Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 5:10
Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they [are] not the LORD’s.
10. Judah is likened to a vineyard. So in Jer 12:10; Isa 5:1 ff.
her walls ] This sense for the MT. as here vocalised is very questionable. It is best, changing one vowel, to take the meaning to be vinerows (as probably in Job 24:11). So Du., though Co. makes it to denote the walls protecting the vineyards, and Gi. (in spite of the metaphor of the context) the walls of Jerusalem.
make not a full end ] See on Jer 4:27.
branches ] tendrils, so as to keep up the figure of the vine. Cp. Isa 18:5.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
10 19. See summary at beginning of section.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Her walls – It is Possible that not the city walls, but those of a vineyard are meant. Judaea is Gods vineyard Isa 5:1-7, and God permits the enemy to enter the vineyard to destroy her.
Battlements – tendrils. The tendrils and branches of Judahs vine are given up to ruin, but not the stock. See Isa 6:13 note.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 5:10
Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the Lords.
Storming the battlements
I. I shall regard this text as spoken concerning the Church. The Church has very often gone to king Jareb for help, or to the world for aid; and then God has said to her enemies, Go ye up against her; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the Lords. She shall not have them. I am her battlement. She is to have none other.
1. The Church of God has sometimes sought to make the government its battlements.
2. There are churches who make battlements out of the wealth of their members. Now, we do love to have wealth and rank in our own midst; we always thank God when we have brought among us men who can do something for the cause of truth; we do bless God when we see Zaccheus, who had abundance of gold and silver, giving some of his gifts to the poor of the Lords family; we like to see the princes and kings bringing presents and bowing before the King of all the earth:–but if any church bows before the golden calf, there will go forth the mandate, Go ye upon her walls; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the Lords.
3. There are some other churches relying upon learning and erudition. The learning of their minister seems to be a great fort and castle. Never let it be said that I have despised learning, or true knowledge. Let us have as much as we can. We thank God when men of learning are brought into the Church, when God renders them useful. But the Church nowadays is beginning to trust too much to learning; relying too much on philosophy, and upon the understanding of man, instead of the Word of God.
4. But I think that the worst battlement the churches have now is an earthwork of great and extreme caution. It is held to be improper that certain obnoxious truths in the Bible should be preached; sundry reasons are given why they should be withheld. One is, because it tends to discourage men from coming to Christ. Another is, because certain persons will be offended on account of these rough edges of the Gospel. Gods Church must be brought once more to rely upon the pure truth, upon the simple Gospel, the unalloyed doctrines of the grace of God. Oh, may this Church never have any bulwark but the promises of God!
II. We shall now address the text to the Christian–the real child of God. The true believer also has a proneness to build up sundry battlements, which are not the Lords, and to put his hope, his affection, in something else besides the word of the God of Israel.
1. The first thing whereof we often make a fortress wherein to hide is–the love of the creature. The Christians happiness should be in God alone. He should be able to say, All my springs are in Thee. From Thee alone I ever draw my bliss. We fix our love on some dear friend, and there is our hope and trust. God says, What though ye take counsel together, ye have not taken counsel of Me, and therefore I will take away your trust. What though ye have walked in piety, ye have not walked with Me as ye should. Go ye no against her, O Death! Go ye up against her, O affliction! Take away that battlement–It is not the Lords.
2. Many of us are too prone to make battlements out of our past experience, and to rely upon that instead of confiding in Jesus Christ. There is a sort of self-complacency which reviews the past, and says, There I fought Apollyon; there I climbed the hill Difficulty; there I waded through the Slough of Despond. The next thought is, And what a fine fellow am I! I have done all this. Why, there is nothing can hurt me. No. If I have done all this, I can do everything else that is to be accomplished. What does God say whenever His people do not want Him; but live on what they used to have of Him, and are content with the love He once gave them? Ah! I will take away your battlements. He calls out to doubts and fears–Go ye up upon his walls; take away his battlements, for they are not the Lords.
3. Then again we sometimes get trusting too much to evidences and good works. We often get a pleasing opinion of ourselves: we are preaching so many times a week; we attend so many prayer meetings; we are doing good in the Sabbath school; we are important members of the Church; we are giving away so much in charity, and we say, Surely I am a child of God. I am an heir of heaven. Look at me! See what robes I wear. Have I not, indeed, a righteousness about me that proves me to be a child of God? Then we begin to trust in ourselves, and say, Surely of your graces, Christians!
III. Now, to bring the text to the young convert, to the man in that stage of our religious history which we call conversion to God.
1. In the forefront of the city of Mansoul frowns the wall of carelessness–an erection of satanic masonry. It is made of black granite, and mortal art cannot injure it. Bring law, like a huge pickaxe, to break it: you cannot knock a single chip off. At last a gracious God cries out–Take away her battlements, they are not the Lords. And at a glance down crumbles the battlement. The careless man becomes tender-hearted; the soul that was hard as iron has become soft as wax; the man who once could laugh at gospel warnings, and despise the preaching of the minister, now sits down and trembles at every word.
2. The first wall is surmounted, but the city is not yet taken: the Christian minister, under the hand of God, has to storm the next wall–that is the wall of self-righteousness. How hard it is to storm this wall! it must be carried at the point of the bayonet of faithful warning; there is no taking it except by boldly climbing up with the shout of, By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
3. Thus the double rampart is passed, but another still opposes our progress–Christs warriors know it by the name of self-sufficiency. Oh! blessed day when God directs His shots against that.
IV. I take this passage as it respects the ungodly and the sinner at last. How many there shall be at the last great day who will sit down very comfortably behind certain battlements that they have builded! There is one man–a monarch: I am irresponsible, says he; who shall ever bring anything to my charge? I am an autocrat: I give no account of my matters. Oh! he will find out at last that God is Master of emperors, and Judge of princes; when his battlements shall be taken away. Another says, Cannot I do as I like with my own? What if God did make me, I shall not serve Him. I shall follow my own will. I have in my own nature everything that is good, and I shall do as my nature dictates. I shall trust in that, and if there be a higher power He will exonerate me, because I only followed my nature. But he will find his hopes to be visionary, and his reasons to be foolish, when God shall say, The soul that sinneth it shall die; and when His thundering voice shall pronounce the sentence–Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire. Again, there is a company of men joined hand in hand, and they think they will resist the Eternal, yea, they have a plan for subverting the kingdom of Christ. They say, We are wise and mighty. We have fortified ourselves. We have made a covenant with death and a league with hell. Ah! they little think what will become of their battlements at the last great day, when they shall see it all crumble and fall. With what fear and alarm will they then cry: Rocks, hide us! Mountains, on us fall! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Mans battlements or Gods battlements
These words show us that if we would ensure safety we must embrace Gods plan of salvation.
