Knowing God in Jeremiah 9:23-24: True Boasting
Short answer: Jeremiah 9:23-24 records Yahweh's command not to glory in wisdom, might, or riches, and his positive alternative: let the one who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me. Knowing God in this passage is not vague religious feeling or bare information. It is a relationship in which God is genuinely known and his character is reflected in the one who knows him, because he says he is Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for he delights in these things. God himself names this knowledge as the thing worth boasting in, which means it is the highest good a person can pursue, above any talent, strength, or wealth they possess.
What Jeremiah 9:23-24 actually says
The verse opens with a direct prohibition. Yahweh says, as Jeremiah 9:23-24 says, "Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches." The wording is specific and personal. Each line names a category of human advantage and forbids glorying in it. The wise man is not told wisdom is worthless; he is told not to glory in it. The mighty man is not told strength is sin; he is told not to glory in it. The rich man is not told riches are evil; he is told not to glory in them. The prohibition targets the boasting, the settled confidence, the identity that rests in the gift rather than the Giver.
The positive command follows in verse 24. The one who glories should glory in this: that he understands and knows me. The word order matters. Understanding and knowing are paired, and both are directed toward God himself, not toward a doctrine about God or an experience of God detached from who he actually is. The verse does not say, glory in your sincerity, or glory in your religious activity, or glory in your correct opinions. It says glory in knowing Yahweh. The object of knowledge is the living God who speaks, acts, and reveals his character in history.
Verse 24 then grounds the command in God's own character. He declares that he is Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, and he adds, for I delight in these things. This is not an abstract list of attributes. It is God telling us what he does and what he loves. To know him is to know the God who acts this way, and the knowledge is meant to produce a life that moves in the same direction. The person who knows this God will not build their identity on wisdom, might, or riches, because they have found something greater and more durable.
The structure of the passage is therefore a contrast, not a single command. On one side stands the glorying that human beings naturally do; on the other stands the glorying God permits and even commends. The passage does not ask us to become passive or to pretend our gifts do not exist. It asks us to relocate our confidence. The wise man still has wisdom; he simply no longer makes it his boast. The mighty man still has strength; he simply no longer treats it as his ultimate security. The rich man still has wealth; he simply no longer rests his soul in it.
Why God forbids glorying in wisdom, might, and riches
Wisdom, might, and riches are not random examples. Together they represent the three main things human beings trust for security, significance, and control. Wisdom is the ability to understand and navigate life. Might is the power to act and to defend. Riches are the resources to provide and to influence. Every culture and every century has its own version of these three, and every person is tempted to build their identity on at least one of them. Jeremiah 9:23 speaks to that universal temptation with unusual precision.
Glorying means more than occasional pride. It means the settled weight of a life, the thing a person leans on and points to when they want to feel secure. The wise man glories in his wisdom when his sense of worth depends on being right or being admired for insight. The mighty man glories in his might when his sense of safety depends on his ability to control outcomes. The rich man glories in his riches when his sense of future depends on what he has stored up. In each case the gift has quietly taken the place that belongs to God.
This is why the command is not merely about manners. It is about worship. Whatever you glory in is functionally your god, because it is what you trust, what you celebrate, and what you turn to when threatened. Jeremiah is not warning against ambition in general. He is warning against a life whose center of gravity has shifted from the Creator to the created thing. The wise, the mighty, and the rich are not singled out because those things are bad, but because those are the very things most likely to make us feel we do not need God.
The context of Jeremiah's ministry makes this sharper. He spoke to a people who had the temple, the law, and the covenant, yet whose hearts had drifted into confidence in their own status and security. The temptation was not to abandon God formally but to add God to a life already anchored elsewhere. Jeremiah 9:23-24 confronts that arrangement directly. God will not be one interest among many. He will not be the decoration on a life built on wisdom, might, and riches. He calls for the whole weight of confidence to rest on knowing him.
What it means to know God, not just know about him
The Hebrew idea behind knowing in this verse carries relational weight. It is not the same as being able to recite facts about someone. It includes acquaintance, experience, and covenant loyalty. To know God in this sense is to have dealings with him, to have learned his character from the way he has acted, and to live in response to that character. The knowledge is personal, but it is not contentless. It is anchored in who God has revealed himself to be: the one who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness.
