The Judahites having sinned greatly (ch. 2) failed to repent (3:1-4:4). Consequently judgment in the form of military invasion would overtake them. This whole section is an amplification and explanation of the overflowing caldron vision in 1:13-16.
This section provides a clear example of the mosaic structure of the Book of Jeremiah. It consists of 13 separate messages that all deal with the threat of approaching invasion from the north. Someone, Jeremiah and or others, skillfully arranged them in the present order to make a strong impact on the reader.
4:5 The Lord instructed Jeremiah to call for the people of Judah to assemble in the main cities. Blowing the trumpet in Israel's history and in the ancient Near East was a call to assemble and take cover in fortified cities, similar to the sounding of an air raid siren today (cf. Hos. 5:8; Joel 2:1; Amos 3:6).
4:6 The people were to lift up a flag or light a signal fire (Heb. nes) in Jerusalem as a sign of coming attack (cf. Isa. 13:2; 18:3). They should seek refuge quickly because the Lord was bringing an evil destroying force against them from the north (cf. 2 Kings. 16:5-6; Hos. 5:8: Joel 2:1; Amos 3:6). This was not just a twist of political fate; Yahweh was sending this enemy against His people.
4:7 A lion-like enemy had left its home to desolate Judah and its cities, and this enemy would succeed in driving out the inhabitants of these towns (cf. 1 Pet. 5:8). As noted previously, one of the symbols of Babylon was the lion.119
4:8 The people of Judah were to go into mourning over this situation. They were to view it as part of the continuing judgment of Yahweh on them.
4:9 When this enemy invaded, all the people, represented by their various groups of leaders, would be terrified (cf. 2:8, 26). False prophets had created the illusion that peace would continue indefinitely (cf. 6:13-14; 14:13-14; 23:16-17).
4:10 Jeremiah responded to this revelation by objecting that the sovereign Lord had misled His people by telling them that they would have peace when really they would have war. The basis of his charge seems to be that God had allowed false prophets to predict peace. Even though Jeremiah announced this judgment he took no personal delight in it because it meant the destruction of his own people.
"At first glance Jeremiah's comments appear to be blasphemous. . . . Rather must we see in such an utterance not so much a considered judgment, but the spontaneous reaction of a man who felt deeply about the tragedies of life, whether his own or those of others."120
4:11-12 The Lord also said that when this invasion would come it would descend like a violent wind from the north. It would be far more severe than an ordinary attack that the prophet compared to a gentle breeze that would winnow the grain of the people, namely, discipline them gently. This "wind"would come at Yahweh's command and would be the instrument of God's judgment on the people. They were all too familiar with such devastating winds, or siroccos, that blew almost unbearable heat and dust into Judah from the Arabian desert (cf. Gen. 41:6; Jon. 4:8).
4:13 Jeremiah reflected on the great power of God to bring judgment. He has the power to bring judgment as He has power to build clouds that bring rain. The approaching enemy was like a bank of storm clouds growing in the north (cf. Ezek. 38:16). The coming whirlwind was like a chariot on which the Lord rode to fight (cf. Isa. 5:28; 66:15). He can act even faster than eagles can fly. The foe would swoop down suddenly (cf. Hab. 1:8). Consequently, Judah was in big trouble.
4:14 The prophet appealed to his people to cleanse their hearts so God would be merciful to them. There was still time for repentance. The people needed to get rid of their wicked thoughts that had marked them for so long.
4:15 Already a voice, probably that of a watchman, from Dan, in the far north, and from Mount Ephraim, in the north but much closer to Judah, was heard warning of the coming invader. Mount Ephraim is a reference to the mountains in the territory of Ephraim.121This voice may refer to the testimony of the Northern Kingdom that had already been overrun by another similar invader from the north, Assyria.
4:16 The Lord continued to tell Jeremiah to announce to all nations, as well as to Jerusalem, that besiegers were coming from a distant country and would lift their battle cries against Jerusalem.
4:17 This enemy would surround the capital and observe the city carefully, as a watchman stood guard over his field to detect any possible irregularities. This invasion would come on Jerusalem because the people had rebelled against Yahweh.
4:18 God's people had brought this punishment on themselves by breaking the Mosaic Covenant. God was not acting arbitrarily. Their evil had been great, but it had not moved them to repent.