I. Mans battlements.
1. Some build battlements without Christ as the corner stone. To read His history, admire His character, wonder at His miracles; but to leave out all the mystery of the Incarnation, to deny the efficacy of the bloodshedding, to substitute reason for faith, is to build battlements which are not the Lords.
2. Some build battlements with their own merits. As in the former case the foundation was faulty; so here is the superstructure. The good heart and the good life and the good intentions will not bear scrutiny. Salvation is of grace, and not of debt.
3. Others build battlements of external forms and ceremonies. They are like that foreign people who rear walls of painted canvas, guarded by painted sentinels, and armed with painted guns. There is no reality in such a religion.
II. What, then, are Gods battlements?
1. Repentance. No one strikes the penitent who confesses error, and asks forgiveness with many tears.
2. The second line of defence is Faith. Repentance does not save. We are saved by grace, through faith.
3. There is a third range, higher still, Holiness. A man may tremble behind the battlements of faith, even as the devils believe and tremble. That man only is safe and happy who is penitent, believing, and holy. (J. Batsman, M. A.)
The danger of false confidences
Oh, that England would learn that increased wealth and swollen fortunes and material prosperity are no signs of a nations strength. Pagan Rome was never richer than when she had scarce a freeman left. In the Middle Ages, Papal Rome stood raking into chests the countless gold of her jubilee, just before she suffered her most humiliating shame. Spain was dropping to pieces of inward decay when all the gold of the New World was flowing into the treasure of her kings. Your glory, said Oliver Cromwell, is the ditch which guards your shores. I tell you your ditch will not save you if you do not reform yourselves. Some nations have had a false ideal of absolutism, many, and especially modern nations, have had a false ideal of liberty. (Dean Farrar.)
The removal of false trusts and defences
It was a great mercy for our city of London that the great fire cleared away all the old buildings which were the lair of the plague, a far healthier city was then built; and it is a great mercy for a man when God sweeps all his own righteousness and strength, when He makes him feel that he is nothing and drives him to confess that Christ is all in all, and that his only strength lies in the might of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes in a house of business an old system has been going on for years, and it has caused much confusion and allowed much dishonesty. You come in as a new manager, and you adopt an entirely new plan. Now try if you can, and graft your method on to the old system. How it will worry you. Year after year you say to yourself, I cannot work it; if I had swept the whole away and started afresh, clear from the beginning, it would not have given me one-tenth of the trouble. God does not intend to graft the system of grace upon corrupt nature, nor to make the new Adam grow out of the old. Salvation is not of the flesh, but of the Lord alone. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
False refuges
I. Worthless refuges trusted in.
1. Infidelity. Such a rampart is nothing more than a deliberate closing of the eyes to danger. It is like the sand in which the foolish ostrich hides its head and thinks himself safe. It is like watching an avalanche descending upon us and consoling ourselves that we are only led by a fanciful vision.
2. Personal merit. There are those who exercise far higher thoughts of human nature and of their own particular abilities than the case justifies. And they estimate their good qualities so highly that they think they surely ought to obtain some recognition from the Almighty.
3. Divine Fatherhood. Some think that because God made man He is therefore a universal Father, and they assume that a Father could not, be so unkind to His children as to let justice overpower mercy.
II. Worthless refuges denounced. Go ye up and destroy.
1. The Author of this destruction. The immediate instrument may be mans natural enemies, but the real author is God. He will cast down all false hopes and crush all evil anticipations.
2. The reason assigned–For they are not the Lords.
3. The limitation–Make not a full end. The object is not destruction of the soul, but the taking away the false hopes which lull it into fancied security. God takes away earthly hopes, so that He may bestow heavenly ones. He crushes worthless props, so that He may lay under us His eternal arms. (J. J. S. Bird, B. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 10. Go ye up upon her walls] This is the permission and authority given to the Chaldeans to pillage Jerusalem.
Take away her battlements] Some translate netishoth, branches; others, vines. Destroy the branches, cut down the stem; but do not damage the root. Leave so many of the people that the state may be regenerated. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic, read, “Leave her foundations, for they are the Lord’s;” and this agrees with “Destroy, but make not a full end.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Go ye up upon her walls; ye Babylonians, go now execute my vengeance on them. I give them into your hands; behold, I give you a commission.
And destroy; I permit and order you not only to take the city, but make havoc of her inhabitants, Isa 10:6.
But make not a full end: though God give them a large commission to destroy, yet he puts in a limitation, that he will reserve a remnant from destruction; he sets bounds to the most raging adversary, beyond which he must not pass. See on Jer 4:27.
Take away her battlements; lay her and all her fortifications level with the ground; take away her counterscarp, or high towers, or whatsoever may tend to the defence of a city; to let Jerusalem know that she did but in vain trust to her high walls and strong towers; and battlements may as well be taken for the foundation of her walls, which spread wider than the wall itself. The word the prophet useth signifies things that spread; and thus it agrees with the scope, that is describing the utter overthrow and eradicating of it: so LXX., take away her supports. For they are not the Lords; I undertake their defence no longer; I disown them, lake my protection from them, and give them up into your hands, O ye Chaldeans, though they make their boast that they are sheltered under my wing and protection, because there was the temple and altar; but they will find themselves deceived, for I disown them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. Abrupt apostrophe to theBabylonians, to take Jerusalem, but not to destroy the nationutterly (see on Jer 4:27).
battlementsrather,tendrils [MAURER]:the state being compared to a vine (Jer12:10), the stem of which was to be spared, while the tendrils(the chief men) were to be removed.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy,…. These are the words of the prophet, or of the Lord by the prophet, to the Chaldeans, ordering them to ascend the walls of Jerusalem, and break them down, as they did, even all the walls of it round about, Jer 52:7, there can be nothing done without the Lord’s will; and there is no evil in a city but what is done, or ordered, or suffered to be done by him, Am 3:6:
but make not a full end; meaning not of the walls, for a full end was made of them, they were broken down all around; but of the people; there were a remnant to be preserved from the sword, and to be carried captive, and to be returned into their own land again, after a term of years:
take away her battlements; which must mean not the battlements of their houses, or of the temple; but of their walls, the fortifications that run out like branches without the wall w. Kimchi interprets them the teeth of the wall; the Septuagint version renders the word, “the under props”; and the Syriac and Arabic versions, “the foundations of it”. The word properly signifies the branches of a vine; wherefore Jarchi takes the word for walls, in the preceding clause, to signify the rows of a vineyard; and the Jews are sometimes compared to a vineyard; and here the Chaldeans are called upon to enter into it, to come upon the rows of the vines in it, and take away its branches:
for they are not the Lord’s; either the walls and the battlements are not the Lord’s, he disowns them, and will not guard them, and protect them, any more; or rather the people are not the Lord’s, he has written a “loammi” upon them; they are not the people of God, nor the branches of Christ the true Vine. The Septuagint, Syriac and Arabic versions, read the words without the negative, “leave her under props”, or “her foundations, because they are the Lord’s”. The Targum is,
“go upon her cities, and destroy, and make not a full end; destroy her palaces, for the Lord has no pleasure in them.”
