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The Utter Corruption of God’s People

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.

Although they say, “As the L ord lives,”

yet they swear falsely.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They were well-fed lusty stallions,

each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.

Shall I not punish them for these things?

says the L ord;

and shall I not bring retribution

on a nation such as this?

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.

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah

have been utterly faithless to me,

says the L ord.

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.”

The prophets are nothing but wind,

for the word is not in them.

Thus shall it be done to them!

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.

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.

Their quiver is like an open tomb;

all of them are mighty warriors.

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.”

Declare this in the house of Jacob,

proclaim it in Judah:

Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,

who have eyes, but do not see,

who have ears, but do not hear.

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.

But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart;

they have turned aside and gone away.

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.”

Your iniquities have turned these away,

and your sins have deprived you of good.

For scoundrels are found among my people;

they take over the goods of others.

Like fowlers they set a trap;

they catch human beings.

Like a cage full of birds,

their houses are full of treachery;

therefore they have become great and rich,

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.

Shall I not punish them for these things?

says the L ord,

and shall I not bring retribution

on a nation such as this?

An appalling and horrible thing

has happened in the land:

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.

He expresses more clearly and fully what he had previously said. Their perfidy was, that they had denied God I do not wholly reject what others have said, that they lied to God: but as ב is here used after כחש, I cannot see that it means to lie. It ought to have been in that case, כחשו, ליהוהcacheshu La-Jeve: but as it is ביהוה, Be-Jeve, I doubt not but that he simply declares that they denied God; and the context seems to require this meaning; for he immediately adds, that they said there was no God ¹⁴²¹⁴²     According to all the instances in which the verb occurs, followed by ב, its meaning is what Calvin states, though not so rendered uniformly in our version. The verb, followed by ב, occurs elsewhere five times, — Leviticus, 6:2, 3; Joshua 24:27; Job 8:18; Isaiah 59:13; Hosea 9:2. In Leviticus 6:3, וכחש בה, ought to be rendered, “and denieth it;” and so the verb ought to be, rendered in the previous verse, “and deny to his neighbor his deposit,” etc. It is rendered here “lied to the Lord” by the Septuagint and the Targum; and “denied the Lord” by the Vulgate and the Syriac, and so also by Piscator, Venema, and Blayney. The denial seems to have been as to the Lord speaking in his prophets. Calvin appears to have gone too far in saying that they denied his existence. The expression which follows, “Not he,“ means that he was not in the prophets. The import is correctly given in our version, “It is not he,“ that is, who speaks in the prophets. The verse might be literally given thus, —
   12. And they deny Jehovah, And say, “It is not he, And come upon us shall not evil, And the sword and the famine we shall not see.”
   Then the following verse, which is a continuation of what they said, proves clearly what the meaning of this is, —
   13. “And the prophets shall be wind, For the word is not in them: Thus shall it happen to them,”
   or,
   Thus shall it be done to them.
   That is, they shall be found out to be like the wind, having spoken nothing real, such as shall be accomplished. Indeed the last line may be translated thus, —
   Thus shall he do to (or, deal with) them.
   The reference in this case is to God, who, they thought, would render abortive, or turn as it were into wind, what the prophets had threatened. Their blindness and presumption appear to us to have been extreme. — Ed. This certainly was not to lie to God, but to reject him as one who did not exist. As then the sense would be less significant, were we to say, that they lied to God, I am inclined to take the other meaning, that they denied God; that is, that they wholly disregarded him or sought to erase the remembrance of him.

The reason which follow requires special notice: They have said, He is not To render this more clear, he says, that they boasted of impunity. It seemed, no doubt, to exceed credibility, when the Prophet said that God was denied by the Jews; but that they might not evade the charge, he continued it, they have said, He is not We are further to consider why he brought against them so grievous and so atrocious a charge: it was, because they boasted that they should be free from the punishments which the prophets had threatened.

We then see what Jeremiah alleges against them, even their contempt and also their perverseness. They felt themselves safe notwithstanding the prophetic threatenings. The Prophet says, this is nothing less than wholly to deny God. Were we judges, this declaration might appear too severe: but let us pause, and acquiesce in what the Holy Spirit has pronounced.

And this is a remarkable passage, whence we may learn how abhorred by God is their indifference, who harden themselves against his threatenings, and wholly disregard his judgment. For if we acknowledge him as God, his power as a judge ought not to be taken away. What does God’s name mean? Doubtless they who imagine that God remains quiet in heaven and enjoys his leisure and his rest, though they may not in words deny God, yet treat him with mockery: there is in them at the same time no religion and no thought of a divine being. Let us then carefully notice this passage, in which the Prophet testifies that God is denied by us, except we be moved by his threatenings; for the torpidity in which we indulge ourselves, when God denounces his judgment on us, is the same as the denial of him; nor is there anything by which they can extenuate their sin who thus despise the vengeance of God. For the Holy Spirit has once for all declared, that all who trifle with the prophets do in their hearts say, that there is no God, inasmuch as they deprive him of his power and of his office, and leave him only a naked essence; nay, they make him only a creature of the imagination or a mere phantom.

We now then understand the meaning of the Prophet: he more fully explains the perfidy with which he had charged the Jews; for he says that they denied God, and said, He is not; and they proved that they did all this, for they did not believe the evil to be at hand which the prophets had announced. It afterwards follows —

¹⁴² According to all the instances in which the verb occurs, followed by ב, its meaning is what Calvin states, though not so rendered uniformly in our version. The verb, followed by ב, occurs elsewhere five times, — Leviticus, 6:2, 3; Joshua 24:27; Job 8:18; Isaiah 59:13; Hosea 9:2. In Leviticus 6:3, וכחש בה, ought to be rendered, “and denieth it;” and so the verb ought to be, rendered in the previous verse, “and deny to his neighbor his deposit,” etc. It is rendered here “lied to the Lord” by the Septuagint and the Targum; and “denied the Lord” by the Vulgate and the Syriac, and so also by Piscator, Venema, and Blayney. The denial seems to have been as to the Lord speaking in his prophets. Calvin appears to have gone too far in saying that they denied his existence. The expression which follows, “Not he,“ means that he was not in the prophets. The import is correctly given in our version, “It is not he,“ that is, who speaks in the prophets. The verse might be literally given thus, — 12. And they deny Jehovah, And say, “It is not he, And come upon us shall not evil, And the sword and the famine we shall not see.” Then the following verse, which is a continuation of what they said, proves clearly what the meaning of this is, — 13. “And the prophets shall be wind, For the word is not in them: Thus shall it happen to them,” or, Thus shall it be done to them. That is, they shall be found out to be like the wind, having spoken nothing real, such as shall be accomplished. Indeed the last line may be translated thus, — Thus shall he do to (or, deal with) them. The reference in this case is to God, who, they thought, would render abortive, or turn as it were into wind, what the prophets had threatened. Their blindness and presumption appear to us to have been extreme. — Ed.