deceit: treacherous falsehood, whether spoken or acted out
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This is the language of a false tongue. Again and again the word sits beside terms for lips, tongue, or spirit, describing speech that says one thing while meaning another, or an inner life that hides betrayal. It names not a single slip but a settled bent toward treachery, and it reaches past words into deeds: the one who "works" it is a person who cannot be trusted (Psalm 101:7).
Its sharpest picture is the treacherous bow (Psalm 78:57;Hosea 7:16), a bow gone slack that no longer shoots true and so fails the archer who trusts it. Israel is that bow, turning back on God at the moment of need. That image ties this sense of the word to its other one, slackness: treachery here is a kind of moral looseness, an unreliability that lets down those who count on you.
A near-twin in Hebrew is מִרְמָה, which leans toward fraud and scheming; this word points more at the treacherous disposition behind the deceit.
1ba treacherous, unreliable thing: the slack bow that fails the archer
Psa 78:57Hos 7:16
2
slackness: laziness or negligent, half-hearted effort
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
In Proverbs this word is the opposite of the diligent worker. It describes the slack hand that lets a household slide into poverty (Proverbs 10:4), the sluggard who will not even cook the game he caught (Proverbs 12:27), and the idle appetite that goes hungry, set there beside the ordinary word for sloth (עַצְלָה) in Proverbs 19:15. The picture underneath is physical looseness: a hand that hangs limp, effort that never tightens into real work.
The same looseness can describe how a task is done rather than a person's character. Jeremiah 48:10 curses anyone who does the LORD's assigned work this way, though readers have long disagreed whether the charge is doing it lazily or doing it treacherously. The overlap is no accident: in this one word, slackness and treachery are two faces of the same failure to follow through.
Nuances
2alaziness, sloth: the lazy person or the slack hand
Pro 10:4Pro 12:24Pro 12:27Pro 19:15
2bslack, negligent performance of an assigned task
CertaintyContested
Jer 48:10*
Jer 48:10
Whether Jeremiah 48:10 charges doing the LORD's work slackly or doing it deceitfully.
majorityThe work is done slackly or negligently, that is, half-heartedly.; HALOT, s.v. רְמִיָּה
minorityThe work is done deceitfully or treacherously.; BDB, s.v. רְמִיָּה
pictures a hand or a bow physically hanging loose, an image the English word flattensPro 10:4
Both
both describe effort that never tightens into real workPro 19:15
Only slack
English "slack" can sound merely casual, missing the moral fault the word carries in Proverbs
“treacherous”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“lazy”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“idle”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How remiyyah differs from similar Hebrew words
מִרְמָהdeceit as a concrete act of fraud or a treacherous scheme, especially in trade and dealings, whereas this word points more at the treacherous disposition itself and can also mean slackness
Widens past deceit into slackness and neglect: the lazy hand, the idle soul, a task done half-heartedly rather than a lie told.Pro 10:4Pro 12:24Pro 19:15Jer 48:10
Both
Both name the deceitful tongue, speech shaped to mislead and betray.Psa 34:13Psa 120:2Mic 6:12
Names deceit made concrete in the marketplace: the rigged scale, the weighted bag, the merchant who profits by cheating.Pro 11:1Amo 8:5Mic 6:11Hos 12:7
Names an act of treachery that overthrows someone who trusted the deceiver, a plot sprung on the unsuspecting.Gen 27:35Gen 34:132Ki 9:23
שֶׁקֶרa lie or falsehood, the untrue thing itself, whereas this word names the treachery of the one who deceives and, in Proverbs, plain slackness
Reaches past speech to physical slackness: a lazy hand, an idle worker, work left half-done. This is a whole sense that the other word never carries.Pro 10:4Pro 12:24Pro 19:15Jer 48:10
Names the treacherous letdown of one you trusted, pictured as a bow that fails the archer at the moment he draws it. The focus is the betrayer's failure, not the untrue statement.Psa 78:57Hos 7:16
Points to the guile or double-dealing inside a person, the settled disposition to deceive rather than any single false word.Psa 32:2Job 13:7Job 27:4
Both
Both stand for deception in speech and are set side by side as the lying tongue: this word the false thing spoken, that word the treachery behind it.Psa 120:2Mic 6:12Psa 101:7