w “propaginos; rami libere luxuriantes—-item pinnae, vel potius munimenta et propugnacula extra muri ambitum libere excurrentia”, Stockius, p. 675.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In spite of the feeling of security fostered by the false prophets, the Lord will make good His word, and cause the land and kingdom to be laid waste by a barbarous people. – Jer 5:10. “Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy, but make not a full end: tear away her tendrils; for they are not Jahveh’s. Jer 5:11. For faithless to me is the house of Israel become and the house of Judah, saith Jahveh. Jer 5:12. They deny Jahveh, and say, He is not; and evil shall not come upon us, and sword and famine we shall not see. Jer 5:13. And the prophets shall become wind, and he that speaketh is not in them: so may it happen unto them. Jer 5:14. Therefore thus saith Jahveh the God of hosts: Because ye speak this word, behold, I make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them. Jer 5:15. Behold, I bring upon you a nation from far, house of Israel, saith Jahveh, a people that is strong, a people that is from of old, a people whose speech thou knowest not, and understandest not what it saith. Jer 5:16. Its quiver is as an open grave, they are all mighty men. Jer 5:17. It shall eat up thy harvest and thy bread; they shall eat up thy sons and thy daughters; it shall eat up thy flocks and thy cattle, eat up thy vine and thy fig-tree; it shall break down thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustest, with the sword. Jer 5:18. But yet in those days, saith Jahveh, I will not make a full end with you.”
To give emphasis to the threat, that the Lord will avenge Himself on such a people, we have immediately following, in Jer 5:10, the summons given to the enemy to subdue the land. is variously explained. The old translators took to mean walls; but the second clause, tear away the tendrils, seems not to suit this well. And then this word occurs but once again, and with the meaning “caravan,” while walls are in Job 24:11. But this reason is not strong enough to throw any doubt on the rendering: walls, supported as it is by the old versions. The form from is contracted from a form , constructed analogously to . The second clause would be unsuitable to the first only in the case that walls were to mean exclusively town walls or fortifications. But this is not the case. Even if the suffix here referred to Jerusalem, mentioned in Jer 5:1, which is very doubtful, still then the city would be looked on not in the light of a stronghold, but only as representative of the kingdom or of the theocracy. Probably, however, the suffix refers to the daughter of Zion as seat of the kingdom of God, and the idea of a vineyard was in the prophet’s mind (cf. Jer 2:21), under which figure Isaiah (Isa 5:1-7) set forth the kingdom of God founded on Mount Zion; so that under walls, the walls of the vineyard are to be thought of. Elsewhere, indeed, these are called (also in Jer 49:3), but only where the figure of a vineyard is further developed, or at least is brought more plainly and prominently forward. Here, again, where the enemy is summoned to go upon the walls, this figure is mixed up with that of a city; and so the word , as indicating walls of any kind, seems most fitting. Graf has overthrown, as being unfounded, Hitz.’s assertion, that signified only, to go up against a thing; and that accuracy and elegance required that the destruction should be of the walls, not of the vineyard itself. c. means also: to go up upon a thing, e.g., Psa 24:3; Deu 5:5; and the verb stands quite absolutely, so that it cannot be restricted to the walls. “And destruction can only take place when, by scaling the walls, entrance has been obtained into that which is to be destroyed, be it city or vineyard.” We therefore adhere to the sig. walls, especially since the other translations attempted by Ew. and Hitz. are wholly without foundation. Hitz. will have us read , and take this as plural of ; next he supposes a row of vines to be intended, but he obtains this sense only by arbitrarily appending the idea of vines. Ew. endeavours, from the Aram. and Arab., to vindicate for the word the meaning: clusters of blossom, and so to obtain for the whole the translation: push in amidst the blossom-spikes. A singular figure truly, which in no way harmonizes with . “Destroy” is restricted by the following “but make not,” etc.; see on Jer 4:27. On “tear away her tendrils,” cf. Isa 18:5. The spoilers are not to root up the vine itself, but to remove the tendrils, which do not belong to Jahveh. Spurious members of the nation are meant, those who have degenerated out of their kind.
The reasons of this command are given in Jer 5:11., by a renewed exposure of the people’s apostasy. The house of Israel and the house of Judah are become faithless. On this cf. Jer 3:6. The mention of Israel along with Judah gives point to the threatening, since judgment has already been executed upon Israel. Judah has equalled Israel in faithlessness, and so a like fate will be its lot. Judah shows its faithlessness by denying the Lord, by saying . This Ew. translates: not so, after the of the lxx; but he is certainly wrong in this. Even though may be used in place of the neuter, yet it cannot be so used in this connection, after the preceding . Better to take it: He is not, as the fools speak in Psa 14:1: there is no God, i.e., go on in their lives as if God were not. “Jahveh is not” is therefore in other words: there exists not a God such as Jahveh is preached to us, who is to visit His people with sore punishments. This view is not open to the objection, quod pro lubitu supplent , which Ros. raises against the interpretation: non est is, qualem prophetae describunt . For we take not as is qualem , but as est sc. Jahveh; and we explain the meaning of Jahveh only in that reference in which He is disowned by these men, namely, as God who visits His people with punishments. In this character He was preached by the prophets. This appears from what is further said by these disowners of God: evil or mischief will not come on us. To a saying of this kind they could have been provoked only by threatenings of punishments. The prophets were not indeed the first to announce judgments; Moses in the law threatened transgressors with the sorest punishments. But the context, the threatening against the false prophets in Jer 5:13, suggests that here we are to think of announcements by the prophets. Doubtless the false prophets assured the people: evil shall not come upon you, in opposition to the true prophets, who threatened the sinful race with the judgments of God. Such prophets are to become wind, sc. with their utterances. is not a noun: the word, but a verb, with the article instead of the relative pronoun, as in Josh. 1:24; 1Ch 26:28, and often: He who speaks is not in them, i.e., in them there is none other speaker than themselves; the Spirit of God is not in them. , “there is none,” is stronger than , meaning: they speak out of their own hearts. The threat, so be it unto them, may be most simply referred to the first clause: they become wind. Let the emptiness of their prophecies fall on their own heads, so that they themselves may come to nought.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Divine Judgments Threatened; Divine Judgments Vindicated. | B. C. 608. |
10 Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD‘s. 11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the LORD. 12 They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine: 13 And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them. 14 Wherefore 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. 15 Lo, 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. 16 Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. 17 And 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. 18 Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you. 19 And 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 yours.
