Jeremiah 5
Jeremiah 5 begins with one of the strangest and most searching errands in all of Scripture. God sends the prophet out with a lantern, so to speak, into the heart of the capital: Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it (v. 1). The terms are almost too generous to believe. Long before, Abraham had stood before the LORD and bargained over Sodom, asking whether the city might be spared for the sake of fifty righteous, then forty, then ten. Here the number falls to one. A single person who does justice and seeks truth, and the whole city is pardoned. The search is the chapter's opening question, and its silence is the chapter's answer.3
The hunt is not for the sinless - not for perfection - but for one who executeth judgment and seeketh the truth. One who deals honestly and cares about what is real. And the search comes up empty, from the bottom of the social ladder to the top. The poor, Jeremiah reasons, may simply not know better - they know not the way of the LORD (v. 4) - so he turns to the great men, the ones who surely understood. But these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds (v. 5). Knowing made it worse, not better. The rich oppress, the powerful trap the helpless like fowlers snaring birds, and the prophets and priests have joined the lie. Everyone is implicated. The verdict of the chapter is the verdict the apostle would later lay over the whole human race: there is none righteous, no, not one.2
And underneath every charge runs a single, stunning refusal. This people will not fear the God who placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree - the God whose word the wild ocean cannot cross, who giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season (vv. 22, 24). The waves obey Him; His own people will not. They have eyes, and see not… ears, and hear not. The chapter closes on a line as relevant now as the day it was written - the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so - and on the question that hangs over every comfortable lie: what will ye do in the end thereof?
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Jeremiah 5:1-9Seek if There Be Any That Seeketh the Truth
1Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it. 2And though they say, The LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely. 3O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. 4Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God. 5I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. 6Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased. 7How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses. 8They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife. 9Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
The chapter opens not with a sermon but with an errand, and the verbs come fast: Run… see… know… seek (v. 1). God sends the prophet pacing the city like a watchman with a lantern, into the streets where ordinary life is lived and the broad places where the crowds gather and business is done. The thing he is told to look for is breathtakingly modest: a man - just one - that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth. And the promise attached is even more so: and I will pardon it. Find a single honest person and the whole city is spared. The reader who knows the story of Sodom will feel the floor drop. There, Abraham had pleaded the city down from fifty righteous to ten, and even ten could not be found. Here the LORD does not even ask for ten; He asks for one, and offers full pardon for the one's sake. The search is the question the whole chapter exists to answer, and the answer is its silence. The point being pressed is not that good people are rare but that, in this moment, the rot has gone everywhere; there is no honest soul left to be the city's reprieve.3
The standard is not perfection - God is not searching for the sinless - but honesty: one who seeketh the truth. And the next verses show why even that cannot be found. The people swear by God's own name and lie while they do it: though they say, The LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely (v. 2). The most solemn words in their language have gone hollow in their mouths. Then Jeremiah turns to the LORD with the chapter's anguished refrain: O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? (v. 3). God sees what is real; He cannot be sworn past with an empty oath. And He has already tried to turn them - thou hast stricken them… thou hast consumed them - but the blows landed on hearts that would not soften: they have not grieved… they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return. This is the hinge. The trouble is not ignorance and not even sin as such; it is a hardness that will not return. Suffering, which is meant to bend a person back toward God, has only set their faces like flint. They have turned the very discipline that should heal them into one more reason to dig in.1
Jeremiah, searching, reaches for a charitable explanation: maybe it is only the poor, the unschooled, who fail - they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God (v. 4). Perhaps no one taught them. So he climbs to where the answer surely lies: I will get me unto the great men… for they have known the way of the LORD (v. 5). The educated, the powerful, the people with access and instruction - they, at least, will be the honest ones. And there the hope collapses hardest of all: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds. The ones who knew best have rebelled most completely. Knowledge did not produce obedience; it sharpened the defiance. To break the yoke is to throw off the rightful claim of the LORD over a life - to refuse to be led, to insist on going one's own way. And the word altogether is devastating: not partly, not most of them, but the whole company of those who should have known. The chapter quietly destroys the comfortable assumption that wickedness is a problem of the ignorant lower orders. The higher Jeremiah looks, the worse it gets.
With the search ended and the verdict in, the consequences gather like predators at dusk: a lion out of the forest… a wolf of the evenings… a leopard watching the cities (v. 6). The imagery is deliberate - a people who would not be led by the LORD will be hunted by what they unleashed: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased. Then God names the betrayal in the most intimate terms. He had been a faithful provider - when I had fed them to the full - and they answered His provision with infidelity, running after other gods and after their neighbours' wives alike (vv. 7-8). The two unfaithfulnesses are one: a heart that abandons God will not keep faith with anyone. Twice in this chapter the question tolls, Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD (v. 9). To visit here is to come and reckon, to hold the account to its true sum. It is not the language of a God eager to destroy but of a God who has fed, struck, pleaded, and searched - and who will not, in the end, simply call evil good. The wonder of the chapter is how long mercy held the door open, asking only for one honest man.
