Jeremiah 32:23

23 They came in and possessed it, but they did not obey Your voice or walk in Your law. They failed to perform all that You commanded them to do, and so You have brought upon them all this disaster.

Jeremiah 32:23 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 32:23

And they came in and possessed it
After forty years travel in the wilderness; they entered into it with Joshua at the head of them, and the Lord with them; giving victory over the Canaanites, who were soon subdued; and the Israelites with little trouble settled in their land, which was divided to them by lot, and possessed as their inheritance: but they obeyed not thy voice;
though they promised at Sinai they would, and though they were so much obliged by the goodness of God to them; this shows great ingratitude in them: neither walked in thy law;
moral, ceremonial, and judicial, given at Harsh as the rule of their obedience; but they walked not according to it: they have done nothing of all that thou commandedst them to do;
they were not only deficient in some things, but in everything; they not only broke some of the laws of God, but all of them; there was not one law, one command, observed by them as it ought to have been; and yet these people were always prone to establish their own righteousness, and seek for justification by it: therefore thou hast caused all this evil to come upon them;
the Chaldean army, now besieging them; and the famine and pestilence among them; which, the prophet serves, were but the righteous judgments of God upon them for their sins.

Jeremiah 32:23 In-Context

21 You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror.

22 You gave them this land that You had sworn to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.

23 They came in and possessed it, but they did not obey Your voice or walk in Your law. They failed to perform all that You commanded them to do, and so You have brought upon them all this disaster.

24 See how the siege ramps are mounted against the city to capture it. And by sword and famine and plague, the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What You have spoken has happened, as You now see!

25 Yet You, O Lord GOD, have said to me, ‘Buy for yourself the field with silver and call in witnesses, even though the city has been delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans!’”