CHAPTER 5

(612 B.C.)

THE SINS AND PERVERSENESS OF JUDAH

¹Run you to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can find a man, if there be any who executes judgment, who seeks the Truth; and I will pardon it. (Other than Jeremiahs little flock, there seemed to be no one in Jerusalem, be they Priest or Prophet, who executed judgment and sought the Truth. Jerusalem was that far gone, and yet precious few would have even remotely considered such!

Other than Jeremiah and his little flock, there was not a single man who sought the Ways of the Lord. What an indictment!)

²And though they say, The LORD lives; surely they swear falsely. (The words, swear falsely, mean to worship insincerely. Their worship was false, and they even associated idols with the Lord.)

³O LORD, are not Your Eyes upon the Truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved; You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. (O LORD, are not Your Eyes upon the Truth?, refers to the Bible. Judah had forsaken the Truth, and would not receive correction.)

⁴Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the Way of the LORD, nor the Judgment of their God. (The words, surely these are poor, refer to Jerusalem being poverty-stricken in a spiritual sense, while very wealthy in a material sense. How much such mirrors the modern Church!)

⁵I 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. (The yoke and bonds refer to the Bible. These great men rejected the Law of God as a binding authority, as corrupt Christendom does today.)

⁶Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one who goes out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased. (Foreign powers are given the names of wild animals, which would overrun and destroy Jerusalem. Because the sin was great, the Lord would not protect Judah from these enemies. The Lord Alone was their Protector. When they forsook Him, He in turn would have to forsake them. He would have no choice!)

⁷How shall I pardon you for this? your 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. (The words, When I had fed them to the full, refer to the Lord giving a full Revelation in the Pentateuch, and yet Israel practiced idolatry in response; they assembled themselves by troops in the temples of idols. The Lord could not pardon them for this, because they did not seek pardon, but rather went deeper into sin.)

⁸They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbours wife. (This Verse could read: They were as fed [lustful] horses roaming at large, every one seeking his neighbors god. The implication in these Verses does not pertain to literal adultery, although they were certainly guilty of such, but rather to forsaking the Word of God and resorting to other things.)

⁹Shall I not visit for these things? says the LORD: and shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this? (In this Verse, the Lord is speaking of the idol worship of Verses 7 and 8.)

¹⁰Go you up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORDs. (But make not a full end, refers to Judahs degenerate members, who were to be removed, but the vine-stock, i.e., the believing kernel of the nation was to be left. It is the keynote of that which Jeremiah spoke of in 4:27.)

GOD WILL CONSUME JUDAH

¹¹For the House of Israel and the House of Judah have dealt very treacherously against Me, says the LORD. (Here the Lord speaks of both Israel and Judah, even though Israel had been completely destroyed a little over 100 years before. He concluded both to have committed spiritual high treason. He uses the words, against Me, referring to the fact that all sin is directed by Satan against God.)

¹²They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not He; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine (It is not He, refers to the fact that Judah denied that God was speaking through Jeremiah.

They have belied the LORD, means to give a false representation of something, or to contradict):

¹³And the Prophets shall become wind, and the Word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them. (Verses 12 and 13 could be paraphrased: They have contradicted Jehovah, and said, Not He! Neither shall calamity come upon us, neither shall we see sword nor famine; for the Prophets [i.e. Jehovahs True Prophets] are windbags, and the Word [of God] is not in them; and the miseries which they threaten will come upon themselves!

Thus, the popular Preachers of that time, as at the present day, said that God never punishes sin and sinners; that He never casts anyone into the Lake of Fire; that, in fact, there is no Lake of Fire; and that those Preachers who announce His coming Wrath belie His Character and talk nonsense.)

¹⁴Wherefore thus says the LORD God of Hosts, Because you speak this Word, behold, I will make My Words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. (The fire that would devour them would be the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Jeremiah. Yet for all this, Judah would not turn.)

¹⁵Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O House of Israel, says the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you know not, neither understand what they say. (This nation speaks of the mighty Babylonian Empire.)

¹⁶Their quiver is as a open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. (The idea of this Passage, as given by the Holy Spirit, is to portray the cruelty and the power of the Babylonian invader, all used as the instruments of the Lord.)

