Jeremiah 5:4

liveth; surely they swear falsely. 3 O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. 4 Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God. 5 I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. 6 Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased. 7 How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses. 8 They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife. 9 Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? Here is, I. A challenge to produce any one right honest man, or at least any considerable number of such, in Jerusalem, v. 1.

5:1-9 None could be found who behaved as upright and godly men. But the Lord saw the true character of the people through all their disguises. The poor were ignorant, and therefore they were wicked. What can be expected but works of darkness, from people that know nothing of God and religion? There are God's poor, who, notwithstanding poverty, know the way of the Lord, walk in it, and do their duty; but these were willingly ignorant, and their ignorance would not be their excuse. The rich were insolent and haughty, and the abuse of God's favours made their sin worse.

Then I said, surely these are poor, they are foolish,.... The prophet, observing that reproofs and corrections in providence had no effect upon the people, he thought within himself that surely the reason must be, because these people are poor, and in low circumstances in the world, and are so busy in their worldly employments to get bread for their families, that they were not at leisure to attend unto divine things; nor of capacity to receive instruction and correction by providences; therefore it is they were so foolish, stupid, and infatuated: for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God; either the way which God takes in the salvation of the sons of men, and in justifying of them, which is revealed in his word; or that which he prescribes them to walk in, in his law, even the way of truth and righteousness, and for failure of which he judges and condemns them; but of these things they were ignorant; see John 7:48, not that this is observed in excuse for them, but in order to introduce what follows; and to show that this depravity, stupidity, and ignorance, obtained among all sort of people, high and low, rich and poor.

Verse 4. - Therefore I said ; rather, and as for me , I said . They are foolish ; rather, they act foolishly ( as Numbers 12:11 ). For; rather, because . Their want of religious instruction is the cause of their faulty conduct. In fact, it was only after the return from Babylon that any popular schools were founded in Judaea, and not till shortly before the destruction of the temple that the elementary instruction attained the regularity of a system (Edersheim, 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Time of Christ,' pp. 134, 135). The judgment of their God . A similar phrase occurs in Jeremiah 8:7 . "Judgment ( mishpat ) here (as in some other passages) has acquired a technical sense. This may be illustrated by the corresponding word in Arabic ( din ), which means (1) obedience, (2) a religion, (3) a statute or ordinance, (4) a system of usages, rites, and ceremonies" (Lane's 'Lexicon,' s . v .). Judgment is, therefore, here equivalent to "religious law," and "law" is a preferable rendering. Jeremiah 5:4

4 . The prophet thinks, Surely it is poverty and ignorance that mislead them. Cp. Hosea 4:6 . the way of the Lord ] the way prescribed by God to man. judgement ] primarily a decision given by a judge, and hence an ordinance, or a prescribed system of ordinances (so in Jeremiah 8:7 ). See Dr. pp. 334 f. and cp. note on Jeremiah 10:24 . The sense here is well illustrated by 2 Kings 17:26 f., where, however, “manner” in E. VV. is an inadequate rendering.

(4) Therefore. —Literally, And. The prophet makes for the poor the half-pitying plea of ignorance. Looking upon the masses that toil for bread, those whom the Scribes afterwards called the “people of earth,” it was not strange that they who had been left untaught should have learnt so little. The thought finds a parallel in our Lord’s compassion for the multitude who were as “sheep having no shepherd” ( Matthew 9:36 ), for the servant who “knew not his Lord’s will” ( Luke 12:48 ). The way of the Lord.—That which He approves, that which leads to Him, as in Genesis 18:19; Deuteronomy 31:29.

Therefore I said; or, perhaps, I said with myself; not, possibly, that he thought so, but that he might thus express himself, as men use to speak. Surely these are poor; poor, low-spirited, or of the meanest rank among the vulgar, understand but little; either men of greater ignorance, John 7:49 , and therefore said not to know the way of the Lord; see Jeremiah 8:7 ; being better skilled in fields and vineyards than in the law; or of less conscience than the better sort may be, and therefore said to be foolish, or infatuated, or put upon greater temptation by reason of their poverty, Proverbs 30:9 . The judgment of their God; the methods or ways of his providence, the usual manner of his dealing; so judgment is to be taken here for the same with ways, 1 Samuel 2:13 , as it is also Jeremiah 8:7 .

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. דּלּים, 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. Jeremiah 39:10 ; Jeremiah 40:7 ). These do foolishly (נואלוּ as in Numbers 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. 2 Kings 21:22 ; Psalm 25:9 , etc. The judgment of their God, i.e., that which God demanded as right and lawful, 2 Kings 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. Jeremiah 2:20 . Therefore they must be visited with punishment.

24 . Regarding those remaining in the land even before the fall of the city, cf. Ezekiel 11:5-12 ; Ezekiel 11:14-21 ; Jeremiah 24. Those remaining in the land express their confident hopes. Though reduced in numbers they are still many in comparison of the single individual Abraham. Yet he was multiplied in such a way as to take possession of the land; much more may they hope yet to assert their claims to it. They perhaps hardly argued on mere natural probabilities; they felt themselves the heirs of the promises made to Abraham, and in spite of disasters hoped that Jehovah would fulfil them to them. They display the same temper as the people had always shewn; they have a faith in Jehovah but no knowledge of what Jehovah is ( Amos 5:14 ; Hosea 4:1 ; Jeremiah 4:22 ; Jeremiah 5:2 ; Jeremiah 5:4 ). Another prophet of this age applies the strange history of Abraham and his multiplication to comfort “the few men of Israel” who followed after righteousness, Isaiah 51:2 . inhabit those wastes ] The ruined cities chiefly, Ezekiel 33:27 ; but cf. Ezekiel 36:4 . the land is given us ] Words of confident anticipation.