28 They are become fat, they shine, yea, they surpass in deeds of wickedness; they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, and they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not adjudge.
and oppress not the widow and the fatherless, the stranger and the afflicted; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves; every one loveth presents, and hunteth after rewards; they judge not the fatherless, and the cause of the widow cometh not unto them.
Behold, these are the wicked, and they prosper in the world: they heap up riches.
[if] ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed no innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt;
Shalt thou reign, because thou viest with the cedar? Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Was not this to know me? saith Jehovah. But thine eyes and thy heart are only on thine extortion, and on the blood of the innocent, to shed it, and on oppression and on violence, to do it. Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, the king of Judah: They shall not lament for him, Ah, my brother! or, Ah, sister! They shall not lament for him, Ah, lord! or Ah, his glory! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, dragged along and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
Behold, the wages of your labourers, who have harvested your fields, wrongfully kept back by you, cry, and the cries of those that have reaped are entered into the ears of [the] Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived luxuriously on the earth and indulged yourselves; ye have nourished your hearts [as] in a day of slaughter;
It is universally reported [that there is] fornication among you, and such fornication as [is] not even among the nations, so that one should have his father's wife.
And thou hast not walked in their ways, nor done according to their abominations; but as though that were a very little, thou hast been more corrupt than they in all thy ways. [As] I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters! Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom: pride, fulness of bread, and careless ease was in her and in her daughters, but she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me, and I took them away when I saw [it]. And Samaria hath not sinned according to the half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters by all thine abominations which thou hast done. Thou also, who hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own confusion, because of thy sins in which thou hast acted more abominably than they: they are more righteous than thou. So be thou ashamed also, and bear thy confusion, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.
And she hath rebelled against my judgments in wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for mine ordinances have they refused; and my statutes, they have not walked in them. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because ye have been turbulent more than the nations that are round about you, [and] have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept mine ordinances, nor [even] have done according to the ordinances of the nations that are round about you;
Righteous art thou, Jehovah, when I plead with thee; yet will I speak with thee of [thy] judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? [wherefore] are all they at ease that deal very treacherously?
How dost thou trim thy way to seek love! Therefore hast thou also accustomed thy ways to wickedness.
How long will ye judge unrighteously, and accept the person of the wicked? Selah. Judge the poor and the fatherless, do justice to the afflicted and the destitute; Rescue the poor and needy, deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.
Therefore pride encompasseth them as a neck-chain, violence covereth them [as] a garment; Their eyes stand out from fatness, they exceed the imaginations of their heart:
For I delivered the afflicted that cried, and the fatherless who had no helper. The blessing of him that was perishing came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was as a mantle and a turban.
One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet; His sides are full of fat, and the marrow of his bones is moistened;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 5
Commentary on Jeremiah 5 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The Causes which Called Down the Judgment Pronounced: The Total Corruption of the People. - Chr. B. Mich. has excellently summed up thus the contents of this chapter: Deus judicia sua, quae cap. IV praedixerat, justificat ostendens, se quamvis invitum, tamen non aliter posse quam punire Judaeos propter praefractam ipsorum malitiam . The train of thought in this chapter is the following: God would pardon if there were to be found in Jerusalem but one who practised righteousness and strove to keep good faith; but high and low have forsaken God and His law, and serve the false gods. This the Lord must punish (Jeremiah 5:1-9). Judah, like Israel, disowns the Lord, and despises the words of His prophets; therefore the Lord must affirm His word by deeds of judgment (Jeremiah 5:10-18). Because they serve the gods of strangers, He will throw them into bondage to strange peoples, that they may learn to fear Him as the Almighty God and Lord of the world, who withholds His benefits from them because their sins keep them far from Him (Jeremiah 5:19-25); for wickedness and crime have acquired a frightful predominance (Jeremiah 5:26-31).
Jeremiah 5:1-2
By reason of the universal godlessness and moral corruption the Lord cannot pardon. - Jeremiah 5:1. "Range through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek upon her thoroughfares, if ye find any, if any doth judgment, seeketh after faithfulness, and I will pardon her. Jeremiah 5:2. And if they say, 'As Jahveh liveth,' then in this they swear falsely. Jeremiah 5:3. Jahveh, are not Thine yes upon faithfulness? Thou smitest them, an they are not pained; thou consumest them, they will take no correction; they make their face harder than rock, they will not turn. Jeremiah 5:4. And I thought, It is but the baser sort, they are foolish; for they know not the way of Jahveh, the judgment of their God. Jeremiah 5:5. I will get me then to the great, and will speak with them, for they know the way of Jahveh, the judgment of their God; yet together have they broken the yoke, burst the bonds. Jeremiah 5:6. Therefore a lion out of the wood smiteth them, a wolf of the deserts spoileth them, a leopard lieth in wait against their cities: every one that goeth out thence is torn in pieces; because many are their transgressions, many their backslidings. Jeremiah 5:7. Wherefore should I pardon thee? thy sons have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods. I caused them to sear, but they committed adultery, and crowd into the house of the harlot. Jeremiah 5:8. Like well-fed horses, they are roaming about; each neigheth after the other's wife. Jeremiah 5:9. Shall I not punish this? saith Jahveh; or shall not my soul be avenged on such a people as this?"