This rules out two errors at once. The first error is to reduce knowing God to information. A person can hold accurate doctrine and still not know God, in the same way a person can memorize a biography and never meet the subject. The second error is to reduce knowing God to feeling. A person can have intense religious experiences and still not know God, if the experiences are not shaped by who he actually is. Jeremiah 9:24 holds the two together: understanding and knowing, truth about God and relationship with God.
Notice also that God defines the content of the knowledge. He does not say, glory in knowing that I am powerful, though he is. He says he exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, and delights in them. That is the character a person comes to know. To know this God is to become convinced that these are the things he loves, and therefore the things his people should love. The knowledge reshapes desire, not just belief. A person who truly knows this God will increasingly want what God wants.
This is why the knowledge of God cannot be separated from obedience or from love of neighbor. If God delights in justice and righteousness, then a person who boasts in knowing him but practices injustice is contradicting their own boast. The knowledge is meant to be lived. It is not a private possession to be admired but a relationship to be walked out. That is the sense in which the knowledge of God is the highest good: it is both the deepest treasure and the fountain of everything else God calls us to do.
The knowledge of God in the wider biblical witness
Jeremiah is not alone in this emphasis. Hosea 6:6 says, "For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." The prophet ranks the knowledge of God above the entire sacrificial system when that system is separated from a heart that knows God. The point is not that sacrifices were wrong; God commanded them. The point is that ritual without knowledge is an empty substitute. Jeremiah's teaching stands in the same tradition: outward religion cannot replace genuine acquaintance with God.
In the New Testament, Jesus makes the same knowledge central to salvation. John 17:3 says, "This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ." Eternal life is not described first as a duration or a destination but as a relationship. To know the Father and the Son is life itself. This is a striking parallel to Jeremiah. The prophet said the one worthy boast is knowing God; Jesus says knowing God is eternal life. The two statements interpret each other.
Paul takes the same posture when he weighs everything against this knowledge. Philippians 3:8-10 says that he counts all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, his Lord, and counts them as refuse that he may gain Christ. Paul had impressive credentials by the standards of Jeremiah 9:23. He was wise, and he had standing and influence. Yet he treats all of it as loss beside knowing Christ. He is not despising the gifts themselves; he is refusing to let them compete with the greater good.
Colossians 1:9-10 adds another dimension: Paul prays that believers would be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that they might walk worthily and bear fruit. Here the knowledge of God is not static. It grows, it fills, and it produces a life. First John 5:20 closes the circle by grounding our knowledge in the coming of the Son, who has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. Knowing God is a gift received, not an achievement manufactured.
How this knowledge becomes practical
The first practical step is honest self-examination. Jeremiah 9:23 invites a specific question: what do I actually glory in? Not what do I say I value, but what do I lean on when I am afraid, and what do I point to when I want to feel significant? For many of us the answer is one of the three named in the verse. We may not say we glory in our wisdom, but we may be unable to rest when someone disagrees with us. We may not say we glory in our might, but we may be anxious whenever a situation is out of our control. Honesty here is the beginning of the cure.
The second step is to fill the mind with the knowledge of God as he has revealed himself. Jeremiah says the one who glories should glory in understanding and knowing God, and he names specific content: loving kindness, justice, and righteousness. That means our knowledge grows by attention to Scripture, where God makes his character known, and by prayerful reflection on his acts. It is not enough to want to know God in general. We come to know him as he actually is, which requires listening to what he has said rather than assuming what we would like him to be.
The third step is to let the knowledge move into the will. Because God delights in loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, knowing him will show up in how we treat people. A person growing in this knowledge becomes more merciful, more fair, more upright, not less. This is not salvation by works; it is the natural fruit of knowing a God whose character is mercy and justice. If our claimed knowledge of God leaves our conduct untouched, something is wrong, and the prophets would say so plainly.
The fourth step is patience with the process. Knowing God is a relationship, and relationships deepen over time through repeated faithfulness. There will be seasons where the sense of his presence is strong and seasons where it is quiet. Neither proves nor disproves the reality of the relationship. What matters is that we keep returning to him as he has revealed himself, keep trusting what he has said, and keep refusing to shift our glory back onto wisdom, might, or riches. The knowledge of God is the one pursuit that will not disappoint, because its object never changes.