¹⁷And they shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat: they shall eat up your flocks and your herds: they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees: they shall impoverish your fenced cities, wherein you trusted, with the sword. (Which your sons and your daughters should eat, in the original Hebrew actually says, They shall eat your sons and your daughters, meaning they would be killed!)

¹⁸Nevertheless in those days, says the LORD, I will not make a full end with you. (Gods tender pity for guilty men is revealed in the sentences: I will pardon her [Vs. 1], but not make a full end [Vs. 10], and I will not make a full end with you [Vs. 18].)

¹⁹And it shall come to pass, when you shall say, Wherefore does the LORD our God all these things unto us? then shall you answer them, Like as you have forsaken Me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours. (The intent of this Passage is that inasmuch as the Jews served foreign gods in Jehovahs Land, they shall become the slaves of foreigners in a land that is not theirs.)

SPIRITUAL AND CIVIL CORRUPTION BRINGS JUDGMENT AND PUNISHMENT

²⁰Declare this in the House of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying (Jeremiah is told to proclaim this Message to the people of Judah. It is to be published, meaning to be proliferated among the people),

²¹Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and see not; who have ears, and hear not (without understanding, actually means without heart; it means that the people have no heart toward God; they have set a course of deliberate sin, which always perverts a mans moral perceptions; the Prophet first of all states the result, and then the cause.

The statement, Who have eyes and see not, refers to judicial blindness. In other words, they desired to be such!):

²²Fear you not Me? says the LORD: will you not tremble at My Presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it? (The sense of the Passage is that the sands of the seashore obey God, but His People disobey Him. They disobey Him because they have no fear of Him!)

²³But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone. (The heart is the center of the moral and Spiritual Life, virtually equivalent to the will. A rebellious heart, refers to actively defying and opposing the Lord. A revolting heart refers to turning back from Gods Law and service.)

²⁴Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, Who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in His Season: He reserves unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. (In this Verse, we have another perpetual decree, as outlined in Verse 22. This one is the rain and appointed weeks of the harvest. The word perpetual in Verse 22 means that these Laws are eternal, and consequently the seasons are eternal and unchangeable, and made so by Gods Decree [Gen. 8:22]. The appointed weeks are the seven weeks which elapse from the second day of the Passover to the Feast of Pentecost [Ex. 23:16; 34:22; Deut. 16:9-10].)

²⁵Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good things from you. (Let the reader understand that as sin withheld good things from Judah, likewise, sin withholds good things from any and all.)

²⁶For among My People are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he who sets snares; they set a trap, they catch men. (Who are these wicked men? They are the Priests, Pastors, and Prophets of 2:8. They, in their religious schemes, have no desire to carry out the Will of God, but rather to catch men in their web in order to sustain their lavish lifestyles. How so similar to the modern Word of Faith doctrine or greed gospel!)

²⁷As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxed rich. (This Verse could be paraphrased: As a cage is full of birds caught in traps, so their houses are full of riches secured by deceit. God is not opposed to greatness or riches as such, but is deadly opposed to such obtained by Spiritual Fraud and Spiritual Deceit.)

²⁸They are waxed fat, they shine: yes, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. (Yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked, literally means they overpass the common measure of wickedness. This was the sin that opposed Christ, the sin of the Pharisees.

They judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, refers to the fact that their prosperity was at the expense of the poor, and even the poorest of the poor!)

²⁹Shall I not visit for these things? sa ys the LORD: shall not My Soul be avenged on such a nation as this? (This Verse is a repetition of Verse 9, in order to impress the severity of the situation! This, as Verse 9, carries powerful weight, because it answers the charges of the preceding Verses.)

³⁰A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land (the words, wonderful and horrible, could have been translated appalling and horrible. The word appalling means stupefying);

³¹The Prophets prophesy falsely, and the Priests bear rule by their means; and My People love to have it so: and what will you do in the end thereof? (The Priests were appointed to teach the Law. They failed to do so! God then raised up the Prophets to teach the people, but Satan sent out false prophets to oppose and confuse the Truth, and the Priests united with them.)