Commentary - Jeremiah 5:1-6

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, the prophet Jeremiah, at the Lord's command, is tasked with conducting a divine audit of the city of Jerusalem. The scene is that of a covenant lawsuit. God is the plaintiff and the judge, and He is making His case against His people, demonstrating for all to see that the coming judgment is not arbitrary or capricious, but is in fact a righteous and necessary response to a society that has become rotten from top to bottom. The Lord challenges the prophet to find even one man in the entire city who lives according to the basic terms of the covenant, justice and faithfulness. The search reveals a universal apostasy. Their religious talk is a sham, their response to divine discipline is stony defiance, and the corruption infects both the ignorant poor and the educated elite. Because the people have collectively broken the yoke of God's law, God announces that He will unleash the covenant curses, depicted here as wild beasts, to execute His judgment upon them.

This is a sobering picture of total societal collapse, where the very foundations of truth and righteousness have been eroded away. It is a stark reminder that God's patience has a limit, and that a society that abandons His law will eventually be abandoned to the consequences of that rebellion. The passage serves as a divine indictment, laying the legal groundwork for the destruction of Jerusalem that Jeremiah will spend his entire ministry prophesying.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

Chapter 5 comes after Jeremiah's initial calls to repentance in chapters 2-4. In the preceding chapters, God has pleaded with Israel, using the imagery of a faithless bride who has committed spiritual adultery. He has called them to return, to wash their hearts from wickedness, and to circumcise their hearts. But these calls have largely gone unheeded. Now, in chapter 5, the tone shifts from pleading to prosecution. God is no longer simply inviting them to repent; He is demonstrating why their judgment is sealed. This chapter functions as a detailed list of charges, proving that the people are not merely flawed, but are fundamentally and universally corrupt. This indictment sets the stage for the increasingly severe warnings of invasion and destruction that will dominate the rest of the book. The moral rot described here is the legal cause for the historical effect of the Babylonian exile.

Key Issues

A City on Trial

What we have here is a courtroom scene, with the streets of Jerusalem as the witness stand. God tells Jeremiah to act as a bailiff or a court investigator, to go and see for himself. This is not because God is ignorant of the state of the city. This is for the record. God is establishing the facts of the case before He pronounces sentence. The procedure is reminiscent of God's investigation of Sodom and Gomorrah before their destruction. Before the fire falls, God makes it plain that He is not acting rashly. He is looking for a righteous man, any righteous man, on whose account He might pardon the city. This is the principle of the righteous remnant, the salt that keeps the meat from going bad.

But the tragedy of Jerusalem is that the salt has lost its savor entirely. The investigation is not to satisfy God's curiosity, but to demonstrate His justice. When the judgment comes, no one will be able to say that God was unfair. He will have shown that He searched the city, from the back alleys to the public squares, and found no basis for mercy. The entire city is in contempt of court, and the sentence is about to be read.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 “Roam to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, And see now and know, And seek in her open squares, If you can find a man, If there is one who does justice, who seeks faithfulness, Then I will pardon her.

The Lord opens His case with a dramatic command. He tells Jeremiah to become an investigator, to scour the entire city. The language is emphatic: "roam to and fro," "see now and know," "seek." This is a thorough search. And what is he looking for? Not a sinless man, but a man who practices the two foundational pillars of covenant life: justice and faithfulness. Justice refers to right conduct toward one's neighbor, conformity to God's legal standard. Faithfulness, or truth, refers to integrity and reliability, particularly toward God Himself. These are the basic requirements of the law. And the offer is staggering. If Jeremiah can find just one such man, God says, "I will pardon her." This echoes Abraham's negotiation with God over Sodom. God is willing to show mercy to the corrupt whole for the sake of a tiny righteous remnant. But the implication is terrifying: there is not one to be found.

2 And if they say, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ Then they swear to a lie.”

Here God anticipates the first defense. Someone might point to the outward religiosity of the people. "Look," they might say, "these people are pious. They invoke the Lord's name in their oaths." But God cuts right through this. He says that their religious language is a complete sham. When they say, "As Yahweh lives," the most solemn oath an Israelite could make, they are using it to seal a lie. Their piety is a tool for their dishonesty. This is not just hypocrisy; it is a profane use of God's holy name to sanctify their falsehoods. They have turned the ultimate statement of truth into a mechanism for deception. Their very worship is a lie.

3 O Yahweh, do not Your eyes look for faithfulness? You have struck them, But they did not weaken; You have consumed them, But they refused to receive discipline. They have made their faces stronger than rock; They have refused to repent.