Why the one worthy boast is knowing God
There is a reason God commands this particular boast and forbids the others. Wisdom, might, and riches are all unstable and all temporary. Wisdom can fail or be overtaken. Might fades with age and can be taken away in a moment. Riches can be lost, and they cannot be carried beyond death. To build your identity on any of them is to build on shifting ground. The person who glories in these things may feel secure for a season, but the security is borrowed and will eventually be called in.
Knowing God is different because God himself does not change. He is the one who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, and he delights in these. That character is not a phase or a policy; it is who he is. When your confidence rests on knowing him, it rests on something that cannot be eroded by circumstance. The wise man may lose his sharpness, the strong man his strength, the rich man his wealth, but no one can take away the knowledge of God from a person who has received it. This is why the boast is not arrogant; it is simply accurate.
It is also fitting that God says he delights in these things. The knowledge we are invited into is the knowledge of a God who takes pleasure in mercy, justice, and righteousness. This means knowing him is not the grim duty of studying an unwilling deity. It is coming to know the one whose own delight is in the very things that make human life good. The more we know him, the more our desires align with his, and the more we find our own joy in what he rejoices over. The knowledge of God turns out to be good news, not merely an obligation.
So Jeremiah 9:23-24 is a call to reorder the whole self. It does not ask us to become foolish, weak, or poor. It asks us to hold every gift loosely and to let the knowledge of God be the treasure that defines us. Whatever else we possess, the boast that God himself permits is this: that we understand and know him. That is the highest good available to a human being, and it is offered freely to all who will come.
Biblical fidelity check
This passage establishes that God forbids glorying in wisdom, might, and riches, and that he commends glorying in understanding and knowing him. It establishes that knowing God includes understanding his character as the one who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness. It does not establish that wisdom, strength, or wealth are sinful in themselves, nor does it teach that Christians should be incompetent or impoverished. It also does not define the full mechanics of how a person comes to know God; it states the call and the character, leaving the rest of Scripture to explain the way this knowledge is given and grows.
A common misreading treats this verse as a general rejection of competence, planning, or wealth. That is wrong because the text forbids glorying in these things, not possessing or using them. Another common misreading treats knowing God as pure feeling or private experience with no doctrinal content. That is also wrong, because God himself supplies the content: loving kindness, justice, and righteousness. The knowledge is relational and it is defined. Christians differ on secondary questions about how this knowledge is experienced and matured, and where Scripture is not specific we should be careful not to speak as though it were.
Other passages that speak to Jeremiah 9:23-24
Several related studies help place this passage in its wider biblical setting, including What Does 1 John 1:1 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, What Does 1 John 1:8 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, 1 John 1:9 Meaning: Confession, Forgiveness, and Cleansing, and What Does 1 John 2:15 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application. Each of these touches on the knowledge of God, the reality of sin, and the danger of misplaced love, all of which bear directly on Jeremiah's warning against glorying in the wrong things.
Frequently asked questions
Does Jeremiah 9:23-24 mean that wisdom, strength, and wealth are bad?
No. The verse forbids glorying in these things, not possessing them. Wisdom, strength, and wealth are gifts from God and can be used well. The problem is when a person's confidence, identity, and security rest in the gift rather than in God. The wise man is still wise; he simply no longer boasts in his wisdom. The rich man is still rich; he simply no longer trusts his riches. The command targets misplaced glory, not the goods themselves.
What does it mean to know God in this passage?
It means a real relationship with God, not merely information about him. God defines the content: he exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, and delights in them. To know him is to understand that character and to live in light of it. It is personal and relational, but it is not vague. It is anchored in who God has revealed himself to be, and it grows as a person attends to his word and walks with him.
How is knowing God related to eternal life in the New Testament?
Jesus makes knowing God central to eternal life. John 17:3 says, "This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ." Eternal life is described as a relationship before it is described as a duration. This matches Jeremiah's teaching that the one worthy boast is knowing God. Paul echoes it when he counts all things as loss for the knowledge of Christ in Philippians 3:8-10.