Names the false thing itself, a statement that is simply not true, above all the false testimony a court must throw out.Exo 20:16Deu 19:18Pro 6:19Pro 19:5
Covers a false oath, swearing by God's name to what is untrue.Lev 19:12Exo 23:7
Extends to what is deceptively worthless or a groundless hope, something that will fail you because it was never true to begin with.Psa 33:171Sa 25:21
עַצְלָהsloth pictured as drowsy sluggishness, set beside this word's looser sense of slack, half-hearted effort
Reaches well past laziness into treachery: a false, lying tongue and a bow that betrays the one who trusts it.Psa 120:2Psa 120:3Mic 6:12Psa 78:57
When it does mean laziness, it is the slackness of a half-hearted worker, a loose hand that does the job carelessly rather than a body asleep.Pro 10:4Jer 48:10
Both
Both name a laziness that ends in want, and they stand side by side in one proverb: sluggishness sinks a person into sleep while the slack soul goes hungry.Pro 19:15
This one names deceit as a quality rather than an act, and it attaches to the parts of a person that produce it: the tongue, the lips, the inner spirit.Job 27:4Psa 32:2Psa 120:2Psa 120:3Mic 6:12
Because it is a quality, it can be produced or practiced as a settled habit, so a person is described as one who works deceit, and such a person is barred from the king's household.Psa 52:2Psa 101:7Job 13:7
It supplies the picture of the weapon that lets its owner down, a bow that twists in the hand so the shot goes wide, applied to a people who cannot be relied on.Psa 78:57Hos 7:16
It stretches to a sense the verb never has: slackness. A hand, an appetite, a hunter, or a job done this way simply fails to deliver, whether or not anyone was lied to.Pro 10:4Pro 12:24Pro 12:27Pro 19:15Jer 48:10
Both
Both name a betrayal of trust between parties who owed each other better, and both are turned on God's own people and their leaders.Jos 9:22Psa 78:57
Both live in the world of misleading speech, the false word aimed at a neighbor and the tongue that keeps producing it.Pro 26:19Mic 6:12
This is the doing word of the pair: it names deceiving as something one person does to another, and it usually surfaces in the mouth of the person who was taken in, as an accusation after the fact ("why have you deceived me?").Gen 29:251Sa 19:171Sa 28:122Sa 19:26
It covers going back on trust already given: breaking a sworn agreement, handing an ally over to his enemies, or abandoning someone who was counting on you.Jos 9:221Ch 12:17Lam 1:19
It also carries a plainly physical sense with no dishonesty in it at all, hurling or shooting something: the horse and rider thrown into the sea, and men who let arrows fly.Exo 15:1Exo 15:21Psa 78:9Jer 4:29
A third of its uses have nothing to do with lying at all: they describe a hand or a person too slack to finish the job. A slack palm brings poverty, the slack worker ends up doing forced labor, he never cooks the game he caught, and he goes hungry; even the LORD's own work can be done in this half-hearted way.Pro 10:4Pro 12:24Pro 12:27Pro 19:15Jer 48:10
It supplies the picture of gear that fails the person depending on it. Twice Israel is called a bow of this kind, a weapon that goes crooked in the hand and lets down the archer who drew it. The fault is unreliability, not a plan to injure.Psa 78:57Hos 7:16
It settles into a fixed phrase for the kind of person who works this way, one who "does" it, and the phrase covers both of its sides at once: the man whose razor tongue does it, the liar barred from the king's house, the owner of the slack hand, and the soldier who does the LORD's work slackly.Psa 52:2Psa 101:7Pro 10:4Jer 48:10
Both
Both attach to the tongue and the mouth for speech that betrays whoever listens to it. The psalmist begs rescue from a tongue of the one kind, Micah's city has it in its mouth, and Zephaniah promises that the people God leaves will have no tongue of the other kind in theirs.Psa 120:2Psa 120:3Mic 6:12Zep 3:13
Both stand right beside the ordinary word for a lie, rendered "falsehood", in the same line, so neither one is simply the word for an untrue statement. Each adds a further shade to it: the man who works one also speaks lies, and the scheming of the other is called a lie outright.Psa 101:7Mic 6:12Psa 119:118Jer 14:14
Both mark a fault that shuts a person out. No one who practices the one may live in the king's house or stand before him, and God turns away the strayers whose scheming is the other; the people he keeps are free of it.Psa 101:7Psa 32:2Psa 119:118Zep 3:13
