Jer 4-6 | TNotes | STEP | 4:1 The Lord saw that despite their lovely prayer, the people did not intend to throw away their idols or change their lifestyle (15:19 ; Joel 2:12 ).

4:1 ^a The Lord saw that despite their lovely prayer, the people did not intend to throw away their idols or change their lifestyle (15:19 ^b; Joel 2:12 ^c).
4:2 ^d As surely as the Lord lives: The correct attitude when offering a prayer of confession and making oaths reflects truth, justice, and righteousness. Truth means that the inner attitudes and thoughts of those praying match the words they utter. Justice means living by the laws of the Lord, who will judge the earth. Righteousness means that people relate to others in accordance with the Lord’s Spirit and the moral standards he has established. This kind of prayer requires a radical transformation of people’s inner lives and outer lifestyle (Gen 22:18 ^e; Deut 10:20 ^f; Ps 72:18 ^g; Isa 48:1 ^h; 1 Cor 1:31 ⁱ). If the Israelites returned to the Lord in this way, the people would be blessed, and their influence would flow out as a blessing to all the nations of the world. Their changed lives would cause people of the world to come and join in a chorus of praise to God’s name.
Summary for Jer 4:3-18: 4:3-18 ^j These verses bring the kingdom of Judah and its capital, Jerusalem, to center stage in God’s courtroom. The Lord decreed that he would judge Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. 4:3 ^k Sinners must intentionally face their rebellion and change their ways through confession and repentance (Hos 10:12 ^l; cp. Matt 13:1-9 ^m).
4:4 ⁿ To deal with their sin, the people needed to give up the pride and power that were so precious to them (Deut 10:16 ^o; 30:6 ^p; Amos 5:6 ^q; Mark 9:43 ^r; Rom 2:28 ^s; Col 2:11 ^t).

• surrender your pride and power: Literally circumcise yourselves. Circumcision was a covenant sign of submission to God.
Summary for Jer 4:5-6: 4:5-6 ^u God was opening the pot of boiling water (see 1:13-14 ^v) and pouring out a cruel army upon the people (8:14 ^w; 50:2 ^x; Josh 10:20 ^y; Isa 62:10 ^z).
4:7 ^aa The coming army of Babylonian soldiers was like a cruel and vicious lion (see 2:15 ^ab). With power and savagery, it would wipe out everything, leaving houses empty and in ruins (25:9 ^ac, 38 ^ad; 50:17 ^ae; 2 Kgs 24:1 ^af; Isa 1:7 ^ag; 6:11 ^ah; Ezek 26:7-10 ^ai; Dan 7:4 ^aj).
4:8 ^ak The Israelites were in trouble with the Lord and needed to make things right with him. Putting an army in the field or organizing guerrilla bands would be futile. Instead, Jeremiah called for the people to repent by mourning and by weeping with broken hearts (Isa 22:12 ^al). By using the pronoun us, the prophet seems to include himself in the need for repentance (see Jer 10:24 ^am).
4:9 ^an The impact of the foreign invasion would show Judah’s leaders that they were not as invincible as they believed (48:41 ^ao; Isa 22:3-5 ^ap).
4:10 ^aq Jeremiah was confused and offended because he and the people thought that God had promised peace for Jerusalem. However, these promises were false prophecies (6:14 ^ar; 14:13 ^as; 23:16-17 ^at).
Summary for Jer 4:11-12: 4:11-12 ^au The Lord’s people would soon feel the burning wind and roaring blast of God’s judgment (13:24 ^av; Hos 13:15 ^aw).
4:13 ^ax Like his countrymen, Jeremiah was fearful when he heard that the invasion from the north had begun (Deut 28:49 ^ay; Isa 5:28 ^az; Lam 4:19 ^ba; Hos 8:1 ^bb; Hab 1:8 ^bc).
Summary for Jer 4:14-15: 4:14-15 ^bd Jeremiah still hoped that his people would cleanse their heart, get rid of their evil thoughts, and make a clean break with idolatry. Otherwise, they would face God’s judgment (4:1 ^be; 6:19 ^bf; 13:27 ^bg; 50:17 ^bh; Prov 1:22 ^bi; Isa 1:16 ^bj; Jas 4:8 ^bk).
Summary for Jer 4:17-18: 4:17-18 ^bl The foreign armies already surrounded the capital city. The impending attack was due to the people’s rebellion against the Lord.
Summary for Jer 4:19-21: 4:19-21 ^bm When Jeremiah heard ... trumpets and the battle cries of the invaders who brought desolation, he realized that his own family and other people he knew were being killed or left homeless. Jeremiah could not escape the effects of God’s judgment even though he was faithfully serving the Lord (9:1 ^bn, 19 ^bo; 10:19-20 ^bp; 20:9 ^bq; 2 Kgs 25:11 ^br; 2 Chr 36:20 ^bs; Ps 42:7 ^bt; Isa 15:5 ^bu; 16:11 ^bv; 21:3 ^bw; 22:4 ^bx; Ezek 7:26 ^by).
Summary for Jer 4:23-26: 4:23-26 ^bz In Jeremiah’s vision, the Lord’s fierce anger took precedence over his creative love (10:10 ^ca; 12:4 ^cb; Isa 5:25 ^cc; 24:19 ^cd; Ezek 38:20 ^ce; Zeph 1:3 ^cf). He was undoing the order of creation (see Gen 1:2-3 ^cg).
4:28 ^ch At funerals in Hebrew society, it was customary for people to mourn and be draped in black (cp. Isa 5:30 ^ci; 50:3 ^cj). The Lord had determined the people’s guilt, and he promised to be true to his word (Jer 5:10 ^ck; 30:11 ^cl, 24 ^cm; Isa 5:30 ^cn; 46:10-11 ^co).
4:29 ^cp flee ... hide ... run: Panic gripped the people of Judah in reaction to the horrors of war. Their arrogance and smug confidence disappeared (see 6:23-24 ^cq).
4:30 ^cr Strangely, some people acted as if nothing serious were happening. They tried to ignore the enemy, but their future was bleak. The enemy would kill them (22:20 ^cs, 22 ^ct; 2 Kgs 9:30 ^cu; Isa 22:13 ^cv; Lam 1:2 ^cw, 19 ^cx; Ezek 23:9-10 ^cy, 22 ^cz, 40-42 ^da).
4:31 ^db The people in Jerusalem felt such intense anguish that Jeremiah likened their pain to the agony of a woman giving birth to her first child. Like such women, beautiful Jerusalem was desperate (13:21 ^dc; 23:23 ^dd; 30:6 ^de; Isa 1:15 ^df; 42:14 ^dg; Lam 1:17 ^dh).

