Jeremiah 9:23–24

In these two pivotal verses, Yahweh through Jeremiah delivers a radical reordering of human values: the three great sources of worldly pride — wisdom, might, and riches — are declared insufficient grounds for boasting. The only legitimate glory belongs to the one who knows Yahweh as a God of steadfast love (hesed), justice (mishpat), and righteousness (tsedaqah). This is not merely an ethical maxim but a theological declaration about the nature of true wisdom and the human vocation.

Verse 23 — The Three Renunciations

"Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches." Jeremiah 9:23 constitutes a solemn, threefold divine oracle introduced by the messenger formula "Thus says Yahweh" (koh amar YHWH), lending these words the full authority of divine speech. The verse names the three supreme objects of human self-glorification in the ancient world — and in every age: chokmah (wisdom, intellectual mastery), gevurah (might, physical or political power), and osher (riches, material wealth). These are not presented as intrinsically evil; they are the goods that human culture, from Mesopotamia to Greece to modern capitalism, has consistently treated as the highest human achievements and the proper grounds of boasting. Jeremiah's audience would have recognized these as the very pillars of Judah's ruling class — the scribal sages, the military commanders, and the merchant landowners — precisely the classes whose failure he catalogues throughout the surrounding chapters (cf. Jer 8–9). The prophet is not condemning wisdom, strength, or wealth per se, but rather the self-sufficiency and self-glorification that arise when these gifts are severed from their Giver. The word translated "glory" (yithhalel, hithpael of halal) is the reflexive form: to praise oneself, to boast, to make oneself shine. It is the same root from which hallelujah derives — "praise Yahweh." The irony is precise: the form of praise that belongs to God alone is being hijacked for human self-aggrandizement.

Verse 24 — The One Permitted Boast

"But let him who glories glory in this: that he understands and knows me, that I am Yahweh who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares Yahweh." The contrastive "but" (ki im) is emphatic — "only in this." The permitted boast is not a vague religious feeling but a concrete, relational knowledge: haskel (to understand, to have insight into) and yada (to know — the same intimate, covenantal knowledge used of the marriage bond and of prophetic calling, cf. Jer 1:5). The object of this knowing is not an abstraction but a Person — "me," Yahweh — and knowledge of this Person is immediately defined by three attributes: hesed (steadfast love, covenant faithfulness, mercy), mishpat (justice, right order, judgment), and tsedaqah (righteousness, moral integrity). These are not merely divine attributes to be contemplated; Yahweh "practices" them (oseh) in the earth. Divine knowledge is inseparable from moral transformation: to know this God is to be shaped by His own character. The closing declaration, "For in these things I delight ()," reveals the innermost orientation of the divine will. God's pleasure — His joy — is located not in human achievement but in the exercise of covenant love, justice, and righteousness. The passage thus moves from negation (v.23) to the positive content of genuine wisdom (v.24), structuring the whole around a theology of glory () rightly ordered.

Catholic tradition reads this passage as a foundational text on the nature of wisdom and the proper ordering of human desires — what the tradition calls ordo amoris. St. Augustine, meditating on "our heart is restless until it rests in Thee" (Confessions I.1), provides the patristic lens through which Jer 9:23–24 is best read: the three renounced glories are precisely the libido dominandi, libido sentiendi, and libido sciendi — the disordered loves that substitute creatures for the Creator.

St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (II-II, q.161–162) identifies vainglory as a capital vice precisely because it constitutes an inversion of the laus that belongs to God alone. The hithhalel of v.23 is the scriptural root of what Thomas calls inanis gloria — empty glory sought for oneself rather than referred to God.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§ 1700–1715) teaches that the human person is made for beatitude, a happiness that no created good — no wisdom, power, or wealth — can ultimately provide. Jer 9:23–24 is the Old Testament charter of this teaching.

St. Paul explicitly cites this passage in 1 Corinthians 1:31 and 2 Corinthians 10:17 ("Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord"), applying it as the theological principle that subverts Greek wisdom and Jewish sign-seeking in light of the Cross. The Church Fathers, including Origen (Homilies on Jeremiah) and St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on 1 Corinthians), read the verse as prophetic preparation for the Gospel's inversion of worldly values.

Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes (§19) identifies atheism and practical materialism as rooted precisely in the glorying in human achievement that Jer 9:23 diagnoses — a striking magisterial confirmation of the passage's perennial relevance. Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est (§1) begins his first encyclical by precisely naming hesed — the steadfast love of v.24 — as the very heart of Christian revelation.

Contemporary Catholic life is saturated with the three idols of Jer 9:23. Academic credentials, career achievement, physical fitness, and financial security are the metrics by which modern culture — and often Catholic culture — measures human worth. A Catholic professional who finds her identity primarily in her degrees or title, a father who grounds his dignity in his income, a young man who builds his self-image on athletic prowess: all are engaging in exactly the hithhalel Jeremiah denounces — not because these goods are evil, but because they have been promoted to the status of ultimate goods.

The practical application of v.24 is daily lectio divina and contemplative prayer, which the Church has always presented as the proper form of "knowing" Yahweh. This is not passive: to know a God who "practices" hesed, mishpat, and tsedaqah in the world is to be sent into acts of mercy, justice, and moral integrity. The parish Catholic who leaves Mass unchanged in her priorities has not yet encountered the God of Jer 9:24. Let the daily examination of conscience ask not "did I succeed today?" but "did I know God today — and did that knowledge make me merciful, just, and righteous in my concrete dealings?"