Jeremiah 17:5-8

See introd. summary to section. The antithesis in these verses is sharply defined, the two courses of human conduct making the men who practise them respectively to fade and to flourish. Cp. Psalms 1:3 f. The passage is pretty clearly an insertion, but almost as certainly is to be ascribed to Jeremiah. Co. suggests as the reason for its being placed here that, as Jeremiah 17:4 was held to refer to the exile, "the man, etc." was thought to be Zedekiah, who, having relied on the fleshly arm of Egypt, and refusing to listen to God's warnings through Jeremiah, was deprived of his children, blinded, and imprisoned at Babylon, where he was to pine in solitude.