‏ Jeremiah 5

Summary for Jer 5:1-2: 5:1-2 ^di A just person lives according to God’s laws and deals with other people accordingly. An honest person is dependable, truthful, and faithful to God. Jeremiah did not find either justice or honesty. Although some people were under oath, their claims of innocence were false. Their behavior showed that they had perjured themselves (4:2 ^dj; 7:9 ^dk; Gen 18:23-32 ^dl; Isa 48:1 ^dm; Ezek 22:30 ^dn; Titus 1:15-16 ^do).
5:3 ^dp Even when crushed by the disaster of war, the people ignored God and refused to repent of their sins (Isa 9:13 ^dq).
Summary for Jer 5:4-5: 5:4-5 ^dr Jeremiah searched for an economic reason behind Jerusalem’s rebellion but found that the leaders, despite their advantages, were as rebellious as the uneducated poor.

• A wooden yoke was placed on the neck of a farm animal, with chains attached to a plow or another implement for working the fields (cp. 27:2-12 ^ds; Ps 2:3 ^dt).
5:6 ^du The Babylonians would attack like a lion, a wolf, and a leopard. These ferocious beasts were capable of destroying human life. The people’s rebellion and sins were very serious to the Lord (4:7 ^dv; 30:14-15 ^dw; Ps 104:20 ^dx; Ezek 22:27 ^dy; Hos 13:7 ^dz; Hab 1:8 ^ea; Zeph 3:3 ^eb).
Summary for Jer 5:7-8: 5:7-8 ^ec These verses list the evidence of sins the people had committed, including rejection of the Lord, submission to pagan deities, and sexual misconduct (7:9 ^ed; 12:16 ^ee; Num 25:1-3 ^ef; Deut 32:21 ^eg; Josh 23:7 ^eh; Zeph 1:5 ^ei; Gal 4:8 ^ej). Idolatry and adultery were closely connected in Israel because both represented the breach of an exclusive covenant.
5:9 ^ek The Lord regarded the people’s sins as worthy of punishment (9:9 ^el; 13:27 ^em; 29:23 ^en; Ezek 22:11 ^eo).
Summary for Jer 5:10-13: 5:10-13 ^ep The Lord delivered a decree to destroy Judah’s vineyards, which probably represented Judah itself (see Isa 5:1-7 ^eq; 27:2-6 ^er). The people were ignoring the Lord. They did not belong to him as his children, and he could not overlook the treachery of their love for idols (Jer 3:6 ^es; 4:27 ^et; 7:27 ^eu).
Summary for Jer 5:12-13: 5:12-13 ^ev Even with the enemy looming on the northern horizon, the people thought that nothing bad would happen to them (14:13 ^ew; Isa 47:8 ^ex). They did not respect God’s prophets (literally the prophets) either.

