Jeremiah 4:4 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

See the Deuteronomy 10:16 note. Nature, such as it is in itself, unconsecrated to God, is to be removed from our inner selves, that a new and spiritual nature may take its place.

Lest my fury ... - God is long-suffering, but unless this change take place, the time of judgment must at length come to all as it came to Jerusalem - “like fire” (compare 1 Corinthians 3:13; Philippians 2:12-13).

Jeremiah 4:5-6 “God’s Judgment upon the Unrepentant”

A group of prophecies now commences, extending to Jeremiah 10:25, but broken at the beginning of Jeremiah 7 by a new heading. The subject of them all is the same, namely, the approaching devastation of Judaea by a hostile army in punishment of its persistence in idolatry. The prophecy of Jeremiah 7 was probably written in the first year of Jehoiakim, while as regards the rest they probably extended over a considerable period of time. This group, which we may reasonably believe to have come down to us much as it stood in Jehoiakim’s scroll, gives us a general view of the nature of Jeremiah’s efforts during that important period, when under Josiah a national reformation was still possible, and the exile might have been averted. The prophecy Jeremiah 7, spoken in the first year of Jehoiakim, when the probation of Judah was virtually over, was the solemn closing of the appeal to the conscience of the people, and a protest, while the new king was still young upon his throne, against that ruinous course upon which he so immediately entered.

Jeremiah 4:4

4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.