This section is the first of Jeremiah's so-called "confessions."122
4:19 Jeremiah complained that his heart was pounding and he felt very upset because he had heard the Lord's announcement of impending invasion and destruction.
". . . it would be hard to find a sharper description of uncontrollable inner turmoil . . ."123
4:20 The prophet understood that this announcement meant sudden and complete devastation for Judah.
4:21 He longed to stop hearing this bad news and seeing the signal that indicated the need to flee for safety (cf. v. 6).
4:22 The Lord complained that His people were foolish, like stupid children. They did not really understand Him but felt they could deceive Him and that He would not bring them to account for their sins. They were clever when it came to sinning, but not clever at all when it came to understanding that He would punish their sins (cf. Prov. 1:2-3).
"These verses of confession illuminate the internal torment of a man who is torn, precisely because he is himself so gripped by the urgency of his public preaching. He is not stern in public because he is heartless; it is because he loves his nation and people so dearly that he speaks the severe word, but it takes a terrible toll on his own emotional life."124
"In one of the most magnificent lyrical passages in the entire prophecy [vv. 23-31], Jeremiah experiences a dramatic moment of insight concerning the outpouring of divine anger upon Judah."125
4:23 Jeremiah described the land of Judah after the coming devastation as completely desolate, like the earth and heavens before God formed and filled them. He suggested that they would return to primeval chaos.
4:24 He described the mountains, symbols of stability and strength, as moving back and forth. This was a picture of instability and weakness for the people.
4:25 The people had deserted the land, and even the birds were gone, so thoroughly had this enemy purged the land.126
4:26 The Lord's fierce anger had resulted in the land becoming wild and the cities destroyed.
"The picture is so extreme that only our present forebodings of nuclear winter may seem to come within sight of it."127
4:27 The Lord promised to destroy the whole land but not completely. A remnant of His people would survive the disaster.
4:28 Yahweh's fixed purpose to bring this destruction on Judah was such bad news that even the earth and heavens would mourn upon hearing His plan.
4:29 The inhabitants of every Judean city would run and hide when they heard the enemy coming (cf. Isa. 2:19-21; Rev. 6:15-16). The result would be vacant cities throughout the land. Archaeological monuments have shown that the Babylonians were a people of archers.128
4:30 The Lord asked Judah what she would do then. Presently she pursued selfish interests and tried to make herself as attractive as possible, like a harlot, but the nations that pretended to love her would turn against her and attack her (cf. Rev. 17). No last-minute compromise with the invaders would placate them. The unfaithful wife of Yahweh would reap judgment for the profligacy she had sown (cf. 3:1; 2:35-36).
4:31 Judah would cry out like a woman giving birth for the first time. She would be in agony because of the adversaries who had come to put her to death. Neither pretty words (v. 30) nor a pitiful cry (v. 31) would turn the Lord back from His decision to judge His people.129
". . . Jerusalem's demise [in a fatal miscarriage] would be like that of a prostitute giving birth to a firstborn bastard."130
Now God gave His people reasons for the coming judgment. He stressed social and personal sins particularly.
"Jeremiah now appreciates the moral necessity for God's judgment of His people, as he sees clearly with his own eyes the iniquity, selfishness and depravity of life in Jerusalem."131
5:1 The Lord challenged Jeremiah to search Jerusalem for a man who was just and sought the truth.132If he could find even one on his "scavenger hunt,"133the Lord promised to pardon the city (cf. Gen. 18:23-32).
"Obviously some godly people like Josiah, Baruch, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah himself were living in Jerusalem. But the words certainly applied to the mass of the populace. In short, corruption was so widespread that exceptions were not significant (cf. Ps. 14)."134
Justice and truthfulness are two terms that often appear together in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament. They are covenant qualities that govern relations between people and God and between people and other people.135
5:2 The Jerusalemites used the Lord's name to swear by, but then they showed no respect for Him by breaking their promises made in His name. When a person swore by Yahweh's name he or she called on the Lord to punish him or her if the swearer violated the terms of the oath.
