Jeremiah 5:1

Judah is Justly Deserving of Coming Judgment

5:1 The Lord said, ¹ 

“Go up and down ²  through the streets of Jerusalem. ³ 

Look around and see for yourselves.

Search through its public squares.

See if any of you can find a single person

who deals honestly and tries to be truthful. ⁴ 

If you can, ⁵  then I will not punish this city. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 5:5

5:5 I will go to the leaders ⁷ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ⁸ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ⁹ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 9:24

9:24 If people want to boast, they should boast about this:

They should boast that they understand and know me.

They should boast that they know and understand

that I, the Lord, act out of faithfulness, fairness, and justice in the earth

and that I desire people to do these things,” ¹¹ 

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 21:12

21:12 O royal family descended from David. ¹² 

The Lord says:

‘See to it that people each day ¹³  are judged fairly. ¹⁴ 

Deliver those who have been robbed from those ¹⁵  who oppress them.

Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you.

It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out

because of the evil that you have done. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 22:3

22:3 The Lord says, “Do what is just and right. Deliver those who have been robbed from those ¹⁷  who oppress them. Do not exploit or mistreat foreigners who live in your land, children who have no fathers, or widows. ¹⁸  Do not kill innocent people ¹⁹  in this land.

Jeremiah 26:11

26:11 Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said, ²⁰  “This man should be condemned to die ²¹  because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so ²²  with your own ears.”

Jeremiah 26:16

26:16 Then the officials and all the people rendered their verdict to the priests and the prophets. They said, ²³  “This man should not be condemned to die. ²⁴  For he has spoken to us under the authority of the Lord our God.” ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 32:7

32:7 ‘Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you soon. He will say to you, “Buy my field at Anathoth because you are entitled ²⁶  as my closest relative to buy it.”’ ²⁷ 

[5:1]  ¹ tn These words are not in the text, but since the words at the end are obviously those of the Lord, they are supplied in the translation here to mark the shift in speaker from 4:29-31 where Jeremiah is the obvious speaker.

[5:1]  ² tn It is not clear who is being addressed here. The verbs are plural so they are not addressed to Jeremiah per se. Since the passage is talking about the people of Jerusalem, it is unlikely they are addressed here except perhaps rhetorically. Some have suggested that the heavenly court is being addressed here as in Job 1:6-8; 2:1-3. It is clear from Jer 23:18, 22; Amos 3:7 that the prophets had access to this heavenly counsel through visions (cf. 1 Kgs 22:19-23), so Jeremiah could have been privy to this speech through that means. Though these are the most likely addressee, it is too presumptuous to supply such an explicit addressee without clearer indication in the text. The translation will just have to run the risk of the probable erroneous assumption by most English readers that the addressee is Jeremiah.

[5:1]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[5:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “who does justice and seeks faithfulness.”

[5:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “squares. If you can find…if there is one person…then I will…”

[5:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “forgive [or pardon] it.”

[5:5]  ⁷ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.

[9:24]  ¹³ tn Or “fairness and justice, because these things give me pleasure.” Verse 24 reads in Hebrew, “But let the one who brags brag in this: understanding and knowing me that I, the Lord, do faithfulness, justice, and righteousness in the earth for/that I delight in these.” It is uncertain whether the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) before the clause “I delight in these things” is parallel to the כִּי introducing the clause “that I, the Lord, act…” or causal giving the grounds for the Lord acting the way he does. In the light of the contrasts in the passage and the emphasis that Jeremiah has placed on obedience to the covenant and ethical conduct in conjunction with real allegiance to the Lord not mere lip service, it is probable that the clauses are parallel. For the use of כִּי to introduce clauses of further definition after a direct object as here see GKC 365 §117.h and see BDB 393 s.v. יָדַע Qal.1.a. For parallels to the idea of Yahweh requiring these characteristics in people see Hos 6:6, Mic 6:8.

[21:12]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “house of David.” This is essentially equivalent to the royal court in v. 11.

[21:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “to the morning” = “morning by morning” or “each morning.” See Isa 33:2 and Amos 4:4 for parallel usage.

[21:12]  ²¹ sn The kings of Israel and Judah were responsible for justice. See Pss 122:5. The king himself was the final court of appeals judging from the incident of David with the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14), Solomon and the two prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16-28), and Absalom’s attempts to win the hearts of the people of Israel by interfering with due process (2 Sam 15:2-4). How the system was designed to operate may be seen from 2 Chr 19:4-11.

[21:12]  ²² tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[21:12]  ²³ tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”

[22:3]  ²⁵ tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[22:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “aliens, orphans, or widows” treating the terms as generic or collective. However, the term “alien” carries faulty connotations and the term “orphan” is not totally appropriate because the Hebrew term does not necessarily mean that both parents have died.

[22:3]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Do not shed innocent blood.”

[26:11]  ³¹ tn Heb “the priests and prophets said to the leaders and the people….” The long sentence has been broken up to conform better with contemporary English style and the situational context is reflected in “laid their charges.”

[26:11]  ³² tn Heb “a sentence of death to this man.”

[26:11]  ³³ tn Heb “it.”

[26:16]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets…”

[26:16]  ³⁸ sn Contrast v. 11.

[26:16]  ³⁹ tn Heb “For in the name of the Lord our God he has spoken to us.” The emphasis is on “in the name of…”

[32:7]  ⁴³ tn Heb “your right.” The term מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) here and in v. 8 refers to legal entitlement for the option to purchase a property (BDB 1049 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 5; cf. Deut 21:17).

[32:7]  ⁴⁴ sn Underlying this request are the laws of redemption of property spelled out in Lev 25:25-34 and illustrated in Ruth 4:3-4. Under these laws, if a property owner became impoverished and had to sell his land, the nearest male relative had the right and duty to buy it so that it would not pass out of the use of the extended family. The land, however, would not actually belong to Jeremiah because in the year of Jubilee it reverted to its original owner. All Jeremiah was actually buying was the right to use it (Lev 25:13-17). Buying the field, thus, did not make any sense (thus Jeremiah’s complaint in v. 25) other than the fact that the Lord intended to use Jeremiah’s act as a symbol of a restored future in the land.