Jeremiah 5 Study Notes

5:18 On I will not finish you off, see note at vv. 10-11. A remnant of faithful people will be preserved even as God’s judgment falls.

5:19 The verse plays on the similarity between foreign and strangers.

5:20-21 The word for hear this is the same Hebrew word (shema) that introduces the great Shema of Dt 6:4. It called Israel to covenantal accountability.

5:22-23 One who can set boundaries for the sea is one who should be feared, but Israel is too foolish and stubborn.

5:24 The fixed weeks of the harvest were the seven weeks from Passover to Pentecost in which the barley harvest was gathered first, followed by the wheat harvest.

5:25 As water can be diverted or dammed up, so Israel’s sin and guilt have kept God’s blessings from reaching them.

5:26-28 Those who had grown powerful and rich through dishonest gain and neglect of the fatherless were like hunters lying in wait. As fowlers set a net with several tame birds in the net to attract wild, unsuspecting birds, so too wicked men preyed upon innocent victims.

5:29 It seemed obvious that Israel deserved punishment.

5:30 The word horrible is derived from a Hebrew stem meaning “filthiness” or “rottenness” (29:17; Hs 6:10). Here it describes the wickedness of the false prophets, priests, and people.

5:31 The phrase priests rule by their own authority is literally “rule by their hands,” meaning either at the direction of the false prophets, or on the priests’ own authority.