Jeremiah 5:10-19 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

The Coming of the Foe. Let the enemy, therefore, destroy the vineyard of Judah, for of its owner Judah has said, He does nothing, rejecting His warnings by (true) prophets. The word they have rejected now becomes a fire to consume (cf. Jeremiah 23:29; ancient thought attached great power to the spoken word). The enemy (Scythians or, later, Babylonians) comes to destroy, being enduring (mg.), foreign in speech (Isaiah 28:11), and a nation of warriors (mighty men), whose arrows do not miss (Jeremiah 5:16). Heathenism at home shall bring exile abroad (Jeremiah 5:19).

Jeremiah 5:10. walls should probably be vine-rows; for the figure, cf. Jeremiah 2:21).

Jeremiah 5:12. It is not he: lit. not he; cf. Zephaniah 1:12, end.

Jeremiah 5:18, like many similar remarks, seems to be a later insertion, meant to qualify the rigour of the destruction in Jeremiah 5:17.

Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 5:10

Jeremiah 5:10-19

10 Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD'S.

11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the LORD.

12 They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine:

13 And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them.

14 Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

15 Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say.

16 Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men.

17 And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword.

18 Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you.

19 And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Wherefore doeth the LORD our God all these things unto us? then shalt thou answer them, Like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.