Jeremiah 4 Study Notes

4:11 The phrase my dear people (lit “the daughter of my people”) occurs for the first time here. It occurs a total of eight times between here and 9:7 where it ends (to be picked up again five times in Lamentations). Sometimes it is the Lord who uses it, and sometimes it is the prophet.

4:15-17 The advances of the enemy from the north can be heard from Dan, at the northern limit of Israel and at the headwaters of the Jordan River, on down to Mount Ephraim, the highlands stretching from Shechem to Bethel.

4:19-22 These verses contain the first of Jeremiah’s “confessions” (see his other confessions at 11:18-23; 12:1-6; 15:10-11,15-21; 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-13,14-18; and possibly 5:3-5; 8:18-9:1). The confessions reflect the pain Jeremiah experienced about the calamity that awaited his people. The prophet was accused of being a traitor, but these verses reveal his patriotism and his sincere love for Judah. It gave him no joy or satisfaction to proclaim such devastating words; he was under divine obligation to do so.

4:23-28 This is one of the most haunting passages in all the Prophets because of its vivid, realistic portrayal of God’s coming wrath against sin. The judgment moves beyond the Babylonian conquest to the coming day of the Lord at the end of history.

4:23 Jeremiah borrowed the phrase the earth . . . was formless and empty from Gn 1:2. The imagery portrays the reversal of God’s acts of creation. Such will be the devastation of the coming day of the Lord.

4:27 Though the earth will be laid waste, it will not come to an end. There is always the promise of a remnant of those who are faithful to the Lord.

4:30 Jeremiah depicted Jerusalem in her death agony, still rejecting God as her husband. Instead of choosing repentance and mourning, she dressed in scarlet, adorned herself with gold jewelry, and enhanced her eyes with makeup. This imagery plays off the fact that women of Bible times applied a silver-white metallic substance as a base for black kohl on the upper and lower eyelids. But Jerusalem prettied herself for nothing; her lovers would only take her life.