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
