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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 5:1 - 5:1
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The Causes which Called Down the Judgment Pronounced: The Total Corruption of the People. - Chr. B. Mich. has excellently summed up thus the contents of this chapter: Deus judicia sua, quae cap. IV praedixerat, justificat ostendens, se quamvis invitum, tamen non aliter posse quam punire Judaeos propter praefractam ipsorum malitiam. The train of thought in this chapter is the following: God would pardon if there were to be found in Jerusalem but one who practised righteousness and strove to keep good faith; but high and low have forsaken God and His law, and serve the false gods. This the Lord must punish (Jer 5:1-9). Judah, like Israel, disowns the Lord, and despises the words of His prophets; therefore the Lord must affirm His word by deeds of judgment (Jer 5:10-18). Because they serve the gods of strangers, He will throw them into bondage to strange peoples, that they may learn to fear Him as the Almighty God and Lord of the world, who withholds His benefits from them because their sins keep them far from Him (Jer 5:19-25); for wickedness and crime have acquired a frightful predominance (Jer 5:26-31).
Jer 5:1-2
By reason of the universal godlessness and moral corruption the Lord cannot pardon. - Jer 5:1. "Range through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek upon her thoroughfares, if ye find any, if any doth judgment, seeketh after faithfulness, and I will pardon her. Jer 5:2. And if they say, 'As Jahveh liveth,' then in this they swear falsely. Jer 5:3. Jahveh, are not Thine yes upon faithfulness? Thou smitest them, an they are not pained; thou consumest them, they will take no correction; they make their face harder than rock, they will not turn. Jer 5:4. And I thought, It is but the baser sort, they are foolish; for they know not the way of Jahveh, the judgment of their God. Jer 5:5. I will get me then to the great, and will speak with them, for they know the way of Jahveh, the judgment of their God; yet together have they broken the yoke, burst the bonds. Jer 5:6. Therefore a lion out of the wood smiteth them, a wolf of the deserts spoileth them, a leopard lieth in wait against their cities: every one that goeth out thence is torn in pieces; because many are their transgressions, many their backslidings. Jer 5:7. Wherefore should I pardon thee? thy sons have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods. I caused them to sear, but they committed adultery, and crowd into the house of the harlot. Jer 5:8. Like well-fed horses, they are roaming about; each neigheth after the other's wife. Jer 5:9. Shall I not punish this? saith Jahveh; or shall not my soul be avenged on such a people as this?"
The thought of Jer 5:1, that in Jerusalem there is not to be found one solitary soul who concerns himself about uprightness and sincerity, does not, though rhetorically expressed, contain any rhetorical hyperbole or exaggeration such as may have arisen from the prophet's righteous indignation, or have been inferred from the severity of the expected judgment (Hitz.); it gives but the simple truth, as is seen when we consider that it is not Jeremiah who speaks according to the best of his judgment, but God, the searcher of hearts. Before the all-seeing eye of God no man is pure and good. They are all gone astray, and there is none that doeth good, Psa 14:2-3. And if anywhere the fear of God is the ruling principle, yet when the look falls on the mighty hosts of the wicked, even the human eye loses sight of the small company of the godly, since they are in no case to exert an influence on the moral standing of the whole mass. "If ye find any" is defined by, "if there is a worker of right;" and the doing of right or judgment is made more complete by "that seeketh faithfulness," the doing of right or judgment is made more complete by "that seeketh faithfulness," the doing being given as the outcome of the disposition. אֱמוּנָה is not truth (אֱמֶת), but sincerity and good faith. On this state of affairs, cf. Hos 4:1; Mic 7:2; Isa 64:5. The pledge that God would pardon Jerusalem if He found but one righteous man in it, recalls Abraham's dealing with God on behalf of Sodom, Gen 18:23. In support of what has been said, it is added in Jer 5:2, that they even abuse God's name for lying purposes; cf. Lev 19:12. Making oath by the life of Jahveh is not looked on here as a confession of faith in the Lord, giving thus as the sense, that even their worship of God was but the work of the lips, not of the heart (Ros.); but the solemn appeal to the living God for the purpose of setting the impress of truth on the face of a life, is brought forward as evidence that there is none that strives after sincerity. the antithesis forced in here by Hitz. and Graf is foreign to text and context both, viz., that between swearing by Jahveh and by the false gods, or any other indifferent name. The emphasis lies on swearing לַשֶׁקֶר, as opposed to swearing in the way demanded by God, בֶּאֱמֶת וּבְמִשְׁפָּט וּבִצְדָקָה, Jer 4:2. לָכֵן, therein, i.e., yet even in this, or nevertheless.
