28 They have become fat and strong: they have gone far in works of evil: they give no support to the cause of the child without a father, so that they may do well; they do not see that the poor man gets his rights.
Are you to be a king because you make more use of cedar than your father? did not your father take food and drink and do right, judging in righteousness, and then it was well for him? He was judge in the cause of the poor and those in need; then it was well. Was not this to have knowledge of me? says the Lord. But your eyes and your heart are fixed only on profit for yourself, on causing the death of him who has done no wrong, and on violent and cruel acts. So this is what the Lord has said about Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah: They will make no weeping for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they will make no weeping for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory! They will do to him what they do to the dead body of an ass; his body will be pulled out and placed on the earth outside the doors of Jerusalem.
See, the money which you falsely kept back from the workers cutting the grass in your field, is crying out against you; and the cries of those who took in your grain have come to the ears of the Lord of armies. You have been living delicately on earth and have taken your pleasure; you have made your hearts fat for a day of destruction.
Still you have not gone in their ways or done the disgusting things which they have done; but, as if that was only a little thing, you have gone deeper in evil than they in all your ways. By my life, says the Lord, Sodom your sister never did, she or her daughters, what you and your daughters have done. Truly, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: pride, a full measure of food, and the comforts of wealth in peace, were seen in her and her daughters, and she gave no help to the poor or to those in need. They were full of pride and did what was disgusting to me: and so I took them away as you have seen. And Samaria has not done half your sins; but you have made the number of your disgusting acts greater than theirs, making your sisters seem more upright than you by all the disgusting things which you have done. And you yourself will be put to shame, in that you have given the decision for your sisters; through your sins, which are more disgusting than theirs, they are more upright than you: truly, you will be shamed and made low, for you have made your sisters seem upright.
And she has gone against my orders by doing evil more than the nations, and against my rules more than the countries round her: for they have given up my orders, and as for my rules, they have not gone in the way of them. For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have been more uncontrolled than the nations round about you, and have not been guided by my rules or kept my orders, but have kept the orders of the nations round about you;
How long will you go on judging falsely, having respect for the persons of evil-doers? (Selah.) Give ear to the cause of the poor and the children without fathers; let those who are troubled and in need have their rights. Be the saviour of the poor and those who have nothing: take them out of the hand of the evil-doers.
For I was a saviour to the poor when he was crying for help, to the child with no father, and to him who had no supporter. The blessing of him who was near to destruction came on me, and I put a song of joy into the widow's heart. I put on righteousness as my clothing, and was full of it; right decisions were to me a robe and a head-dress.
One comes to his end in complete well-being, full of peace and quiet: His buckets are full of milk, and there is no loss of strength in his bones.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 5
Commentary on Jeremiah 5 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 5
Reproof for sin and threatenings of judgment are intermixed in this chapter, and are set the one over against the other: judgments are threatened, that the reproofs of sin might be the more effectual to bring them to repentance; sin is discovered, that God might be justified in the judgments threatened.
This was the scope and purport of Jeremiah's preaching in the latter end of Josiah's reign and the beginning of Jehoiakim's; but the success of it did not answer expectation.
Jer 5:1-9
Here is,
Jer 5:10-19
We may observe in these verses, as before,
Jer 5:20-24
The prophet, having reproved them for sin and threatened the judgments of God against them, is here sent to them again upon another errand, which he must publish in Judah; the purport of it is to persuade them to fear God, which would be an effectual principle of their reformation, as the want of that fear had been at the bottom of their apostasy.
Jer 5:25-31
Here,