Jeremiah 32:23

23 But when they came into this land and took possession of it, they did not obey your commands or live according to your teaching; they did nothing that you had ordered them to do. And so you brought all this destruction on them.

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 By means of miracles and wonders that terrified our enemies, you used your power and might to bring your people Israel out of Egypt.
22 You gave them this rich and fertile land, as you had promised their ancestors.
23 But when they came into this land and took possession of it, they did not obey your commands or live according to your teaching; they did nothing that you had ordered them to do. And so you brought all this destruction on them.
24 "The Babylonians have built siege mounds around the city to capture it, and they are attacking. War, starvation, and disease will make the city fall into their hands. You can see that all you have said has come true.
25 Yet, Sovereign Lord, you are the one who ordered me to buy the field in the presence of witnesses, even though the city is about to be captured by the Babylonians."
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.