We may observe in these verses, as before,
I. The sin of this people, upon which the commission signed against them is grounded. God disowns them and dooms them to destruction, v. 10. But is there not a cause? Yes; for, 1. They have deserted the law of God (v. 11): The house of Israel and the house of Judah, though at variance with one another, yet both agreed to deal very treacherously against God. They forsook the worship of him, and therein violated their covenants with him; they revolted from him, and played the hypocrite with him. 2. They have defied the judgments of God and given the lie to his threatenings in the mouth of his prophets, Jer 5:12; Jer 5:13. They were often told that evil would certainly come upon them; they must expect some desolating judgment, sword or famine; but they were secure and said, We shall have peace, though we go on. For, (1.) They did not fear what God is. They belied him, and confronted the dictates even of natural light concerning him; for they said, “It is not he, that is, he is not such a one as we have been made to believe he is; he does not see, or not regard, or will not require it; and therefore no evil shall come upon us.” Multitudes are ruined by being made to believe that God will not be so strict with them as his word says he will; nay, by this artifice Satan undid us all: You shall not surely die. So here: Neither shall we see sword nor famine. Vain hopes of impunity are the deceitful support of all impiety. (2.) They did not fear what God said. The prophets gave them fair warning, but they turned it off with a jest: “They do but talk so, because it is their trade; they are words of course, and words are but wind. It is not the word of the Lord that is in them; it is only the language of their melancholy fancy or their ill-will to their country, because they are not preferred.” Note, Impenitent sinners are not willing to own any thing to be the word of God that makes against them, that tends either to part them from, or disquiet them in, their sins. They threaten the prophets: “They shall become wind, shall pass away unregarded, and thus shall it be done unto them; what they threaten against us we will inflict upon them. Do they frighten us with famine? Let them be fed with the bread of affliction.” So Micaiah was, 1 Kings xxii. 27. “Do they tell us of the sword? Let them perish by the sword,” ch. ii. 30. Thus their mocking and misusing God’s messengers filled the measure of their iniquity.
II. The punishment of this people for their sin. 1. The threatenings they laughed at shall be executed (v. 14): Because you speak this word of contempt concerning the prophets, and the word in their mouths, therefore God will put honour upon them and their words, for not one iota or tittle of them shall fall to the ground, 1 Sam. iii. 19. Here God turns to the prophet Jeremiah, who had been thus bantered, and perhaps had been a little uneasy at it: Behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire. God owns them for his words, though men denied them, and will as surely make them to take effect as the fire consumes combustible material that is in its way. The word shall be fire and the people wood. Sinners by sin make themselves fuel to that wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men in the scripture. The word of God will certainly be too hard for those that contend with it. Those shall break who will not bow before it. 2. The enemy they thought themselves in no danger of shall be brought upon them. God gives them their commission (v. 10): “Go you up upon her walls, mount them, trample upon them, tread them down. Walls of stone, before the divine commission, shall be but mud walls. Having made yourselves masters of the walls, you may destroy at pleasure. You may take away her battlements, and leave the fenced fortified cities to lie open; for her battlements are not the Lord’s he does not own them and therefore will not protect and fortify them.” They were not erected in his fear, nor with a dependence upon him; the people have trusted to them more than to God, and therefore they are not his. When the city is filled with sin God will not patronise the fortifications of it, and then they are paper walls. What can defend us when he who is our defence, and the defender of all our defences, has departed from us? Num. xiv. 9. What is not of God cannot stand, not stand long, nor stand us in any stead. What dreadful work these invaders should make is here described (v. 15): Lo, I will bring a nation upon you, O house of Israel! Note, God has all nations at his command, does what he pleases with them and makes what use he pleases of them. And sometimes he is pleased to make the nations of the earth, the heathen nations, a scourge to the house of Israel, when that has become a hypocritical nation. This nation of the Chaldeans is here said to be a remote nation; it is brought upon them from afar, and therefore will make the greater spoil and the longer stay, that the soldiers may pay themselves well for so long a march. “It is a nation that thou hast had no commerce with, by reason of their distance, and therefore canst not expect to find favour with.” God can bring trouble upon us from places and causes very remote. It is a mighty nation, that there is no making head against, an ancient nation, that value themselves upon their antiquity and will therefore be the more haughty and imperious. It is a nation whose language thou knowest not; they spoke the Syriac tongue, which the Jews at that time were not acquainted with, as appears, 2 Kings xviii. 26. The difference of language would make it the more difficult to treat with them of peace. Compare this with the threatening, Deut. xxviii. 49, which it seems to have a reference to, for the law and the prophets exactly agree. They are well armed: Their quiver is as an open sepulchre; their arrows shall fly so thick, hit so sure, and wound so deep, that they shall be reckoned to breathe nothing but death and slaughter: they are able-bodied, all effective, mighty men, v. 16. And, when they have made themselves masters of the country, they shall devour all before them, and reckon all their own that they can lay their hands on, v. 17. (1.) They shall strip the country, shall not only sustain, but surfeit, their soldiers with the rich products of this fruitful land. “They shall not store up (then it might possibly by retrieved), but eat up thy harvest in the field and thy bread in the house, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat.” Note, What we have we have for our families, and it is a comfort to see our sons and daughters eating that which we have taken care and pains for. But it is a grievous vexation to see it devoured by strangers and enemies, to see their camps victualled with our stores, while those that are dear to us are perishing for want of it: this also is according to the curse of the law, Deut. xxviii. 33. “They shall eat up thy flocks and herds, out of which thou hast taken sacrifices for thy idols; they shall not leave thee the fruit of thy vines and fig-trees.” (2.) They shall starve the towns: “They shall impoverish thy fenced cities” (and what fence is there against poverty, when it comes like an armed man?), “those cities wherein thou trustedst to be a protection to the country.” Note, It is just with God to impoverish that which we make our confidence. They shall impoverish them with the sword, cutting off all provisions from coming to them and intercepting trade and commerce, which will impoverish even fenced cities.
III. An intimation of the tender compassion God has yet for them. The enemy is commissioned to destroy and lay waste, but must not make a full end, v. 10. Though they make a great slaughter, yet some must be left to live; though they make a great spoil, yet something must be left to live upon, for God has said it (v. 18) with a non obstante–a nevertheless to the present desolation: “Even in those days, dismal as they are, I will not make a full end with you;” and, if God will not, the enemy shall not. God has mercy in store for his people, and therefore will set bounds to this desolating judgment. Hitherto it shall come, and no further.