5:3 Jeremiah acknowledged that even though the people of Jerusalem did not seek truth (v. 1) the Lord did. The prophet knew that Yahweh's discipline of the people had not yielded repentance. They had hardened themselves against Him and had refused to repent (Heb. shub).
"Jerusalem was to fall at the hands of the political enemy from without because of the spiritual enemies of God working from within."136
5:4-5 Jeremiah, as he searched for righteous people in the city, initially concluded that only the ignorant and foolish ordinary citizens were blind to God's ways and laws. But as he continued to investigate he discovered that the informed leaders among the people had also rebelled against the Lord.
5:6 Therefore, the people of Judah would become prey for their savage animal-like enemies (cf. 2:15; 4:7; Hos. 13:7-8; Hab. 1:8; Zeph. 3:3).
"The lion represents strength, the desert wolf ravenousness, and the leopard swiftness--all traits of the Babylonians."137
When the Judahites would try to leave their towns, the foe would devour them. The reason was they had transgressed Yahweh's covenant greatly and had departed from Him many times. The eighth-century B.C. Sefire treaties contain references to lions and leopards ravaging people in fulfillment of a treaty curse.138The Judahites were familiar with wild beasts attacking and killing humans outside their cities (cf. 2 Kings. 17:25).
5:7 Yahweh asked the people why He should pardon them. Their sons, for whom the older generation was responsible, had forsaken Him and trusted in idols. As payment for blessings He had sent them, they proceeded to commit adultery with the Canaanite gods and their human representatives.
5:8 They were like well-fed stallions that used their strength to pursue illegitimate mates, even their neighbor's wives. Spiritual adultery led to physical adultery.
"They used their affluence for sin. Does that sound familiar? Consider modern dramas, novels, movies, painting, sculpture. In the midst of the affluent society often the artist's answer is a call to the hedonistic life."139
5:9 Was it not just for Yahweh to punish such a people and to take vengeance on them for their sins (cf. v. 7)? It certainly was just, as verses 7 and 8 amply demonstrated (cf. Eph. 5:5; Heb. 13:4).140
5:10 Speaking to the invading soldiers that He would use to judge Judah, the Lord instructed them to prune His vine (cf. Isa. 5:1-7). However, they were to leave a remnant (cf. v. 18). They were to take many branches away because they were not His, namely, not faithful to Him (cf. John 15:1-6; Rom. 11:17-24).
5:11-12 Both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms had behaved treacherously toward the Lord. They had lied about Him saying that He would not judge them by sending misfortune, war, or famine to touch them. They denied God and His warnings about judgment (cf. Gen. 3:4). They were blind due to complacency.
5:13 There were many prophets in both kingdoms whose alleged prophecies were nothing more than hot air (wind, Heb. ruah, also translated "spirit"). They did not utter the Lord's words. God indeed would bring judgment on His people.
"The essence of true prophecy was the spiritof God, but such was their blindness, or willful ignorance, that they could not discern between windand the true spiritof prophecy."141
5:14 Yahweh, the ultimate power and authority in the universe, promised to make the messages that He had put in Jeremiah's mouth for the people like fire, not like hot air. His words would consume them in the sense that they would result in the people's destruction if repentance did not follow.
5:15 The Lord promised His people, called Israel here, that He would bring destruction against them by consuming them with Jeremiah's fiery words. The destroyer would come from a distant nation whose language they did not understand; it would not come from some nearby nation (cf. Deut. 28:49).
"Though Judah might appeal for mercy, the language barrier would prevent her cries from being heeded because they would not be understood."142
This nation was old and enduring. Babylon traced its origins back to Babel (Gen. 10:10; 11:1-9, 31).
5:16 The enemy soldiers' yawning quivers would be like open graves in that their arrows would slay the Judahites and send them to other large openings--in the ground (cf. Ps. 5:9). All the enemy soldiers would be mighty warriors, not just citizens recruited for military duty.
5:17 These soldiers would devour and demolish everything that the Judahites owned and trusted in for security.
5:18 In spite of such a thorough destruction, the Lord promised not to wipe out His people completely (cf. v. 10). He would be faithful to His covenant promises even though His people were unfaithful to their covenant responsibilities (cf. 2 Tim. 2:13).
