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The Utter Corruption of God’s People5 Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth— so that I may pardon Jerusalem. 2 Although they say, “As the L ord lives,” yet they swear falsely. 3 O L ord, do your eyes not look for truth? You have struck them, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to turn back.
4 Then I said, “These are only the poor, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the L ord, the law of their God. 5 Let me go to the rich and speak to them; surely they know the way of the L ord, the law of their God.” But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds.
6 Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them, a wolf from the desert shall destroy them. A leopard is watching against their cities; everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces— because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.
7 How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of prostitutes. 8 They were well-fed lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife. 9 Shall I not punish them for these things? says the L ord; and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?
10 Go up through her vine-rows and destroy, but do not make a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the L ord’s. 11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly faithless to me, says the L ord. 12 They have spoken falsely of the L ord, and have said, “He will do nothing. No evil will come upon us, and we shall not see sword or famine.” 13 The prophets are nothing but wind, for the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them!
14 Therefore thus says the L ord, the God of hosts: Because they have spoken this word, I am now making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and the fire shall devour them. 15 I am going to bring upon you a nation from far away, O house of Israel, says the L ord. It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. 16 Their quiver is like an open tomb; all of them are mighty warriors. 17 They shall eat up your harvest and your food; they shall eat up your sons and your daughters; they shall eat up your flocks and your herds; they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; they shall destroy with the sword your fortified cities in which you trust.
18 But even in those days, says the L ord, I will not make a full end of you. 19And when your people say, “Why has the L ord our God done all these things to us?” you shall say to them, “As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”
20 Declare this in the house of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah: 21 Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but do not see, who have ears, but do not hear. 22 Do you not fear me? says the L ord; Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail, though they roar, they cannot pass over it. 23 But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away. 24 They do not say in their hearts, “Let us fear the L ord our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.” 25 Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have deprived you of good. 26 For scoundrels are found among my people; they take over the goods of others. Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings. 27 Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, 28 they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. 29 Shall I not punish them for these things? says the L ord, and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?
30 An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: 31 the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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Here God by the mouth of his Prophet addresses the enemies of his people, whom he had appointed to be the ministers of his vengeance: and this was usual with the prophets, when they sought more effectually to rouse and more sharply to touch the hearts of men; for we know how great is their indifference when God summons them to judgment. As then Jeremiah saw that simple instruction availed but little, he used this mode of speaking. He then in the person of God addresses the Chaldeans, and bids them to come to attack Jerusalem. The prophets often speak thus, — “Hiss will God for the Egyptians,” or, “Sound shall the trumpet, and he will send for the Chaldeans.” (Isaiah 5:26; Isaiah 7:18.) But the representation is more effectual to penetrate into the hearts of men, when the Prophet at God’s command assembles enemies as a celestial herald and bids them what to do, even to destroy the whole city. He says first, Ascend ye her walls By which words he intimates, that the Jews in vain boasted of the height of their walls, for God would make their enemies to ascend them, so that the entrance would not be difficult. They hoped indeed that they were safe, because the city was well fortified. Hence he says, that they were deceived; and he exposes their folly, for their walls would not protect them. He afterwards adds, An end do not make This sentence is explained in two ways. Some take it in a good sense, as though God mitigated the extremity of their punishment, according to the meaning which some attach to the words in the last chapter; for though God in that passage terrified the Jews, yet they consider that by way of mitigation this was added, “I will not yet make a consummation,” that is, there will be some remaining. And the prophets are wont thus to speak, when they intend to shew that some seed will ever remain, so that the Church shall not wholly be destroyed. Thus also do the same interpreters explain this passage, as though God had said, that the ruin of Jerusalem would be such that the Church would still continue, for there would be no consummation. But others take כלה, cale, as signifying an end: and this meaning is more suitable; for God in this verse severely threatens the Jews with destruction. It is no objection, that it is said elsewhere, that the consummation would not be complete; for it is quite evident that the prophets do not always adopt the same mode in speaking: when they denounce vengeance on the reprobate, they leave no hope; and so this mode of speaking often occurs, “I will make an end:” but when they address the faithful, they moderate the severity of their threatenings by saying, “God will not make a consummation.” I am therefore disposed to take their view, whom regard consummation here as signifying an end; and כלל, calal, means to finish. The meaning then is, “Demolish the city, and let there be no end,“ that is, destroy it entirely. 139139 See Note on Jeremiah 4:27. To the same purpose is what immediately follows, Take away her shoots, or her branches, or the teeth of her walls, as some render the word. I think, however, that the Prophet refers to the width of the walls in their foundations; for we know that walls are so built, that the foundation is wider than the upper structure. The word which the Prophet uses, means shoots, which spread far and wide. They who render it, the wings of the walls, seem not to me to understand what the Prophet means; for he speaks not here of the top of the walls, but of the foundations, as though he had said, “Overthrow or demolish from the foundation the walls of the city: “and why? They are not Jehovah’s, he adds. The Jews were inflated with this empty confidence, — that they were safe under the protection of God; for they imagined that God was the guardian of the city, because the sanctuary and the altar were there. Hence the Prophet declares, that the walls or the foundations were not God’s. 140140 It is true the word means shoots or branches; but as the root means to spread, it evidently signifies here battlements, bulwarks, or ramparts. It is rendered “ὑποστηρίγματα — props, pillars,” by the Septuagint; “propagines — shoots,” by the Vulgate; “foundations,” by the Syriac and Arabic; and “palaces, or towers,” by the Targum. Our version has the most suitable word — “battlements.” Blayney has “branches,“ and thinks that the cities of Judea are meant; but this is not suitable to the context. — Ed. Nor could it have been objected, that it is said elsewhere, that the city had been founded by the Lord: God had indeed chosen his habitation and his throne there; but on this condition — that the people should faithfully worship him. When Jerusalem was made a den of thieves, God departed thence, according to what is said by Ezekiel in chapter 14 (Ezekiel 14). Here then the Prophet reproves that foolish confidence, by which the Jews deceived themselves, when they thought that God was in a manner bound never to forsake the defense of the city. He denies that their walls and foundations were God’s; for the Jews by their sins had so polluted the whole place, that God could not dwell in such filth. It follows — |