• Some interpreters end the people’s quote with Jer 5:12 ^ey and attribute 5:13 ^ez to the Lord. The windbags would then refer to false prophets.
Summary for Jer 5:14-19: 5:14-19 ^fa The approaching army was probably that of Babylon, which attacked Jerusalem in 605 BC. The Lord called the Babylonians to carry out the punishment he had promised (see Deut 28:15-62 ^fb).
5:15 ^fc The Babylonian language was a Semitic language like Hebrew, but the Israelites did not understand it.
Summary for Jer 5:16-17: 5:16-17 ^fd The soldiers of the well-trained and well-equipped Babylonian army treated their victims viciously and destroyed everything of value in the lands they conquered (cp. Hab 1:6-10 ^fe).
Summary for Jer 5:18-19: 5:18-19 ^ff The Lord comforted Jeremiah with the knowledge that the destruction would not be total, and he prepared the prophet to respond to those who wondered why the Lord would bring such severe judgment upon them.
Summary for Jer 5:20-21: 5:20-21 ^fg to Israel: Literally to the house of Jacob. The names “Jacob” and “Israel” are often interchanged throughout the Old Testament, referring sometimes to the individual patriarch and sometimes to the nation.

• To be foolish is to engage in rash and immoral behavior that ignores consequences.

• senseless: Literally no heart. When “heart” is used in a negative sense, it means that a person or group does not desire to do moral acts and so disdains the intelligent behavior that is pleasing to God.

• The people’s ears and eyes functioned (see study note on 6:10), but they stubbornly shut out the true meaning of what they heard and saw (Isa 6:9 ^fh; Ezek 12:2 ^fi; Mark 8:18 ^fj).
5:22 ^fk The people should at least respect the Lord for his power and tremble at the thought of his unleashing that power against them. If even the mighty sea was unable to pass the boundaries the Lord had set for it, surely the rebellion of little Jerusalem would fail.
Summary for Jer 5:23-25: 5:23-25 ^fl The people falsely thought that they could do without the Lord, who provided rain for their crops (Deut 11:14 ^fm). This wickedness caused them to lose wonderful blessings and good things (Jer 3:3 ^fn).
Summary for Jer 5:26-28: 5:26-28 ^fo Among the people of Jerusalem were wicked men who grew fat and sleek by oppressing orphans and ... the poor (7:6 ^fp).
Summary for Jer 5:29-31: 5:29-31 ^fq The people’s sins (5:26-28 ^fr) fully justified the Lord’s punishment, but the religious leaders committed several more. The prophets told lies and called them prophecies from the Lord (14:14 ^fs; Ezek 13:6 ^ft). The priests, assigned to serve the people, had become tyrants who dominated the people with an iron hand. Amazingly, the people approved of their leaders’ new roles, even though this situation left them unprepared for the doom descending upon them (Mic 2:11 ^fu).

‏ Jeremiah 6

Summary for Jer 6:1-9: 6:1-9 ^fv The invasion from the north, probably by the Babylonians in 605 BC, was moving toward the kingdom of Judah. As the Lord’s messenger, Jeremiah had the duty of arousing the people so that they could find shelter. 6:1 ^fw Jeremiah’s parents lived in the tribal area of Benjamin, a narrow strip of land oriented east to west a few miles north of Jerusalem. Amos had lived in Tekoa, about twelve miles south of Jerusalem (Amos 1:1 ^fx).