IV. The justification of God in these proceedings against them. As he will appear to be gracious in not making a full end with them, so he will appear to be righteous in coming so near it, and will have it acknowledged that he has done them no wrong, v. 19. Observe, 1. A reason demanded, insolently demanded, by the people for these judgments. They will say “Wherefore doth the Lord our God do all this unto us? What provocation have we given him, or what quarrel has he with us?” As if against such a sinful nation there did not appear cause enough of action. Note, Unhumbled hearts are ready to charge God with injustice in their afflictions, and pretend they have to seek for the cause of them when it is written in the forehead of them. But, 2. Here is a reason immediately assigned. The prophet is instructed what answer to give them; for God will be justified when he speaks, though he speaks with ever so much terror. He must tell them that God does this against them for what they have done against him, and that they may, if they please, read their sin in their punishment. Do not they know very well that they have forsaken God, and therefore can they think it strange if he has forsaken them? Have they forgotten how often they served gods in their own land, that good land, in the abundance of the fruits of which they ought to have served God with gladness of heart? and therefore is it not just with God to make them serve strangers in a strange land, where they can call nothing their own, as he has threatened to do? Deu 28:47; Deu 28:48. Those that are fond of strangers, to strangers let them go.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Vs. 10-19: DESTRUCTION, BUT NOT ANNIHILATION
1. Likening Judah unto a vineyard (Isa 5:1-5), the command is given to take away her branches (a thorough pruning) which the Lord no longer claims; yet, the vineyard is not to be utterly destroyed, (vs. 10, 18: Jer 4:27).
2. Both Israel and Judah have dealt treacherously against the Lord – rejecting the discipline of His hand, (vs. 11-12; Jer 3:6-7; Jer 3:20; comp. Jer 43:1-4).
3. Their prophets have become vain – full of “wind” instead of “the spirit” – no longer proclaiming the word of the Lord, (Jer 23:17; Jer 14:13 -16); thus, God has rejected them! (vs. 13).
4. Making His word as “fire,” in the mouth of Jeremiah, and His people as “wood”; Judah will be devoured by the judgment which he proclaims, (vs. 14-18; Jer 23:29).
a. God is bringing upon them, from afar, an ancient nation, whose language they do not understand, (vs. 15; Jer 4:16; Isa 5:26-30; Deu 28:47-51; comp. Isa 28:11).
b. Their quiver (comp. Isa 22:6) is likened unto an opened grave; their men to valiant warriors, (vs. 16).
c. The produce of the land will be utterly consumed by the enemy, (Jer 8:16; Jer 50:5; Jer 50:17; Deu 28:31-33; Deu 8:13) – the fortified cities, in which Judah trusts, will be impoverished by the sword of the Chaldeans, (vs. 17; Hos 8:14).
d. But God, in mercy, will NOT make a full end of Judah, (vs. 13; Jer 4:27).
5. When the people, in their humiliation, shall ask why the Lord has brought such judgment upon them, they will be told that, since they forsook the Lord and served idols in their own land, they must serve strangers in a land that is not their own, (vs. 19; Deu 29:24-26; 1Ki 9:8-9; Jer 16:10-13).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Here God by the mouth of his Prophet addresses the enemies of his people, whom he had appointed to be the ministers of his vengeance: and this was usual with the prophets, when they sought more effectually to rouse and more sharply to touch the hearts of men; for we know how great is their indifference when God summons them to judgment. As then Jeremiah saw that simple instruction availed but little, he used this mode of speaking. He then in the person of God addresses the Chaldeans, and bids them to come to attack Jerusalem. The prophets often speak thus, — “Hiss will God for the Egyptians,” or, “Sound shall the trumpet, and he will send for the Chaldeans.” (Isa 5:26; Isa 7:18.) But the representation is more effectual to penetrate into the hearts of men, when the Prophet at God’s command assembles enemies as a celestial herald and bids them what to do, even to destroy the whole city.
He says first, Ascend ye her walls By which words he intimates, that the Jews in vain boasted of the height of their walls, for God would make their enemies to ascend them, so that the entrance would not be difficult. They hoped indeed that they were safe, because the city was well fortified. Hence he says, that they were deceived; and he exposes their folly, for their walls would not protect them.
He afterwards adds, An end do not make This sentence is explained in two ways. Some take it in a good sense, as though God mitigated the extremity of their punishment, according to the meaning which some attach to the words in the last chapter; for though God in that passage terrified the Jews, yet they consider that by way of mitigation this was added, “I will not yet make a consummation,” that is, there will be some remaining. And the prophets are wont thus to speak, when they intend to shew that some seed will ever remain, so that the Church shall not wholly be destroyed. Thus also do the same interpreters explain this passage, as though God had said, that the ruin of Jerusalem would be such that the Church would still continue, for there would be no consummation. But others take כלה, cale, as signifying an end: and this meaning is more suitable; for God in this verse severely threatens the Jews with destruction. It is no objection, that it is said elsewhere, that the consummation would not be complete; for it is quite evident that the prophets do not always adopt the same mode in speaking: when they denounce vengeance on the reprobate, they leave no hope; and so this mode of speaking often occurs, “I will make an end:” but when they address the faithful, they moderate the severity of their threatenings by saying, “God will not make a consummation.” I am therefore disposed to take their view, whom regard consummation here as signifying an end; and כלל, calal, means to finish. The meaning then is, “Demolish the city, and let there be no end,“ that is, destroy it entirely. (139)
To the same purpose is what immediately follows, Take away her shoots, or her branches, or the teeth of her walls, as some render the word. I think, however, that the Prophet refers to the width of the walls in their foundations; for we know that walls are so built, that the foundation is wider than the upper structure. The word which the Prophet uses, means shoots, which spread far and wide. They who render it, the wings of the walls, seem not to me to understand what the Prophet means; for he speaks not here of the top of the walls, but of the foundations, as though he had said, “Overthrow or demolish from the foundation the walls of the city: “and why? They are not Jehovah’s, he adds. The Jews were inflated with this empty confidence, — that they were safe under the protection of God; for they imagined that God was the guardian of the city, because the sanctuary and the altar were there. Hence the Prophet declares, that the walls or the foundations were not God’s. (140) Nor could it have been objected, that it is said elsewhere, that the city had been founded by the Lord: God had indeed chosen his habitation and his throne there; but on this condition — that the people should faithfully worship him. When Jerusalem was made a den of thieves, God departed thence, according to what is said by Ezekiel in chapter 14 (Eze 14:0). Here then the Prophet reproves that foolish confidence, by which the Jews deceived themselves, when they thought that God was in a manner bound never to forsake the defense of the city. He denies that their walls and foundations were God’s; for the Jews by their sins had so polluted the whole place, that God could not dwell in such filth. It follows —
(139) See Note on Jer 4:27.
