next breath, and one writer finds comfort in that answer:
Hamilton SmithWe do not know how deceitful our own hearts are, for the same passage that tells us it is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked goes on to ask, "Who can know it?" The prophet answers at once: "I the Lord search the heart and test the mind" (Jer. 17:10). The One who searches and knows is the One who alone is able to keep us from falling, and to restore us when we fall.
That searching gaze has not made God withdraw. Commenting on the same verses, another writer notes what God does with what He sees: "He has sounded its depths... So He knew and knows what we are, yet in sovereign love and grace He has loved us and bears with His own." — Arno Clemens Gaebelein
Why Self-Trust Is Folly
If the verse is true, then consulting your own heart as a guide is a poor plan. One writer puts the reasoning simply (older versions read "his own heart" here; the ESV reads "his own mind"):
The Bible Treasury"Whoever trusts in his own heart is a fool." Why? Because the heart "is desperately wicked" and "deceitful above all things." Only a fool would trust a wicked man, or believe someone who lies through and through.
What The Diagnosis Drives Us To
A disease called incurable rules out treatment and calls for something else entirely:
G C WillisBy nature our hearts are like a rotten egg: so bad they could not be worse, and so bad that nothing can make them better. When we learn that, we see the truth of the word, "You must be born again." Then we give up trying to improve ourselves, and cast ourselves wholly on the Lord.
Summary
- The heart diagnosed. The verse describes not criminals but "the heart of the writer and of the reader" — everyone's.
- The heart doubted. Every believer doubts this about himself until God teaches it. Accepting it keeps him humble and watchful.
- The heart unfathomable. No child of Adam can reach the bottom of it. The honest man admits he knows God's heart better than his own.
- The heart searched. The Lord answers "Who can know it?" at once: He does. And the One who knows is the One able to keep us and restore us.
- The heart replaced. Because it is incurable, it cannot be repaired — it must be made new. Give up self-improvement and cast yourself wholly on the Lord.