Jer 5:3
The eye of the Lord is directed towards faithfulness, which is not to be found in Jerusalem (Jer 5:1), לְ showing the direction toward person or thing, as in Psa 33:18, where לְ alternates with אֶל. Hitz. is wrong in translating: are not thine eyes faithful, i.e., directed according to faithfulness; a sense quite unsuitable here, since the matter in hand is not the character or direction of the eye of God, but that on which God looks. But because God desired sincerity, and there was none in the people of Jerusalem, He has smitten them, chastised them, but they felt no pain (חָלוּ from חָלָה, the tone being drawn back by reason of the '); the chastisement made no impression. Thou consumedst them, exterminatedst them, i.e., "Thou hast utterly exterminated multitudes and swarms of them" (Hitz.), but they refused to receive correction; cf. Jer 2:30. They made their face harder than rock, i.e., hardened themselves by obstinately setting the divine chastisements at naught; cf. Eze 3:7-8.
Jer 5:4-5
This total want of good faith and uprightness is found not only in the lower orders of the populace, amongst the mean and ignorant rabble, but in the higher ranks of the educated. This is rhetorically put in this shape, that Jeremiah, believing that only the common people are so deeply sunk in immorality, turns to the great to speak to them, and amongst them discovers a thorough-going renunciation of the law of God. דַּלִּים, weak, are the mean and poor of the people, who live from hand to mouth in rudeness and ignorance, their anxieties bent on food and clothing (cf. Jer 39:10; Jer 40:7). These do foolishly (נֹואֲלוּ as in Num 12:11), from want of religious training. They know not the way of Jahveh, i.e., the way, the manner of life, prescribed to men by God in His word; cf. 2Ki 21:22; Psa 25:9, etc. The judgment of their God, i.e., that which God demanded as right and lawful, 2Ki 17:26, etc. The great, i.e., the wealthy, distinguished, and educated. Yet even these have broken the yoke of the law, i.e., have emancipated themselves from obedience to the law (Hitz.); cf. Jer 2:20. Therefore they must be visited with punishment.
Jer 5:6-8
This verse is neither a threatening of future punishments, nor is to be taken figuratively (lion, bear, leopard, as figures for dreadful enemies). The change from the perf. הִכָּם to the imperf. יְשָׁדְדֵם and יִטָּרֵף tells against the future construction, showing as it does that the verbs are used aoristically of chastisements which have partly already taken place, which may be partly yet to come. And the figurative explanation of the beasts of prey by hostile peoples - found so early as the Chald. - is not in the least called for by the text; nor is it easy to reconcile it with the specification of various kinds of wild beasts. The words are a case of the threatening of the law in Lev 26:22, that God will chasten the transgressors of His law by sending beasts of prey which shall rob them of their children. Cf. with the promise, that if they keep His commandments, He will destroy the wild beasts out of the land. Cf. also the fact given in 2Ki 17:25, that God sent lions amongst the heathen colonists who had been transplanted into the depopulated kingdom of the ten tribes, lions which slew some of them, because they served not Jahveh. The true conception of the words is confirmed by Eze 14:15, when in like manner the sending of evil (ravening) beasts is mentioned as an example of God's punishments. הִכָּה, smite, is a standing expression for the lion's way of striking down his prey with his paws; cf. 1Ki 20:36. זְאֵב עֲרָבֹות is not wolf of the evening, as Chald. Syr., Hitz. explain it, following Hab 1:8 and Zep 3:3; for עֲרָבֹות is not the plural of עֶרֶב, but of עֲרָבָה, steppe: the wolf that lives in the steppe, and thence makes its raids on inhabited spots. The reference of the words to place is suggested plainly by the parallel, the lion out of the wood. The leopard (panther) watches, i.e., lies lurking in wait against their cities, to tear those that come out. The panther is wont to lie in wait for his prey, and to spring suddenly out on it; cf. Hos 13:7. With "because many are thy transgressions," cf. Jer 30:14.