Jeremiah 5:10-19They Have Belied the LORD
10Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD's. 11For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the LORD. 12They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine: 13And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them. 14Wherefore 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. 15Lo, 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. 16Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. 17And 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. 18Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you. 19And 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 your's.
Judgment is now spoken over the vineyard that Israel had become: Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end (v. 10). The command is fierce, and yet inside it is mercy with a fixed limit. The enemy may climb the walls and tear away the battlements, but they may not make a full end. Twice in this section the same restraint sounds: I will not make a full end with you (v. 18). Even as the LORD hands the city over, He keeps the remnant in His hand; the discipline is severe but it is not annihilation, and the door of return is not nailed shut. The reason for it all is named without flinching: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me (v. 11). The word is the language of a broken marriage - treachery, betrayal of a covenant once gladly entered. The branches that bear no fruit and belong to another are stripped away; they are not the LORD's. What looks at first like raw destruction is, on a closer reading, a pruning with a boundary drawn around it - severe enough to be felt to the bone, restrained enough to leave a future.3
At the center of the people's treachery is a lie they have told about God Himself: They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine (v. 12). To belie is to deny, to give the lie to - and what they deny is that the LORD will do anything at all. It is not he: He is not really speaking, He will not really act, the warnings are empty and the future is safe. It is the oldest comfort of a hardened heart - not outright atheism, but a quiet confidence that God is harmless, that consequences belong to other people, that evil simply will not come upon us. They had professionals to reinforce it: the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them (v. 13). The men paid to speak for God were full of breath and empty of His word - saying Peace, peace over a city marked for the sword. Against all this the LORD sets His own word, and the contrast is total: I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood (v. 14). The false prophets are wind; the true word is fire. One dissipates in the air and changes nothing; the other consumes what it touches and cannot be argued away. A whole nation had chosen the wind over the fire because the wind told them what they wished to hear.
The lie having been believed, the reality now comes from far away: I will bring a nation upon you from far… a mighty nation… an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not (v. 15). Every clause unsettles. They are coming from far, beyond the reach of local alliances; they are mighty and ancient, seasoned in war; and most chilling of all, their language thou knowest not - an army whose commands and threats will fall on Judah's ears as meaningless noise, the helplessness of facing a foe you cannot even understand. Their quiver is as an open sepulchre (v. 16) - every arrow a small grave waiting to be filled. And what this nation will devour is precisely what the people trusted instead of God: thine harvest… thy flocks… thy vines and thy fig trees… thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst (v. 17). The fortified cities they leaned on for safety, the fields and herds they leaned on for plenty - all eaten up. And when the stunned survivors finally ask why, the answer simply hands them back their own choice: Like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not your's (v. 19). They wanted other masters; they shall have them. The punishment is shaped exactly like the sin - a people who chose to serve foreign gods will serve foreigners in a foreign land.
Jeremiah 5:20-31The Sand for the Bound of the Sea
20Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, 21Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not: 22Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it? 23But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone. 24Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest. 25Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you. 26For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. 27As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. 28They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. 29Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 30A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; 31The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?
The oracle turns to address the people directly, and the charge is no longer ignorance but a willful blindness: O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not (v. 21). They are not missing the organs of perception; they have eyes and ears in full working order. What they lack is the willingness to use them on God. The evidence of His power and care is everywhere around them - and they look right past it. This is a blindness chosen, not suffered; a deafness of the heart, not the head. And the question that follows is meant to land like a slap: Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence? (v. 22). It is asked with something like astonishment. How can a creature stand in the presence of the One who made the world and feel nothing - no awe, no reverence, no holy fear? The chapter has already shown them lying under oath, breaking the yoke, loving the wind over the fire. Underneath every one of those failures lies this single absence: they do not fear God. Where reverence is gone, everything else comes loose.
To shame their fearlessness, the LORD points to the sea. Fear ye not me… which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it? (v. 22). It is one of the most arresting pictures in the prophets. The ocean is the very image of untamed power - it heaves, it crashes, it roars, it has swallowed ships and shorelines beyond counting. And what holds it back? Not a wall of stone, not a chain of iron, but sand - the softest, most yielding thing there is. The mightiest force the ancients knew is reined in at its edge by the weakest material on earth, and held there not by the sand's strength but by the LORD's decree. The sea cannot cross the line because God said it cannot. Here is the argument folded into the image: the wild sea, raging with all its might, obeys a word from God it cannot break - and you, His own people, fed and watered and warned, will not obey Him at all. The waves keep a boundary they cannot even understand; the people break a covenant they were taught from childhood. Creation's most violent element is more reverent than they are.1
Against the obedient sea stands the people's heart: But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone (v. 23). The diagnosis goes beneath behaviour to the will. This is not a failure to understand or a lack of information; it is a heart that has turned - revolted, gone away - and keeps turning. And the proof Jeremiah names is heartbreakingly ordinary: Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest (v. 24). The God they will not fear is the God who sends the autumn and spring rains on which every harvest depends, who guards the very weeks of reaping so that the people may eat. Their daily bread is His daily gift - and they never once think to thank Him for it. Ingratitude is presented here as a species of rebellion. To receive rain and harvest year upon year and never lift the heart to say Let us fear the LORD our God is itself a kind of turning away. The most damning thing is not what they do but what they fail even to say in their heart. They live entirely off His provision and have written Him out of the story of their own survival.
