Jeremiah 5:11

5:10-18 Multitudes are ruined by believing that God will not be so strict as his word says he will; by this artifice Satan undid mankind. Sinners are not willing to own any thing to be God's word, that tends to part them from, or to disquiet them in, their sins. Mocking and misusing the Lord's messengers, filled the measure of their iniquity. God can bring trouble upon us from places and causes very remote. He has mercy in store for his people, therefore will set bounds to this desolating judgment. Let us not overlook the nevertheless, ver. 18. This is the Lord's covenant with Israel. He thereby proclaims his holiness, and his utter displeasure against sin while sparing the sinner, Ps 89:30-35.

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me,.... This is a reason why such orders are given to the army of the Chaldeans to ascend the walls of Jerusalem and destroy them; namely, the perfidy both of the ten tribes, signified by the house of Israel; so Abarbinel; and of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, signified by the house of Judah; which was very great, and attended with aggravated circumstances; instances of it follow. The Targum is, "they have dealt very falsely with my word:'' saith the Lord; for this was not the charge of the prophet against them, but of the Lord himself. This can only be understood of such of the ten tribes as remained in Judea, for the body of that people had been carried captive mary years ago; whose sins Judah imitated, and, being also the posterity of Israel, may be so called.

Her walls - It is Possible that not the city walls, but those of a vineyard are meant. Judaea is God's vineyard Isaiah 5:1-7 , and God permits the enemy to enter the vineyard to destroy her. Battlements - tendrils. The tendrils and branches of Judah's vine are given up to ruin, but not the stock. See Isaiah 6:13 note.

Whether Israel be put here for the ten tribes, and Judah for the two, as often they are, Jeremiah 2:4 , and sundry other places; or rather, whether Judah here be only explicative, and the word meant of the two tribes only, read thus, the house of Israel, even the house of Judah, is not much material. Have dealt very treacherously; have apostatized and dealt perfidiously beyond measure, not only as to the grossness, but as to the universality of it.

In spite of the feeling of security fostered by the false prophets, the Lord will make good His word, and cause the land and kingdom to be laid waste by a barbarous people. - Jeremiah 5:10 . "Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy, but make not a full end: tear away her tendrils; for they are not Jahveh's. Jeremiah 5:11 . For faithless to me is the house of Israel become and the house of Judah, saith Jahveh. Jeremiah 5:12 . They deny Jahveh, and say, He is not; and evil shall not come upon us, and sword and famine we shall not see. Jeremiah 5:13 . And the prophets shall become wind, and he that speaketh is not in them: so may it happen unto them. Jeremiah 5:14 . Therefore thus saith Jahveh the God of hosts: Because ye speak this word, behold, I make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. Jeremiah 5:15 . Behold, I bring upon you a nation from far, house of Israel, saith Jahveh, a people that is strong, a people that is from of old, a people whose speech thou knowest not, and understandest not what it saith. Jeremiah 5:16 . Its quiver is as an open grave, they are all mighty men. Jeremiah 5:17 . It shall eat up thy harvest and thy bread; they shall eat up thy sons and thy daughters; it shall eat up thy flocks and thy cattle, eat up thy vine and thy fig-tree; it shall break down thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustest, with the sword. Jeremiah 5:18 .

But yet in those days, saith Jahveh, I will not make a full end with you." To give emphasis to the threat, that the Lord will avenge Himself on such a people, we have immediately following, in Jeremiah 5:10, the summons given to the enemy to subdue the land.עלוּ בשׁרותיה is variously explained. The old translators took שׁרות to mean walls; but the second clause, tear away the tendrils, seems not to suit this well. And then this word occurs but once again, and with the meaning "caravan," while walls are שׁוּרות in Job 24:11. But this reason is not strong enough to throw any doubt on the rendering: walls, supported as it is by the old versions. The form שׁרות from שׁוּר is contracted from a form שׁורים, constructed analogously to שׁורות. The second clause would be unsuitable to the first only in the case that walls were to mean exclusively town walls or fortifications. But this is not the case. Even if the suffix here referred to Jerusalem, mentioned in Jeremiah 5:1, which is very doubtful, still then the city would be looked on not in the light of a stronghold, but only as representative of the kingdom or of the theocracy. Probably, however, the suffix refers to the daughter of Zion as seat of the kingdom of God, and the idea of a vineyard was in the prophet's mind (cf. Jeremiah 2:21), under which figure Isaiah (Isaiah 5:1-7) set forth the kingdom of God founded on Mount Zion; so that under walls, the walls of the vineyard are to be thought of.