Jeremiah responds, speaking back to God and affirming the divine perspective. God's eyes look for faithfulness, for truth in the inward parts, but He finds none. The prophet then recounts God's attempts to correct His people. God has brought disciplinary judgments upon them, He has "struck them" and "consumed them," likely referring to previous famines, plagues, or military defeats. A normal person, a sane person, would feel the pain of such blows and "weaken," or grieve. But not Judah. They refused to feel it. They refused to receive the lesson. Instead of softening under God's hand, they hardened themselves. Their faces became "stronger than rock." This is a picture of defiant, obstinate, high-handed rebellion. They have looked God's fatherly discipline in the face and have given Him a stony glare in return. The final charge is the summary of it all: "They have refused to repent."

4 Then I said, “They are only the poor; They are foolish; For they do not know the way of Yahweh Or the legal judgment of their God.

At this point, Jeremiah, still trying to make sense of this pervasive corruption, attempts to find an excuse for the people. He rationalizes. Perhaps this spiritual blindness is a class issue. "They are only the poor," he says to himself. Maybe their sin is a sin of ignorance. They are uneducated, foolish, and simply don't know any better. They haven't been taught "the way of Yahweh," the moral path of life, or the "legal judgment of their God," the specific covenantal stipulations. It is a well-meaning but naive attempt to quarantine the disease. He hopes the spiritual cancer has not metastasized to the entire body politic.

5 Let me go to the great And let me speak to them, For they know the way of Yahweh And the legal judgment of their God.” But they too, altogether, have broken the yoke And torn apart the bonds.

Jeremiah's hypothesis is immediately tested and utterly demolished. He resolves to go to the "great", the princes, the priests, the educated elite. Surely they, who have had every advantage, who have studied the law and know God's requirements, will be faithful. But the reality is the opposite, and even worse. Their sin is not one of ignorance but of open-eyed rebellion. The verdict is that "they too, altogether, have broken the yoke and torn apart the bonds." The yoke and bonds are metaphors for the covenant law of God. A yoke is for service and submission. They have violently thrown off God's authority. This was not a gradual slipping away; it was a conscious, unified act of rebellion. The leaders, who should have been models of obedience, were in fact the ringleaders of the apostasy. The corruption was total, infecting both the ignorant and the intelligent, the poor and the powerful.

6 Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down; A wolf of the deserts will devastate them; A leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them will be torn in pieces Because their transgressions are many; Their acts of faithlessness are mighty.

Because the verdict is "guilty" on all counts, the sentence is now pronounced. The "therefore" connects the judgment directly to their sin. Having thrown off the gentle yoke of God's law, they will now be subjected to the ravenous violence of wild beasts. This is classic covenant curse language from the Pentateuch (e.g., Lev. 26:22). The lion, wolf, and leopard represent the fierce, swift, and cunning invaders from Babylon that God will send to execute His judgment. The security of their cities is a mirage; a predator is watching, waiting. The moment they step outside their walls, they will be torn apart. The reason is stated plainly: their sins are not minor slip-ups. Their "transgressions are many," and their "acts of faithlessness are mighty." The punishment is not disproportionate; it is the just and fitting consequence for a rebellion of such magnitude.

Application

The message of Jeremiah 5 is a perennial one. Every society, and every church, stands before the searching eyes of a holy God who looks for justice and faithfulness. This passage is a powerful antidote to the kind of civic religion that thinks invoking God's name is the same as obeying His commands. We live in a nation where "In God We Trust" is printed on the money and "God bless America" is tacked on to the end of political speeches, yet our laws and our culture are in open rebellion against His revealed will. We swear oaths on the Bible in our courts and then proceed to call evil good and good evil. God is not fooled by this. He sees the lie behind the oath.

This passage also warns us against the delusion that sin is merely a problem for "other people", for the uneducated poor or the corrupt elite. The Bible's diagnosis is that sin is a problem of the human heart, and it infects every social class, every political party, and every demographic. The only solution is the one Judah refused: repentance. We must see God's chastening hand in our societal troubles and turn back to Him, rather than hardening our faces like rock.

Finally, we must see that the only man who could ever stand in the public square and satisfy God's search for justice and faithfulness was the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone was perfectly just and perfectly faithful. And because of Him, God can pardon a city, a nation, a world. Our hope is not in finding a righteous man among us, but in clinging to the one righteous Man who stood for us, and who took the tearing of the lion, the wolf, and the leopard in our place.