• Beth-hakkerem was about three miles south of Jerusalem, overlooking Bethlehem.
Summary for Jer 6:2-5: 6:2-5 ^fy Jeremiah portrayed the commanding officers of the invading army as shepherds who led their flocks of soldiers to camp around the city. The initial plan was to strike the city walls at noon, when the attackers could see their work. But the people in the city were so weakened that the attack at night was just as effective (see 2 Kgs 25:1-4 ^fz).
Summary for Jer 6:6-7: 6:6-7 ^ga The Lord was orchestrating the attack by the Babylonians. He instructed the invading enemy to construct battering rams for breaking through the walls, and to build dirt ramps against the walls for easy access (32:24 ^gb).
6:8 ^gc Even at this late hour, the purpose of the Lord’s accusations was to make the people listen and turn back to him.
6:9 ^gd Little time remained for the people to turn back to the one true God. The survivors of the invasion would be like leftover grapes on vines; God, the harvester, would track down the survivors to ensure that everyone in Israel experienced this punishment.
Summary for Jer 6:10-15: 6:10-15 ^ge In a series of rhetorical questions, Jeremiah, the messenger-prosecutor, revealed his love for the people; he then expressed his disbelief when the people responded with scorn. After presenting evidence of sins committed by the people from the lowest level of society to the highest, the prophet transmitted a divine decree. The future tense of his indictment suggests that the message was given before the invasion. 6:10 ^gf The people could literally hear, because their retorts were filled with scorn, but they did not take the Lord’s message seriously (cp. Acts 7:51 ^gg).
Summary for Jer 6:11-12: 6:11-12 ^gh Jeremiah shared the Lord’s fury toward the people; he could not contain his feelings.
6:13 ^gi The people were so ruled by greed that they sought gain even by violent methods (cp. Prov 1:11-19 ^gj; see also Isa 56:11 ^gk; Mic 3:5 ^gl, 11 ^gm). The religious leaders were frauds; they did not function as their titles indicated they should.
6:14 ^gn The sinful condition of God’s people was the mortal wound that warranted God’s judgment. Instead of calling for repentance, the religious leaders gave the people unfounded assurances of peace (23:17 ^go; Ezek 13:10 ^gp).
Summary for Jer 6:16-21: 6:16-21 ^gq The Lord again appealed to the people to repent and warned them of the terrible consequences that awaited them if they refused. 6:16 ^gr Following the old, godly way of God’s laws (Mal 4:4 ^gs) would lead to rest for the people’s souls (cp. Matt 11:29 ^gt).
6:17 ^gu Prophets were the Lord’s watchmen (25:4 ^gv; Isa 58:1 ^gw; Ezek 3:17 ^gx).
Summary for Jer 6:18-19: 6:18-19 ^gy All the nations would know that disaster had come upon the Lord’s people because they had rejected his word (19:3 ^gz; Prov 1:31 ^ha; Isa 1:2 ^hb).
6:20 ^hc The offerings of expensive frankincense and fragrant perfumes were repulsive to the Lord because of his people’s rebellion (7:21-23 ^hd; Exod 30:23 ^he; Pss 40:6 ^hf; 50:7-9 ^hg; Isa 1:11 ^hh; 43:24 ^hi; 66:3 ^hj; Amos 5:21 ^hk; Mic 6:6-7 ^hl).
Summary for Jer 6:22-30: 6:22-30 ^hm This dialogue between Jeremiah and the Lord probably took place at the beginning of the Babylonian invasion in 605 BC. In these three poems, Jeremiah declares the Lord’s message (6:22-23 ^hn), identifies with his people’s fear, and urges them to repent quickly (6:24-26 ^ho). He then receives a heart-to-heart message from the Lord (6:27-30 ^hp).
Summary for Jer 6:22-23: 6:22-23 ^hq The Lord reminded the people that the impending invasion was not fictitious; the soldiers had real bows and spears (Isa 13:18 ^hr).

• sound like a roaring sea: The sound of tens of thousands of soldiers with cavalry and chariots must have been terrifying (Isa 5:27-30 ^hs).
6:26 ^ht Jeremiah advised the people to put on burlap and sit among the ashes to show remorse for their sin and to beg for God’s mercy (Isa 58:5 ^hu; Amos 8:10 ^hv; Jon 3:6 ^hw; Mic 1:10 ^hx).
Summary for Jer 6:27-30: 6:27-30 ^hy The Lord interrupted Jeremiah’s lamentation and brought him back to his commissioned task. God depicted the prophet as a silversmith working with raw ore. The refining process was going to reveal that the silver content of the ore was so small as to be worthless. 6:27 ^hz Jeremiah’s prophetic task was at odds with the empathy that he felt for his people. Like a metalworker, he was to direct the fire of criticism on the people to determine their quality in the light of God’s standards.
6:28 ^ia The people’s dross was spiritual; it included rebellion against God, slander of other people, a hard and stubborn attitude, and a disposition to lead others into corruption (Ezek 22:18 ^ib).
6:29 ^ic To expose their wickedness, God was fanning the flames with the bellows of his judgment. But no valuable silver appeared; only the dross of wickedness remained (Zech 13:9 ^id; Mal 3:3 ^ie).
6:30 ^if The people, the Rejected Silver, must be thrown away (Isa 1:22 ^ig).