(140) It is true the word means shoots or branches; but as the root means to spread, it evidently signifies here battlements, bulwarks, or ramparts. It is rendered “ ὑποστηρίγματα — props, pillars,” by the Septuagint; “ propagines — shoots,” by the Vulgate; “ foundations,” by the Syriac and Arabic; and “palaces, or towers,” by the Targum. Our version has the most suitable word — “battlements.” Blayney has “branches,“ and thinks that the cities of Judea are meant; but this is not suitable to the context. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
3. Treacherous unbelief (Jer. 5:10-18)
TRANSLATION
(10) Go up against her rows and destroy, but do not make a full end; Remove her shoots for they do not belong to the LORD. (11) For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been thoroughly treacherous with me (oracle of the LORD). (12) They have lied against the LORD and have said, lie is not and the calamity shall not come against us. We shall not see sword and famine. (13) And the prophets are windbags and the word is not in them. Thus let it be done to them. (14) Therefore thus says the LORD God of Hosts: because you have said this thing, behold, I am about to place My words in your mouth as fire and this people as wood and it shall consume them. (15) Behold, I am about to bring against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel (oracle of the LORD), a powerful nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose tongue you do not know nor can you understand what they say. (16) Their quiver is like a open grave; all of them are mighty men. (17) They shall eat your harvest and your bread, they shall eat up your sheep and your cattle, they shall eat your vines and your fig trees, they shall batter with the sword your fortified cities in which you are trusting. (18) But even in those days (oracle of the LORD) I will not make a full end of you.
COMMENTS
Frequently in prophetic literature the Lord through his prophet will exhort the enemy to get busy with the work of judgment against Israel. In verse ten Judah is compared to a vineyard or perhaps an olive orchard. The enemy is instructed to go up against the rows[167] of vines and begin a ruthless pruning operation. The degenerate and dead shoots,[168] the apostate people who no longer render allegiance to the Lord, are to be removed. But the enemy is not to completely destroy the vine. Through the process of their pruning the degenerate members of the nation will be removed and the believing kernel of the nation will be left (Jer. 5:10). Here again is the idea of the remnant which plays such an important role in the Old Testament (cf. Jer. 4:27).
[167] The American Standard and King James versions have rendered this Hebrew word as walls. While this translation has the support of some of the ancient versions the translation rows is equally possible and fits better the imagery of the verse.
[168] The rendering of the American Standard, branches, is much to be preferred over the King James battlements.
But why must any judgment against Judah take place? The house of Israel and the house of Judah, both kingdoms, have been treacherous with the Lord (Jer. 5:11). The word treacherous in the Old Testament carries the idea of violating the most sacred relationships as, for example, marriage vows (Mal. 2:11). Furthermore, the people of Judah have lied against the Lord (Jer. 5:12). They were saying, No calamity of any kind shall befall us for His is not (lit., not He!). Were they denying the very existence of God? This is not likely. Were they saying, God has nothing to do with either our well-being or our misfortune? In view of the prevailing religious attitudes of that day this again seems unlikely. Were they saying, It is not He who is speaking through prophets like Jeremiah? This seems to be reading too much into the text. In the view of the present writer the people were saying,
God will not turn against us, He will not bring calamity upon us. The notion that God could not destroy Judah because of the covenant with them was deeply rooted in the popular theology of that time. Whatever it was that they were saying God regarded it as a lie concerning Himself.
Not only were the people lying against God, they were ridiculing the prophets of God. They regarded the prophets who claimed to be men of the Spirit as nothing but windbags.[169] The word of God is not in them (lit., He who speaks is not in them). Let these prophecies of doom fall upon those who utter them, sneered the people (Jer. 5:13). But God will not let the slanderous words of the people go unchallenged. He acknowledges Jeremiah as His spokesman and affirms that He, the Almighty, has placed those words upon the lips of the prophet. The judgment words spoken by Jeremiah will eventually consume the people as fire consumes dead timber (Jer. 5:14). The title Lord God of Hosts appears in Jer. 5:14 for the first time in the book. This title, frequent in Isaiah, became even more popular in the period of the exile and restoration. The identity of the hosts is uncertain. Is He Lord of the hosts of angels, the hosts (armies) of Israel or the hosts of the nations? God is Lord of all hosts; He is sovereign over all men and angels.
[169] The same Hebrew word can be rendered spirit or wind.
The threat of divine judgment so repugnant to the people of Judah is repeated in Jer. 5:15-18. God is about to bring a powerful and ancient nation against the house of Israel. The house of Israel is here the kingdom of Judah, for after the destruction of Samaria in 722 B.C. Judah became the sole representative of the people of Israel. The attacking nation is powerful. The word used here is one used primarily of rivers which flow the year around. The enemies have inexhaustible resources and therefore do not fail in the purpose which they undertake. The nation is ancient, dating back to the very dawn of history. They speak a language which the men of Judah cannot comprehend (Jer. 5:15). Here Jeremiah seems to borrow the terminology used earlier by Isaiah to describe the Assyrians (Isa. 28:11; Isa. 33:19). Every man in the enemy army is a mighty of valor. The arrows of their archers are deadly (Jer. 5:16). The armies of the enemy sweep over the land and devour the crops and the cattle. The phrase, they shall eat up your sons and your daughters, is metaphorical, meaning they shall eat the food which the children would normally eat. This would mean, of course, that the children would then die of starvation. With the sword, i.e., with their weapons of war, they will batter down the walls of the cities in which the men of Judah placed their confidence (Jer. 5:17). Yet as terrible as this judgment is, the nation will not be utterly destroyed. A remnant will survive (cf. Jer. 4:27; Jer. 5:10).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(10) Walls.Better, her palm-trees. The Hebrew word is found in Eze. 27:25, though not in the English Version, in the sense of mast, and here, apparently, means the tall, stately trunk of the palmtree. So, for battlements it is better to read branches (as in Isa. 18:5), as carrying on the same imagery, and indicating the limits of the destruction, that is not to make a full end. The rendering walls, still adopted by some commentators, may refer to the walls of a vineyard, but the second word would in that case be the tendrils of the vine. Both the palm-tree and the vine appear on Maccabean coins as symbols of Judah, and the latter had been treated as such in Isa. 5:1-7; Psa. 80:8-16.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
10. Go ye up upon her walls The word rendered “walls” occurs nowhere else in this form and in this sense. In Eze 27:25, the same word is translated in the English Version, “did sing of thee.” Furst gives it here the meaning palms. But this sense is most unlikely, the palm being neither so common nor so characteristic as to justify its use in such a passage as this. There is, indeed, no sufficient reason for rejecting the sense of “walls,” indicated by all the important versions. This unusual form of the plural has several parallels, or at least analogous forms; as, for instance, the plurals of , day, , head, etc. The sense, however, is not walls, as of a city, but of a vineyard.