Both turn up as the charge against religious speech that claims to come from God. Job's friends are accused of talking this way on God's behalf, and Jeremiah's opponents prophesy the other in God's name.Job 13:7Jer 23:26
It names the trick a person's own mind manufactures and then passes off as a word from God. The prophets Jeremiah confronts preach what their own hearts invented and label it a vision.Jer 14:14Jer 23:26
It carries the sense of a worked-out scheme, deliberately chosen and gripped. Jerusalem takes hold of it and refuses to turn back, and those who stray from God's commands have it as their plan of action.Jer 8:5Psa 119:118
It can describe a maneuver carried out under cover: Zebul gets word to Abimelech by this means, arranging an ambush so the men of Shechem never see it coming.Jdg 9:31
remiyyah in the other biblical languages
δόλοςGreek“deceit”the Greek word for guile or deceit, the standard counterpart to the treacherous sense of this word
Carries a whole second sense the Greek word never touches: physical slackness and laziness. A slack hand brings poverty while a diligent hand grows rich, the lazy person will not even cook the game he caught, and doing the work of the LORD in this slack way earns a curse. This is negligence in labor, not treachery in speech.Pro 10:4Pro 12:27Jer 48:10
Pictures deceit as a weapon that fails its owner in the decisive moment: a slack bow that twists aside so the arrow misses. Israel turns back on the day of battle like this treacherous bow, an image of loyalty that gives way just when it is counted on.Psa 78:57Hos 7:16
Both
Both name deceit that lives in speech, the lie hidden in a person's mouth or spirit, and both mark its absence as the badge of an honest person. The one whose spirit holds no deceit is called blessed, and the servant who had no deceit in his mouth is held up as the model to follow.Psa 32:21Pe 2:22
Both stand in the catalog of the wicked person's sins, the treachery that pours out of a corrupt heart and tongue. The prophet indicts a city whose inhabitants speak lies with a deceitful tongue, and Paul lists this same treachery among the works that fill a heart turned from God.Mic 6:12Rom 1:29
Names the treacherous plot laid to seize a person by stealth, the cunning trap sprung on an unsuspecting target. The chief priests look for a way to take Jesus by this kind of craft, and Paul jokes that he caught the Corinthians by it, so the word leans toward an active scheme aimed at catching someone.Mat 26:42Co 12:16
ὀκνηρόςGreek“lazy”the Greek adjective for lazy or sluggish, the counterpart to the slackness sense of this word
Its main sense is not laziness at all but deceit and treachery: a lying tongue that speaks falsehood, and speech aimed at fooling a hearer.Psa 120:2Mic 6:12
Names a bow that lets its owner down, a weapon that twists and fails at the moment of use, a picture of people who prove unreliable to God.Psa 78:57Hos 7:16
As a noun it names the quality of slackness itself rather than labeling the person, so Hebrew speaks of a hand of slackness that brings poverty instead of calling the man lazy outright.Pro 10:4
Both
Both can name the failure to put in honest effort, and English reaches for the same words for each: the Hebrew brands the slack, work-shy person a picture of ruin, while the Greek brands the servant who would not lift a finger.Pro 12:24Mat 25:26
Describes a person as lazy, an adjective pinned to a worker who will not work: the servant who buried what he was given is called wicked and lazy, and believers are told not to be lazy where zeal is owed.Mat 25:26Rom 12:11
Stretches beyond laziness to mean tiresome or irksome, said of a task one is reluctant to take up: Paul writes that repeating the same instruction is no bother to him.Php 3:1
What scholars say about remiyyah
רְמִיָּה is a feminine noun connected to the root רמה. The standard lexica (BDB; HALOT) gather its uses under one head with two sense-ranges: "slackness, laziness" (Proverbs 10:4; 12:24, 27; 19:15) and "deceit, treachery" (Job 13:7; 27:4; Psalm 32:2; 52:2; 101:7; 120:2, 3; Micah 6:12), the two connected through an underlying notion of looseness or laxity. The idiom קֶשֶׁת רְמִיָּה, "a treacherous bow" (Psalm 78:57;Hosea 7:16), is widely read as a bow gone slack that fails the archer, and it stands at the hinge of the two ranges. Jeremiah 48:10 is disputed: BDB and the older versions render it "deceitfully", while HALOT and most modern translations render it "slackly, negligently".