Jeremiah 5:1-10

1 "Roam about through the streets of Jerusalem, and look please, and take note, and search at its public squares, if you can find a person [who] does justice, [who] seeks honesty, so that I may forgive it.

2 And though they say, '{As Yahweh lives},' {therefore} they swear falsely."

3 [O] Yahweh, do not your eyes [look] for honesty? You have struck them, but they felt no pain, you have destroyed them, they refused to take discipline. They have hardened their faces more than rock, they have refused to turn back.

4 Then I said, "[They are] just simple people, they are foolish, for they know not the way of Yahweh, the law of their God.

5 Let me go to the great, and let me speak with them, for they know the way of Yahweh, the law of their God." However, they together have broken [the] yoke, they have torn to pieces [the] bonds.

6 Therefore a lion from [the] forest will kill them, A wolf [from the] desert plains will devastate them. A leopard [is] watching their cities, everyone [who] goes out from there will be torn, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are numerous.

7 "{How} can I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me, and they have sworn by [those who are] not gods. But I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery, and flocked [to] the house of a prostitute.

8 They were well-fed lusty horses, they neighed each to the wife of his neighbor.

9 Because of these [things] shall I not punish?" {declares} Yahweh, "and on a nation who [is] like this, shall I not take revenge?

10 Go up through her vineyards and destroy, but you must not make complete destruction. Remove her branches, for they [are] not to Yahweh.

Jeremiah 5:1-10 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 5

This chapter contains a further account of the destruction of the Jews by the Chaldeans, and the causes of it, the sins of the people, as want of justice and truth; being so corrupt, that a just and faithful man was not to be found among them; could there, the city would have been pardoned for his sake, Jer 5:1, their swearing falsely by the name of the Lord, Jer 5:2, their incorrigibleness by chastisements, which was the case not only of the lower, but higher rank of people, Jer 5:3-5, wherefore the enemy, who for his cruelty is compared to a lion, a wolf, and a leopard, is threatened to be let in among them, Jer 5:6, then other sins are mentioned as the cause of it, as idolatry and adultery, Jer 5:7-9 hence the enemy has a commission to scale their walls, take away their battlements, though not to make a full end, the Lord disowning them for his, Jer 5:10, because of their perfidy against him, their belying of him, contradicting what he had said, and despising the word sent by his prophets, Jer 5:11-13, wherefore it is threatened, that his word like fire should devour them; and that a distant, mighty, and ancient nation, of a foreign speech, should invade them; who, like an open sepulchre, would devour them, and eat up the increase of their fields, vineyards, flocks, and herds, and impoverish their cities, yet not make a full end of them, Jer 5:14-18, and in just retaliation should they serve strangers in a foreign country, who had served strange gods in their own, Jer 5:19 then a declaration is published, and an expostulation is made with them, who are represented as foolish, ignorant, and blind, that they would fear the Lord; which is pressed by arguments taken from the power of God, in restraining the sea, which had no effect upon them; and from the goodness of God, in giving the former and latter rain, and the appointed weeks of the harvest, which their sins turned away and withheld from them, Jer 5:20-25, and then other sins are mentioned as the cause of God's visiting them in a way of vengeance, as the defrauding of men in trade, and the oppression of the fatherless and the poor in judgment; and false prophesying, to the advantage of the priests, and the king of the people, Jer 5:26-31.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "Life of Yahweh"
• [b]. Literally "to thus"
• [c]. Or "ordinance"
• [d]. Or "ordinance"
• [e]. Or "Arabah"
• [f]. Literally "Why to this"
• [g]. Literally "a declaration of"