Battlements Rather, tendrils. The word is used in Isa 18:5. The stock of Judah’s vine was not to be destroyed, but only the branches which had degenerated out of their kind.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
YHWH Calls On His Champion, Whose Great Might He Makes Clear, In Order That His Forces Might Denude Judah Because Of Their Treachery Towards Him ( Jer 5:10-19 ).
The instrument of YHWH’s judgment is called on to scale the wall of YHWH’s vineyard and destroy the vine by de-branching it, but not to make a full end. The stump must be left (compare Isa 6:13) so that it may eventually grow again. This is because they have dealt very treacherously with Him, and have even denied Him, crowing that no evil would come on them. YHWH will, therefore, respond by making their prophets windbags rather than men of the Spirit, so that they will not have YHWH’s words. In contrast His words in Jeremiah will be a fire, and the people will be wood, so that they will be devoured. For He is bringing from afar a mighty and ancient nation of foreign tongue, whose quivers are an open sepulchre (especially deadly and easy to fall into) and who are all mighty men. They will devour everything and bring down their cities. And yet even in those days YHWH will still not make a full end.
Jer 5:10
‘Go you up on her walls, and destroy, but do not make a full end. Take away her branches (or ‘tendrils’), for they are not YHWH’s.’
Once again YHWH’s people are likened to a failing vine (compare Jer 2:21; Jer 6:9; Isa 5:1-7) and YHWH calls on His chosen champion (presumably Nebuchadnezzar) to climb the walls or vine terraces of His Vineyard in order to denude the vine of branches, because the branches are not YHWH’s. They are failing to produce the required fruit (compare Jer 2:21 where Israel/Judah were pictured as a degenerate vine, and Jer 6:9 where they are to be gleaned as a vine). But he is not to make a full end, because YHWH has future plans for His people.
The word translated ‘walls’ means something firm and strong and may here signify ‘vine terraces’.
Jer 5:11
“For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me,” the word of YHWH.’
The reason for His call is that both Israel and Judah have dealt very treacherously against Him. Note how YHWH still has both in mind. He has not forgotten Israel. And this verdict is revealed as certain because it is ‘the word of YHWH (neum YHWH).’
Jer 5:12
“They have denied YHWH, and said, ‘It is “not he”, nor will evil come upon us, nor will we see sword nor famine.’ ”
Their treachery lies in the fact that they have denied Him and said, ‘Lo hu‘.’ (‘Not He’), thereby denying His overlordship, and His power to harm them. They no longer see Him as their ‘I am’. Thus they boast that no evil will come on them, and that they will see neither sword nor famine, because YHWH is powerless to bring it about.
Jer 5:13
‘And the prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus will it be done to them.’
Consequently in return YHWH promises that their prophets will become mere purveyors of wind (ruach = ‘wind, spirit, breath’), without receiving His word, rather than true men of the Spirit. For this is what YHWH will do to them.
Jer 5:14
‘For which reason YHWH, the God of hosts, says, “Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them.”
In contrast, because of this, YHWH God of Hosts (YHWH Elohe Tsebaoth, a powerful description first found in Jer 2:19, with Hosts signifying all the hosts both of heaven and earth, including sun, moon and stars) will make the words of Jeremiah, who does speak His word, like a fire, and He will make the people wood, so that they may be devoured by the results of his fiery word as the judgments that he prophesies come about.
Jer 5:15
“Lo, I will bring a nation on you from far, O house of Israel,” says YHWH, “it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor understand what they say.”
For the result of Jeremiah’s words will be the coming of a mighty and ancient nation from afar, speaking a strange language, in accordance with the words of Moses (compare Deu 28:49), because they have broken the covenant. Babylon was both a mighty nation and an ancient nation, and by Judah’s standards did come ‘from far’ (compare Isa 39:3). Note that Judah is here referred to as ‘the house of Israel’, for Judah now included many refugees from Israel. To the prophets both were one. And a similar judgment had already come on Israel, as a prototype of what would happen to Judah. Both would suffer in the same way under the name of ‘the house of Israel’, because both were guilty in the same way. (Of course by this time Judah was a mixture of the twelve tribes due both to refugees from Israel, and to those from Israel who had chosen to settle there because it housed the Temple and the Ark).
Jer 5:16
“Their quiver is an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men.”
The quivers of the bowmen of YHWH’s champion (Nebuchadnezzar, His servant – Jer 27:6), which have mouths wide open at the top, are likened to an open sepulchre into which a man can easily fall, never to rise again. They are an invitation to death because of the deadly arrows that they contain. Furthermore all His champion’s men are equally champions (mighty men), they are powerful warriors who will put Judah to shame.
Jer 5:17
“And it will eat up your harvest and your bread, they will eat up your sons and your daughters, it will eat up your flocks and your herds, it will eat up your vines and your fig-trees, they will beat down your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.”
And those mighty warriors (‘it’ signifying the whole mighty nation, they signifying the mighty warriors) would eat up their harvest and their bread, and their sons and their daughters (compare Jer 3:24), and their flocks and herds (compare Jer 3:24), and their vines and fig trees. All that they had laboured for would be swallowed up by strangers (Jer 3:24). And with the sword these mighty warriors would beat down their fortified cities in which they trusted for refuge. For from such forces there could be no refuge.
To ‘eat up’ people was to slaughter them, partaking in their death, a similar usage being found in Psa 14:4; Psa 53:4; Isa 49:26; Mic 3:3. It was the Jewish symbolism utilised by Jesus in Joh 6:51-58 and in the Lord’s Supper where it indicated partaking in His death.
Jer 5:18
“But even in those days,” says YHWH, “I will not make a full end with you.”
And yet even in those days YHWH would not make a full end. Devastating though the invasion and exile would be, it would not be final. For YHWH remembered His promises to their forefathers (e.g. Gen 12:3), and His assurances given through Moses (Lev 26:45; Deu 30:1-10). One day Israel would rise again.
Jer 5:19
‘And it will come about that when you shall say, “Why has YHWH our God done all these things unto us?” Then you will say to them, “In the same way as you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.”