5:19 When the people asked Jeremiah for an explanation of their circumstances, he was to tell them that since they had forsaken serving Him and worshipped idols in His land, the Lord was sending them to serve strangers in the land of those idols. This was only fair (recompense in kind, the lex talionis, cf. Deut. 28:47-48).
There were three aspects to Judah's failure: the people's perversity (vv. 20-25), their injustice (vv. 26-29), and their leaders (vv. 30-31).143
"Jeremiah rebukes the Judeans as a whole for their utter stupidity and lack of moral discernment. They have flaunted the covenant stipulations, and many ruthless individuals have prospered at the expense of the down-trodden."144
5:20-21 Jeremiah was also to deliver another message to the Judahites. He was to command them to hear even though they were foolish and heartless, blind and deaf to the Lord (cf. Isa. 6:9; Matt. 13:14-15; John 12:40; Acts 28:26).
"Although we have much sympathy for a man who cannot read because his eyes are sightless, our attitude is much different toward one who has never learned to read because of laziness or stubbornness. In a country where everyone has an opportunity to learn to read and write, illiteracy is regarded as an inexcusable tragedy. Spiritual illiteracy is little different. God is not sparing in His denunciation of those who have had a chance to know Him and His salvation but have despised the opportunity."145
5:22 Should His people not fear Him and tremble before Him since He sovereignly controlled the untamable sea? What they feared had no power over them because Yahweh controlled it. He was the one who also sovereignly controlled the borders of nations. The people of Judah had not observed the sovereignly ordained borders for their behavior in the Mosaic Law, and chaos was the result.
5:23 God's people had proved stubborn and rebellious at heart. Unlike the sea, they failed to submit to Yahweh's sovereignty (cf. 1:3). In their actions they had turned aside (Heb. shub), apostatized, and departed from the Lord and His covenant.
5:24 They did not acknowledge Yahweh as the source of the blessings of nature either. The Canaanites believed that Baal controlled the rains and fruitfulness of the land, and the Judahites had adopted their viewpoint. Nevertheless it was Yahweh, not Baal, who gave Israel her grain. The "weeks of the harvest"were the seven weeks between Passover and the Feast of Weeks each spring. At those two feasts the Jews celebrated the Lord's goodness to them in giving them a good harvest (cf. Lev. 23:10, 17).
5:25 The people's sins had resulted in God withholding the blessings of nature from them as well as other good things. The reasons for their blindness were mainly moral rather than intellectual.
5:26-27 Many of the Judahites had wickedly tricked their neighbors and had accumulated wealth by deceiving them. They had put their fellow Israelites in their debt, robbed them of their freedom, and so caged them like birds (cf. Hab. 2:6, 8; Mark 10:19; 1 Thess. 4:6; Titus 2:10).
"Birds were snared with a net; men closed the net with cords when a bird came into it. Then the birds were put into a basket (. . . Mic 7:2)."146
5:28 These social bullies had grown fat (wealthy, cf. Deut. 32:15; Ps. 92:14; Prov. 28:25) at the expense of their neighbors so expert had they become in wickedness. Instead of giving special help to the needy among them, they had withheld assistance so they could keep their money for themselves.
5:29 Again the Lord asked rhetorically if punishment for this type of conduct was not just (cf. vv. 7, 9). Of course it was.
5:30-31 The Lord announced that an appalling and horrible thing had happened in Judah. The prophets did not deliver the Lord's messages but what the people wanted to hear. Also the priests conducted worship as they thought best rather than as the Lord had specified. But instead of revolting against these misleaders the people loved their apostate behavior. Yet, the Lord asked, what would they do in the end?147They could not avoid His judgment for breach of covenant.
"There is a straight line from apostasy to disaster, from sin to death."148
"When we listen to the religion that is largely preached in our generation, we hear the same thing the unbelieving philosophers and sociologists are saying. The only difference is that theological language is used. But God says, It will not do. This brings you under my judgment.'"149
"The striking feature of this chapter is its rapidity of movement leading to the gathering storm of invasion soon to engulf the capital and the land."150
6:1 The Lord called the Benjamites, Jeremiah's tribal kinsmen, to flee for safety from the coming invader from the north (cf. 4:5-6). Jerusalem stood on the southern border of Benjamin. Benjamin's tribal border was the Hinnom Valley, which was also the southern boundary of Jerusalem.