Since these chastisements have profited nothing God cannot pardon the people. This is the meaning of the question in Jer 5:7, אֵי לָזֹאת, wherefore should I then pardon? not, should I then pardon for this? for אֵי by itself does not stand for ה interrog., but is set before the pronom. demonstr. to give it the force of an interrogative adjective; cf. Ew. §326, a. The Cheth. אֶסְלֹוחַest obsoletum adeoque genuinum (Ros.); the Keri substitutes the usual form. To justify the question with a negative answer implied, the people's fall into idolatry is again set up before it in strong colours. Thy sons (the sons of the daughter of Zion, i.e., of the national congregation, and so the individual members of the nation; cf. Lev 19:18) have forsaken me, and swear by them that are not gods, i.e., the idols; cf. Jer 2:11. For אַשְׁבִּיעַ אֹותָם, I caused them to swear, the old translators have אַשְׂבִּיעַ , I filled them to the full, and so it is read in many codd. and edd. This reading is preferred by most of the ancient commentators, and they appeal for a parallel to Jer 5:28, and Deu 32:15 ("when Jeshurun waxed fat, he kicked"), Hos 13:6; Neh 9:25, etc., where apostasy from God is chidden as a consequence of superfluity of earthly goods. So Luther: "and now that I have filled them full, they committed adultery." Now possibly it is just the recollection of the passages cited that has suggested the reading אשׂביע. The apodosis, they committed adultery, forms no antithesis to filling full. Adultery presupposes a marriage vow, or troth plighted by an oath. God caused Israel to swear fidelity when He made the covenant with it at Sinai, Ex 24. This oath Israel repeated at each renewal of the covenant, and last under Josiah: 2Ki 23:3; 2Ch 34:31. Hence we must not wholly restrict the searing to the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, nor wholly to the renewal of it under Josiah. We must refer it to both acts, or rather to the solemnity at Sinai, together with all solemn renewals of it in after times; while at the same time the reference to the renewal under Josiah, this being still fresh in memory, may have been the foremost. We must not confine the reference of יִנְאָפוּ to spiritual adultery (= a fall away from Jahveh into idolatry); the context, especially the next clause, and yet more unmistakeably Jer 5:8, refers to carnal uncleanness. This too was a breach of the covenant, since in taking it the people bound itself not only to be faithful to God, but to keep and follow all the laws of His covenant. That the words, crowd into the house of the harlot, i.e., go thither in crowds, are to be taken of carnal uncleanness, may be gathered from Jer 5:8: each neighs after the wife of his neighbour. Fornication is denounced as a desecration of the name of the Lord in Amo 2:7. The first clause of Jer 5:8 suggests a comparison: well-fed horses are they, i.e., they resemble such. On the lechery of horses, see on Eze 23:20. The Cheth. מוזנים is partic. Hoph. of זוּן, in Aram. feed, fatten, here most suitable. The Keri מְיֻזָנִים would be the partic. Pu. from יָזָן, the meaning of which is doubtful, given arbitrarily by Kimchi and others as armati sc. membro genitali. מַשְׁכִּים, too, is derived from מָשַׁךְ, and given by Jerome sensu obscaeno: trahentes sc. genitalia; but מַשְׁכִּים cannot come from משׁךְ, מַשְׁכִּים being the only possible form in that case. Nor does trahentes, "draught-horses" (Hitz.), give a sense at all in point for the comparison. A better view is that of those who follow Simonis, in holding it to be partic. Hiph. of שָׁכָה, in Aethiop. oberravit, vagatus est. The participle is not to be joined with "horses" as a second qualifying word, but to be taken with הָיוּ, the periphrastic form being chosen to indicate the enduring chronic character of the roaming.
Jer 5:9
Such abandoned behaviour the Lord must punish.