Jeremiah 5:21

Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not: WHICH HAVE EYES, AND SEE NOT; WHICH HAVE EARS, AND HEAR NOT - translate, 'Which have eyes, and yet see not; which have ears, and yet hear not.' The Lord alone can give spiritual eyes and ears: on those who will not seek them from Him He sends a judicial blindness and deafness. (Compare ; .) Having powers of perception, they did not use them; therefore they were responsible for the exercise of them....

_Declare ye _then _this; _and what is it? _Hear, O foolish people, _etc. Here he first reproves the Jews and Israelites for their stupidity, because they were even without common sense; for the heart in Hebrew means the mind or understanding, as we have seen elsewhere. He then says, that this people were destitute of all understanding. He first calls them _fatuous _or foolish; but as many are slow and heavy and yet not without common sense, he adds that they were a people _without heart _or understanding. He seems indeed to add by way of correction, that they had eyes and ears: but his object was ironically to enhance what he had said, and to shew that they were stupid, and no less so than blocks of wood or stones. How so? “Ye have ears and eyes, “he says, “but ye neither see nor hear.” (149) He no doubt alludes to the idols to which they had become devoted: for it is said in...

19-31 Unhumbled hearts are ready to charge God with being unjust in their afflictions. But they may read their sin in their punishment. If men will inquire wherefore the Lord doeth hard things unto them, let them think of their sins. The restless waves obeyed the Divine decree, that they should not pass the sandy shores, which were as much a restraint as lofty mountains; but they burst all restraints of God's law, and were wholly gone into wickedness. Neither did they consider their interest. While the Lord, year after year, reserves to us the appointed weeks of harvest, men live on his bounty; yet they transgress against him. Sin deprives us of God's blessings; it makes the heaven as brass, and the earth as iron. Certainly the things of this world are not the best things; and we are not to think, that, because evil men prosper, God allows their practices. Though sentence against evil w...

Against the God (1) of Creation Jeremiah 5:22, and (2) of Providence Jeremiah 5:24, They sin, not merely by apostasy, but by a general immorality extending to all classes Jeremiah 5:25. It is in this immorality that their idolatry has its root. Jeremiah 5:22 The sea is the symbol of restless and indomitable energy, chafing against all resistance, and dashing to pieces the works whereby man endeavors to restrain its fury. Yet God has imposed upon it laws whi

EXPOSITION Is the punishment thought too severe? Then let the moral condition of Jerusalem be inquired into. Must not such transgressions precipitate its people into ruin? There are four well-marked sections or strophes. JEREMIAH 5:1 Gladly would Jehovah pardon, if his people showed but a gleam of sound morality. But they are all deaf to the warning voice—the Law of God is flagrantly violated. In particular the marriage tie, as well the typical one between man and woman as the anti-typical between the people and its God, is openly disregarded (comp. Hosea 4:1; Micah 7:2; Isaiah 64:6,...

HEAR NOW THIS, O FOOLISH PEOPLE, AND WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING,.... or, "heart" a; Jeremiah 4:22: WHICH HAVE EYES, AND SEE NOT; WHICH HAVE EARS, AND HEAR NOT; like the idols they served, Psalms 115:4. this is an upbraiding of them with their folly and stupidity, their want of common sense, their blindness and ignorance; notwithstanding they had the means of light and knowledge, the law, and the prophets. a ואין לב "et non cor", Pagninus, Montanus; "qui non habes cor", V. L. "excors", Junius Tremellius, Piscator "cui cor non est", Cocceius....

Jeremiah 5:10. _Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for the are not the LORD'S. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the LORD. They have belied the LORD,_ They have made it out as though God himself were a liar. They have contradicted him whose word is the truth itself. They have despised his threatenings, they have refused his invitations, they have disbelieved his promises: «they have belied the Lord,» Jeremiah 5:12. And said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine: and the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them. Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because y

CHAPTER 5 _ 1. The apostate conditions of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 5:1) _ 2. The impending judgment (Jeremiah 5:10) 3. Sowing and reaping (Jeremiah 5:19) 4. The horrible thing (Jeremiah 5:30) Jeremiah 5:1. So degenerate had the inhabitants of Jerusalem become that the Lord promised if but one man could be found in the city who executed judgment and sought the truth, He would pardon Jerusalem. It was a general apostasy. A similar apostasy is predicted for the end of our age. “Nevertheless when the Son of Man

LET EVIL-DOERS FEAR YAHWEH. The folly of not fearing Yahweh is rebuked by a reminder of the power of Him who has set an impassable limit even to the sea (_cf._ the rebuke of Job's presumption by the description of Nature as Yahweh's work, Job 38-41). Because they have not feared Him who gives the regular rains (the former in October, the latter in March-April), and the resultant harvest (Jeremiah 5:24), they have lost these gifts. Punishment is brought down on the nation by evil-doers, who fill their houses with (the gains of) deceit, as bird-catchers their cages with birds, and by the same arts; evil-doers who are prosperous and sleek, and unjust to the helpless. Horrible in Yahweh's eyes is the degeneracy of the prophets who ought to teach the truth, and of the priests who follow the suggestions of the prophets ...

UNDERSTANDING. Hebrew "heart"....