Jeremiah 5 Commentary
Run through your streets! Look around! See for yourselves! Search the marketplaces! Can you find one person who does what is right? If you can, the LORD will forgive Jerusalem.
We have the repeat of Abraham’s request to the LORD concerning Sodom. “Are you really going to destroy the innocent with the guilty?” If you can find one person who does what is right and tries to be faithful to God, the LORD won’t destroy Jerusalem.
This is interesting! Not even the prophet Jeremiah was good enough! So Jerusalem would be destroyed for lacking righteousness – not even in one individual.
The good news of the New Testament, and Isaiah strongly hinted at it, is this: there is one man who is righteous and faithful to the LORD God. And on account of this one man, you and I can be saved. It is the man Jesus Christ.
Think about it and know humanity behaves foolishly and does not know what the LORD requires. It is a sad state of affairs. So the LORD orders punishment for the offenders. But again, think about the one man who alone can stand and behind whose righteousness an individual can find salvation.
Israel was never going to sit down and think about it. We won’t have hard times; no war is coming. The LORD won’t do anything, or so they thought. But the LORD had other plans. Jerusalem would be destroyed right before the prophet’s eyes. The LORD meant what He had said. Jeremiah’s words were a fire and the people were wood, literally.
The Good News Translation would put it this way: “Pay attention, you foolish and stupid people, who have eyes, but cannot see, and have ears, but cannot hear. I’m the LORD; why don’t you fear me?”
Then the LORD calls out the rich for their greediness and oppression against the poor. They have filled their houses with loot. That is why they are powerful and rich. Let the saint know that not every rich man is a student of diligence and integrity. The many people we admire are exactly like this.
“Don’t you think I’ll take serious measures against a people like this?” The Message Bible.
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