5:1 Jeremiah called on Yahweh to remember the calamity that had befallen His people and to consider the reproach in which they now lived (cf. 3:34-36). The humbled condition of the Judahites reflected poorly on the Lord because the pagans would have concluded that He was unable to keep His people strong and prosperous. The implication was that if Yahweh remembered His people He would act to deliver them (cf. Exod. 2:24-25; 3:7-8).
5:2 The Promised Land, Yahweh's inheritance to His people, had passed over to the control of non-Israelites (Jer. 40:10; 41:3). Their homes also had become the property of alien people (cf. Ezek. 35:10).
5:3 Because the Lord no longer protected and provided for the people they had become virtual orphans. They had lost their rights as well as their property. Jewish men had become defenseless, and Jewish mothers had become as vulnerable as widows having lost their protection.
5:4-5 The extent of their oppression was evident in their having to purchase water and firewood, commodities that were normally free. The Judahites' enemies were trying to squeeze the life out of them (cf. Josh. 10:24; Isa. 51:23). They had worn them out with their heavy demands and taxes (cf. Deut. 28:65-67; Ezek. 5:2, 12).
5:6 Even to get enough food to live the people had to appeal to Egypt and Assyria for help. This may refer to Judah's earlier alliances with these nations that proved futile (cf. Ezek. 16:26-28; 23:12, 21). But probably the writer used Assyria as a surrogate for Babylonia (cf. Jer. 2:18). Judah could no longer provide for herself but had to beg help from her Gentile enemies.
5:7 The present generation of Judeans was bearing the punishment for the sins that their fathers, who had long since died, had initiated. They had continued and increased the sins of their fathers. Jeremiah rejected the idea that God was punishing his generation solely because of the sins of former generations (Jer. 31:29-30). His contemporaries had brought the apostasy of earlier generations to its worst level, and now they were reaping its results.
5:8 Even slaves among the oppressors were dominating God's people, and there was no one to deliver them. Only the poorest of the Judahites remained in the land following the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., but even the lowest classes of Chaldeans were dominating them.
"Israel, once a kingdom of priests' (Exod. 19:6), is become like Canaan, a servant of servants,' according to the curse (Gen. 9:25). The Chaldeans were designed to be servants' of Shem, being descended from Ham (Gen. 9:26). Now through the Jews' sin, their positions are reversed."57
5:9-10 It had become life-threatening for the Judahites even to secure essential food because their enemies tried to kill them when they traveled to obtain bread. Famine had resulted in fever that had given the peoples' skin a scorched appearance.58
5:11-12 The enemy had raped the women and girls in Jerusalem and Judah. Respected princes had experienced the most humiliating deaths, and the enemy gave no respect to Judah's elderly. Since Nebuchadnezzar evidently did not torture his victims (cf. Jer. 52:10-11, 24-27), it may be that the Chaldeans strung up the princes by their hands after they had died to dishonor them (cf. Deut. 21:22-23).59
5:13-14 Young men had to grind grain like animals (cf. Judg. 16:21), and small children buckled under the loads of firewood that the enemy forced them to carry. Elders no longer sat at the town gates dispensing wisdom and justice, and young men no longer played music bringing joy and happiness into the people's lives. These were marks of the disappearance of peaceful and prosperous community living.
5:15 Joy had left the hearts of the people, and they mourned so sadly that they could not bring themselves to dance. The eventual result of sin is the absence of joy.
5:16 God's blessing and authority, symbolized by a crown, had departed from the head of the nation. All these characteristics marked the nation because it had sinned against Yahweh. She suffered under His judgment.
5:17-18 Divine judgment had demoralized and devastated the people. Wild foxes or jackals prowled on now desolate Mount Zion, which formerly had been full of people and the site of many joyful celebrations.