Tekoa, Amos' birthplace (Amos 1:1), was a Judean town about 10 miles south of Jerusalem, and Beth-hakkerem (lit. house of the vineyard) stood three miles south of Jerusalem. These representative villages needed to warn their inhabitants, with trumpets and signal fires, to flee in view of the destroyer's advance toward Jerusalem.151
6:2 The Lord would cut off Jerusalem, which He compared to an attractive and dainty young lady. Even though Jerusalem was attractive to the Lord, He would still bring destruction on her.
6:3 The enemy leaders and their soldiers would camp around Jerusalem like shepherds with their sheep (cf. 4:17; 12:10). Even though Jerusalem lay in a pleasant pastoral setting, its beauty would not deter the Lord from destroying her.
6:4-5 These enemies would encourage themselves to attack Judah's capital before they lost their opportunity. They would be so eager to destroy the city that they would even attack at night, a highly unusual procedure.
6:6 In attacking Jerusalem the enemy soldiers would be responding to the instructions of Yahweh of armies to cut down the trees around the city to make implements of war and to lay siege. Jerusalem was due for punishment because its people were responsible for so much social oppression.
6:7 The residents had an unusual ability to keep wickedness as fresh as wells kept water fresh (cf. Prov. 4:16). Wicked violence and destruction had resulted in all kinds of sickness and wounds.
6:8 These announcements were to function as a warning to the people of Judah who still had time to repent before the enemy from the north would descend. If they did not repent, the results would be alienation from God (in captivity), the desolation of their city and their lives, and the ruination of their land.
"We may be reminded of the care lavished in our own day on presenting and practising [sic] an alternative morality', and may be warned, with Jerusalem . . ."152
6:9 The sovereign Lord promised that the coming enemy would remove the people of Judah from their land as a grape harvester removed the grapes from his vines (cf. 5:10; Isa. 5:1-6). The harvest would be so thorough that even the small number of Israelites left in the land would be taken captive.
The Lord also commanded Jeremiah to assess the nation as carefully as a grape gatherer examined the branches of his grapevine (cf. v. 27; 5:1). What follows in this pericope is what he discovered.
"All of Jeremiah's prophetic ministry, however fruitless it seemed, was a kind of grape harvesting, a gleaning of the vine of Israel. Jeremiah's task was to glean Israel. Once more he must return (shub) to the task to make certain that there was none remaining who had not heard his message."153
6:10 Jeremiah wondered to whom he could deliver this warning so they could benefit from it. The people he ministered to had closed their ears to his prophecies, and they were so steeped in sin that it was not even possible for them to hear. Messages from the Lord had become offensive to them, and they no longer welcomed them.
"This is the first of more than three dozen times in Jeremiah where the people did not listen to (i.e., they disobeyed) God's Word."154
6:11 Yet the prophet was full of messages announcing God's coming wrath that he felt incapable of containing. The Lord instructed him to pour out his pent-up messages of wrath on everyone in Jerusalem--children, adolescents, husbands, wives, older people, and the very aged--because all of them would be taken captive.
"Ancient Near Eastern war was essentially total in nature, so that a city which resisted a siege unsuccessfully could only expect complete destruction, without respect to property, age or sex."155
6:12 The Lord would turn the people's houses, fields, and wives over to others. It would be the Lord Himself, acting in power, that would be responsible for this judgment on Judah.
6:13 Everyone was guilty and worthy of judgment, from all levels of society including the false prophets and the unfaithful priests. They all behaved selfishly and deceived others (cf. 4:3-5).
6:14 The leaders of the people had tried to heal the cancer of the populace with a bandage. They kept promising that everything would be all right, but there would be no peace because of Judah's sins.
6:15 These leaders did not even feel ashamed or embarrassed by their actions; they were completely insensitive to their sins (cf. 1 Sam. 15:22-23). Consequently they would fall along with the rest of the population when the Lord brought judgment.
"When evil is pursued and practiced regularly and devotedly, it produces eventually a moral blindness in the perpetrator."156
6:16 Yahweh commanded the Judahites to compare the paths in which they could walk. Then they should ask their leaders to direct them in the good old paths, the teachings of the Mosaic Covenant. Then they should walk in those ways and so experience rest (cf. Isa. 28:12; Matt. 11:28-29). But the people refused to follow those old paths. Probably they confused the ancient ways with obsolete ways, as many in our day do.
