Us: What Does The Ending Really Mean?
7. The Significance Of Jeremiah 11:11
One of the biggest mysteries in Us comes from a creepy-looking dude stood on the Santa Cruz beach during the film's opening. Holding a sign that reads "Jeremiah 11:11", the number pops up a bunch of times throughout the film, most notably on the digital clock Adelaide spots before her double first reappears and on the ambulance in the climax. It's granted even more significance because the man holding the sign is the first person to be "Untethered" and killed by his double, acting as the first chain of the Hands Across America event.
The sign itself references a particularly bleak Bible passage, which reads:
“Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.”
In Biblical writing the prophet Jeremiah was particularly concerned with his wrathful God striking down the people of Jerusalem for losing sight of their faith and giving in to worshipping "false idols". In the context of Us, the passage should be viewed in more societal and cultural terms than a Biblical sense. The "false idols" worshipped by the characters seem to be their consumerist goods, the technology they've come to rely on. Throughout the movie, everyone on the surface ties tech and commercial products to their identity in some way: Gabe has his boat, Zora is rarely glimpsed without one earphone supplying her with music, Josh's home is hooked up to his Alexa stand-in computer, Ophelia, and Kitty takes pride in "getting some work done" to her body.
It's also telling that the biggest character we see not concerned with technology in the same way is Adelaide, who we later find out doesn't actually belong to this world, but is from the underground.
The Biblical reference seems to infer that the comfort this technology has brought has blinded the protagonists to the realities of the world around them, and shielded them from any of its problems. They're able to enjoy the fruits of these advancements because the Tethered living underground live in squalor, and that wilful ignorance has come back to haunt them.