Jeremiah 5:1-6

C. Causes of Coming Judgment Jeremiah 5:1-31

In chapter five Jeremiah discusses the various reasons why God must judge His people. The nation has been guilty of at least six terrible sins: (1) moral corruption (Jeremiah 5:1-6); (2) sexual impurity (Jeremiah 5:7-9); (3) treacherous unbelief (Jeremiah 5:10-18); (4) religious apostasy (Jeremiah 5:19-24);

(5) social injustice (Jeremiah 5:25-29); and (6) international deception (Jeremiah 5:30-31).

1. Moral corruption (Jeremiah 5:1-6)

TRANSLATION

(1) Roam through the streets of Jerusalem, look and find out for yourself! Seek in her broad places if you can find a man or if there is one who does justly, seeking truth, that I may forgive her. (2) And though they sware, As the LORD lives, surely they sware falsely. (3) O LORD are not Your eyes on truth? You have smitten them but they felt no pain; You consumed them, they have refused to accept instruction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They refuse to repent. (4) And as for me, I said, Surely these are poor! They are foolish for they do not know the way of the LORD, the judgment of their God. (5) I will go up unto the great ones and speak to them for they know the way of the LORD, the judgment of their God. But they altogether have broken the yoke, they have burst the straps. (6) Therefore a lion from the forest shall smite them, a wolf from the desert shall plunder them, a leopard watches over their cities. Anyone who goes out from thence shall be torn because their transgressions are many, their backsliding are without number.

COMMENTS

In order to impress upon the mind of the prophet the necessity for divine judgment the Lord instructs Jeremiah to walk to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem and make a personal observation of the moral condition of the city. Specifically he is to search in the broad places or marketplaces for a man, i.e., someone who was worthy to be called a man. Jeremiah was to search for a man who does what is just and right and who seeks truth or faithfulness. The Hebrew word translated truth often times refers to the faithfulness of a man in performing his duties to God and his fellowmen.[160] The prophet is looking for a man who was true to God, true to man and true to himself. But sometimes in the Old Testament this Hebrew word has a more specialized meaning. It refers to faith in the promise of God to bring a Redeemer into the world.[161] Faith in the Gospel promise sustained the Old Testament heroes.[162] It may well be that Jeremiah here is to search for a man who possessed Messianic faith.[163] Abraham prayed that Sodom be spared if there were ten righteous men. But God here goes even further. If Jeremiah can find one just man in the city who seeks truth or faith He will forgive Jerusalem and withhold the execution of His wrath.

[160] 1 Chronicles 9:22; 1 Chronicles 9:26; 1 Chronicles 9:31; 2 Chronicles 31:15; 2 Chronicles 31:18, etc.

[161] Habakkuk 2:4. Cf. Romans 1:17.

[162] Genesis 4:1; Genesis 5:29; Genesis 49:18; 2 Samuel 7:18-29; Hebrews 11.

[163] Laetsch, op. cit., p. 73.

With the zeal of Diogenes Jeremiah searched for a real man in the streets of Jerusalem. He found many who used the name of the Lord in their oaths but only to sware to that which was untrue (Jeremiah 5:2). To use God's name in a solemn oath and then lie was tantamount to blasphemy against the holy name. God was looking for truth or faithfulness or faith in the hearts of men. Not finding it in the men of Judah God brought disciplinary disasters upon them. The judgments of God are sometimes rehabilitative and sometimes retributive. Here the former class of judgments is intended. God had smitten them but they felt no pain; God had almost completely destroyed them but they refused to accept the correction. With stoic determination they endured the discipline of God hardening their faces and refusing to repent (Jeremiah 5:3).

Jeremiah could not believe what he saw among the common people on the streets of Jerusalem and so he began to make excuses for them. These people are poor; they are uneducated in the way of the Lord; they know nothing of the judgment, i.e., religious law of their God. It is their lack of education which causes them to foolishly sin, and the hardship of their poverty has caused them to harden their hearts in unbelief (Jeremiah 5:4). Jeremiah was confident that he would not find a real man among the down and out; but he was not ready to relinquish his search. He decided to check on the great ones, the wealthy and cultured of the nation. They had all the advantages of education and instruction in the way of the Lord. They were literate and could read the law of God for themselves. But Jeremiah found that the up and out were worse than the down and out. Among the elite he found nothing but lawlessness and license. They had altogether broken the yoke of divine restraint (Jeremiah 5:5). The straps which they burst were the thongs by which the yoke was secured to the neck (cf. Isaiah 58:6). These men wanted to be free from the law of God and from any divine control. They wanted to do their own thing. Thus, in the entire nation Jeremiah could not find one man who by God's standards was a real man.[164]

[164] Following the marginal reading in the American Standard Version.

Because of the all-pervasive apostasy, God will bring judgment upon Judah: a lion from the forest, a wolf from the desert; and a leopard or panther watching over their cities (Jeremiah 5:6). Lions were common in the hills and valleys of Palestine. A few leopards are still to be found in the hills of Galilee. The singular words: lion, wolf, leopard, are probably to be regarded as collective singulars. These animals may be symbols of the calamity which would befall Judah. On the other hand, numerous prophecies make it clear that the land would be overrun by wild creatures after the Jews had been deported.[165]

[165] Ezekiel 14:16; Ezekiel 14:21; Leviticus 26:22; Deuteronomy 32:24; 2 Kings 17:25 ff.