The chapter ends by exposing where the rot finally settles: in the treatment of the weak. Among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men (v. 26). The powerful have become hunters of their own neighbours, fowlers who trap people the way one snares birds - and it has made them rich: their houses are full of deceit… they are become great, and waxen rich (v. 27). They are sleek and prosperous, waxen fat, they shine - and the prosperity is precisely the problem, because it was built on injustice and it silenced their conscience. The sharpest line names the victims: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless… and the right of the needy do they not judge (v. 28). The orphan and the poor - the very ones a just society exists to protect, the ones with no power to defend themselves - are the ones left without a defender. This is the bitter fruit of a people who will not fear God: when reverence dies, the strong feed on the weak and call it success. And so the question tolls a final time, Shall I not visit for these things? (v. 29). A God who sees the fatherless denied justice will not look away forever.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Jeremiah 5 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for emunah (v. 1, “the truth” that Jeremiah seeks, from the root for what is faithful and stands fast), for shuv (v. 3, “refused to return,” the great prophetic word for turning back), and for chol and chuqqah (v. 22, the “sand” set as the sea's “bound” by a fixed decree).
- Jeremiah 5 ↔ Romans 3 · Acts 3 · 2 Timothy 4Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Jeremiah 5 to the rest of Scripture - the failed search for one righteous man (v. 1) read alongside there is none righteous, no, not one (Rom. 3:10), the city that denied the Holy One and the Just (Acts 3:14), and the people who love to have it so (v. 31) read beside those who will not endure sound doctrine (2 Tim. 4:3).
- Jeremiah 5 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Jeremiah 5 - the sweep of the opening search in verse 1, the false oath The LORD liveth in verse 2, the broken yoke of the great men in verse 5, the sea held back by decree in verse 22, and the much-discussed verdict on prophets and priests in verse 31.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Seek if There Be Any That Seeketh the Truth
- Genesis 18:23-32Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?... I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.The search of verse 1 in its older form - Abraham pleads Sodom down to ten righteous; here the LORD asks for one.
- Romans 3:10-12There is none righteous, no, not one... there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way.The empty-handed search of verse 1 widened to the whole human race.
- Acts 3:14-15But ye denied the Holy One and the Just... and killed the Prince of life.The one righteous man the search sought (v. 1), found at last - and denied - in the same city.
- Ezekiel 22:30And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge... but I found none.The same search, the same silence - God looking for one to stand in the gap, and finding no one.
- Psalm 14:2-3The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand... there is none that doeth good, no, not one.The verdict of verses 1-5 sounded as a psalm - the LORD searching, and finding none righteous.
They Have Belied the LORD
- Jeremiah 23:16-17they speak a vision of their own heart... They say still unto them that despise me... No evil shall come upon you.The prophets-as-wind of verses 12-13 - men who promise peace from their own imaginations.
- 2 Timothy 4:3-4they will not endure sound doctrine; but... shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.The flattering preaching the people loved (vv. 12-13), and the warning that it returns in every age.
- Jeremiah 23:29Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?The fire of verse 14 - the true word that consumes, set against the prophets who are only wind.
- Deuteronomy 28:49The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far... a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand.The distant nation of verse 15, foretold long before as the covenant’s own warning.
- Ezekiel 13:10-11they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace... say unto them which daub it with untempered morter, that it shall fall.The lie of verse 12 exposed - the peace the false prophets promised will not hold.
The Sand for the Bound of the Sea
- Job 38:8-11Who shut up the sea with doors... and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?The sea held within its bound (v. 22) - the LORD setting the limit the proud waves cannot pass.
- Isaiah 6:9-10Hear ye indeed, but understand not... lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart.The eyes-that-see-not of verse 21 - a people with every faculty intact and no will to perceive.
- John 3:19men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.The heart of verse 31 - not only deceived, but loving the falsehood; light refused because it exposes.
- Acts 14:17he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons.The unthanked Giver of rain in verse 24 - His daily provision a standing witness to every nation.
- James 5:4the hire of the labourers... which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries... are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.The injustice of verses 26-28 - the strong growing rich on the defenceless, whose cry God hears.