"The importance of the covenant for Jeremiah cannot be overrated. For him the covenant was fundamental to Israel's very life, involving as it did the acknowledgment of Yahweh as Israel's only sovereign Lord, and the glad acceptance of the covenant obligations. When Israel took this way she followed the ancient paths, the good way, and found rest. It was a theme to which Jeremiah returned again and again (7:22-23; 11:1-13; etc.)."157
6:17 The Lord had set prophets over the people to warn them of their wicked ways, but the people refused to listen to them.
6:18-19 Because the people refused to listen to the Lord's words and had rejected His Law, the Lord announced to the whole earth that He would bring disaster on His people.
6:20 Even though the Judeans still worshipped God formally, their sacrifices made no impression on Him (cf. Isa. 1:11-14; Amos 5:21; Mic. 6:6-8). It was their true attitudes and actions that He saw.
Sheba was a famous southwest Arabia (possibly modern Yemen) source for the incense used in the offerings (cf. 1 Kings 10:1-13; Ezek. 27:22). Sweet cane (calamus) was an ingredient in the anointing oil (Exod. 30:22-25; cf. Song of Sol. 4:14; Isa. 43:24) and was also an expensive import item perhaps coming from India. Burnt offerings were those in which the entire animal was offered up to God, and sacrifices were those offerings that were partially eaten by their worshippers.
6:21 Because of this hypocrisy, the Lord would trip His people up. He would humiliate them and interrupt their progress, probably with their own sins and with the coming invader. This would include all generations and involve people in all relationships (cf. v. 11).
6:22 Again Yahweh announced that people from a great and distant land would descend on Judah from the north.
6:23 They would be cruel warriors riding on instruments of warfare shouting loud battle cries and making as much noise as the roaring sea. Their target would be God's beloved residents of Jerusalem.
6:24 Jeremiah responded that the news of this invasion had made the people physically weak, mentally anxious, and extremely distressed (cf. 4:31). This is a proleptic description of their reaction.
6:25 He counseled the people not to leave the city, to stay out of their fields and off the highways. There was an armed enemy out there waiting to kill them, and it should inspire terror among them all (cf. 20:3, 10; 46:5; 49:29).
6:26 The prophet called the people to repent while there was still time (cf. v. 8). Mourning over the untimely death of an only son was especially bitter because the family would then have no one to perpetuate the family name and line. Unless the people did repent the destroyer would overtake them.
6:27 Yahweh informed Jeremiah that He had given the prophet a roll in Judah that was similar to that of an assayer of metals. He would be able and be responsible to test the "mettle"of the Lord's people (cf. 5:1).
6:28 The Judahites were stubborn, rebellious, and deceitful. All of them were also hardened to outside influences, like bronze and iron, and were impure (cf. Mal. 3:3).
". . . the people of Judah are not, so to speak, precious metal marred by some impurities, but base metal from which nothing of worth can be extracted."158
6:29 The Lord had applied the fires of testing to His people, but still they remained impure.
"When lead was placed in a crucible with silver ore and heated, the lead became oxidized and served as a flux to collect impurities."159
6:30 Because the people were impure the Lord would reject them, as a silversmith rejects dross or slag. The implication is that He would toss them aside out of His land.
". . . the imagery is employed not to indicate that judgment would be a refining process but rather to convey its terminal nature; since no purity could be found, no solid silver, the mixture would be cast away as dross."160
Because of the possibility of repentance that Jeremiah referred to in chapters 2-6, most scholars believe that these messages date from the reign of Josiah and possibly the early years of Jehoiakim. This would place their origin between 627 and 609 or a little later. The possibility of repentance disappears later in the book probably indicating that Jeremiah delivered those prophecies later in his ministry.
Other recurring themes in chapters 2-6, which Jeremiah introduced in chapter 1, include the nations, uprooting and tearing down, destroying and razing, building and planting, and Yahweh watching over His word. The coming invader from the north, wickedness, forsaking Yahweh, idolatry, and Judah's leaders and ordinary citizens are also prominent themes.161
