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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Jeremiah 5:7 - 5:18
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Faithlessness and Treachery
v. 7. How shall I pardon thee for this? It would obviously be inconsistent with God's holiness to overlook the transgressions of Israel, to let their wickedness go unpunished. Thy children have forsaken Me and sworn by them that are no gods, or, more emphatic, "by that which is no god," worshiping a creature of their own imagination. When I had fed them to the full, in distributing the blessings of His bounty, or, "I bound them by the oath of allegiance and loyalty," but they then committed adultery, transgressing the Sixth Commandment in the most flagrant manner, probably in connection with the idolatrous customs which they accepted, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses, rushing forward in companies in their eagerness to commit this beastly sin.
v. 8. They were as fed horses in the morning, fat and dissolute stallions; every one neighed after his neighbor's wife, inflamed with sinful lust.
v. 9. Shall I not visit for these things, punishing the guilty ones to the limit, saith the Lord, and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? How could His anger be withheld under such circumstances? The Lord therefore turns to the Chaldeans, calling upon them to carry out His punishment upon Israel.
v. 10. Go ye up upon her walls and destroy, scaling them in a successful attack upon them; but make not a full end, so that Judah's existence would forever be at an end; take away her battlements, or, "hew off her branches," remove her tendrils, namely, the chief men of the nation, for they are not the Lord's, and therefore are altogether unprofitable.
v. 11. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah, the entire nation of God's chosen people, have dealt very treacherously against Me, saith the Lord, their faithlessness being the Lord's chief reason for complaint.
v. 12. They have belied the Lord, denying Jehovah, the God of the covenant, and said, It is not He, insisting that He was not the true and only God, neither shall evil come upon us, neither shall we see sword nor famine, thus both denying and challenging the threat of the Lord regarding the punishment which He had threatened for apostasy of every kind;
v. 13. and the prophets shall become wind, their warnings, in the estimation of the scoffers, being nothing but idle threats, and the Word is not in them, the unbelieving rebels declaring that God did not speak through those prophets who rebuked their wickedness; thus shall it be done unto them, that is, their evil predictions would be fulfilled in no one but themselves. This attitude called for a most emphatic declaration on the part of Jehovah.
v. 14. Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God of hosts, the mighty Captain of the heavenly armies, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make My words in thy mouth fire, Jeremiah being given a sharp and scathing message to the rebellious people whom the Lord here puts far from Him, and this people wood, fuel which is easily kindled, and it shall devour them, they would be consumed as a consequence of the denunciation which Jeremiah would make by God's command.
v. 15. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the Lord, this being the specific manner in which His punishment of destruction would be carried out. It is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, one of great antiquity in history, a nation whose language thou knowest not, a factor which made the enemies all the more formidable, neither understandest what they say. The language spoken by the Chaldeans at that time was totally unlike that derived from any Semitic stem, but very much like ancient Persic.
v. 16. Their quiver is as an open sepulcher, on account of the death-dealing arrows which it contained, they are all mighty men, distinguished for their strength and bravery.
v. 17. And they shall eat up thine harvest, the standing grain, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat, which was intended for their food; they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds; they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig-trees, everything that in any manner yielded food; they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, destroying all of Israel's proud fortresses, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword.
v. 18. Nevertheless, in those days, when this severe punishment strikes the nation, saith the Lord, I will not make a full end with you, He would not yet bring total annihilation upon them. Thus the Lord is gracious and merciful and long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, ever more ready to show kindness than to bring His punishment upon the guilty. It is a most powerful appeal to all men to heed the voice of His admonitions.