And when the people ask themselves the question, “Why has YHWH our God done all these things unto us?” The answer will be that it is because they have forsaken YHWH and have served other gods in their land, and as a consequence will now have to serve strangers (foreigners) in a land which is not theirs (which clearly indicates that here at least the Babylonians are in mind). Notice the parallel in that because in their own land they served ‘strange’ gods, in a land that is not theirs they will serve ‘strangers’ (although the comparison is in the sense, for the Hebrew root is different). If they love ‘strangers’ so much they can have them in abundance.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jer 5:10. Go ye up, &c. See Jer 5:17 and the note on Jer 5:27 of the preceding chapter. Instead of take away her battlements, &c. Houbigant reads, Leave her foundations, for they are the Lord’s. See his note. It is well known from history, that the Chaldeans left the foundations of the walls of Jerusalem, which Jeremiah here foretells.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mark Reader, I pray you, in those days as now, how the Lord mingles compassion with punishment. Destroy, saith the Lord: but make not a full end. There is a blessing in it. Isa 65:8 . Oh! how sweet to consider, to what cause the salvation was then, as now, referred.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 5:10 Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they [are] not the LORD’S.
Ver. 10. Get ye up upon her battlements, and destroy. ] Ascendite et exscindite; up and lay about you lustily. A commission granted out to the enemy, to execute divine vengeance; God can never want a weapon to beat his rebels with.
But make not a full end.
For they are not the Lord’s.] He disowneth them, and giveth them primo occupaturo, to him that shall first seize them; as the Pope took upon him to do this kingdom of England, in the days of Henry VIII, whom he had excommunicated and deprived.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 5:10-13
10 Go up through her vine rows and destroy,
But do not execute a complete destruction;
Strip away her branches,
For they are not the LORD’S.
11For the house of Israel and the house of Judah
Have dealt very treacherously with Me, declares the LORD.
12They have lied about the LORD
And said, Not He;
Misfortune will not come on us,
And we will not see sword or famine.
13The prophets are as wind,
And the word is not in them.
Thus it will be done to them!
Jer 5:10-13 This strophe is very similar to Jer 5:7-9. These were probably independent judgment poems collected and edited.
Notice the IMPERATIVES of Jer 5:10.
1. go up – BDB 748, KB 828, Qal IMPERATIVE
2. destroy – BDB 1007, KB 1469, Piel IMPERATIVE
3. do not execute a complete destruction – BDB 793, KB 889, Qal IMPERFECT negated, used in a JUSSIVE sense, cf. Jer 4:27 c; Jer 5:18; Jer 30:11; Jer 46:28
4. strip away – BDB 693, KB 747, Hiphil IMPERATIVE
Also notice the intensified form in Jer 5:11, have dealt very treacherously with Me. This is a Qal INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE and an IMPERFECT VERB of the same root (BDB 93, KB 108).
In light of this, Jer 5:10 b is a startling statement of hope (cf. Jer 4:27; Jer 5:10; Jer 5:18; Jer 30:11; Jer 46:28)! A faithful remnant will be spared.
SPECIAL TOPIC: THE REMNANT, THREE SENSES
Jer 5:10 For they are not the LORD’S This is referring to the vines. These Judeans saw their agricultural abundance as a sign of Ba’al’s favor! This will change (cf. Jer 5:12; Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 27-29).
Jer 5:11 house of Israel. . .house of Judah All the sons of Abraham had rebelled (cf. Jer 3:6-10).
Jer 5:12 The VERB lied about the LORD (BDB 471, KB 469, Piel PERFECT) may be a word play. Its basic meaning is lean, the exact opposite of the leaders of Jer 5:7-8. It denotes people who seem to acknowledge one thing, but in reality acknowledge someone else (cf. Jos 24:27; Job 8:15; Isa 59:13). This is an example of Isa 29:13! They say one thing (As the LORD lives, Jer 5:2); they do mean it but they practice fertility rites and swear by Ba’al.
NASBNot He
NKJVIt is not He
NRSVHe is nothing
TEVHe won’t really do anything
TEV(footnote) We don’t want anything to do with Him
NJBHe will do nothing
JPSOAIt is not so!
REBHe does not matter
This is irony. The only true God (i.e., Deu 32:39; Isa 43:13) is said to be irrelevant (i.e., will not act, cf. Eze 8:12; Eze 9:9; Zep 1:12) and the false fertility gods are praised and trusted!
It is possible that this brief phrase means YHWH would never bring judgment on Jerusalem (AB, p. 40), which was the prophecy of Isaiah (cf. Isaiah 5-12; Isaiah 36-37) and the message of the false prophets in Jeremiah’s day. Isaiah’s statement would be true if His people were faithful, but they were not and the consequences of covenant infidelity (cf. Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 27-29) will come to pass!
Jer 5:13 Those who were called and charged to speak for YHWH did not have His spirit, wind (BDB 924, i.e., they do not have YHWH’s word, Jer 5:13 b). False prophets are a recurrent theme in Jeremiah (i.e., Jer 5:31; Jer 14:13-15; Jeremiah 23 and typified by Hananiah in chapter 28). Often people hear what they want to hear! The heart controls the ear!
But there are true prophets who do speak for God; Jeremiah was one of them. Jer 5:13 could be
1. the people’s comment about God’s prophets, as Jer 5:12 is their comment about God
2. this is God’s comment about the false prophets who are speaking peace, safety!
The last line of Jer 5:12 favors #2. But it is hard to know who is speaking to whom in the poems of Jeremiah. The interpretation depends on the identity of the speaker and the recipients. Dogmatism is certainly inappropriate. It is best to ascertain the central truth of the strophe (or series of strophes) and not push the details!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
not a full end. Compare Jer 5:18, and Jer 4:27.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jer 5:10-12. Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for the are not the LORDS. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the LORD. They have belied the LORD,
They have made it out as though God himself were a liar. They have contradicted him whose word is the truth itself. They have despised his threatenings, they have refused his invitations, they have disbelieved his promises: they have belied the Lord,
Jer 5:12-14. And said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine: and the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them. Wherefore 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.
It is a dreadful state of things when God turns from pleading with men to threatening them, when he ceases to invite them to return to him, and denounces them as transgressors against his laws. At such times, he makes the words that come out of the mouths of his prophets to be like fire, and men are utterly consumed by them as the stable in the field is destroyed by the devouring flames.
Jer 5:15-18. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: iris a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. Their quiver is as an open sepulcher, they are all mighty men. And 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. Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you.
See how, in the midst of his wrath, God remembers mercy. He utters a terrible sentence concerning transgressors, and then he pauses, and says, Nevertheless,listen to the gentle note of pity in that word, Nevertheless, in those days, saith the Lord, I will not, make a full end with you. Still does he spare the guilty, and in his longsuffering he gives them further opportunities for repentance.
Jer 5:19. And 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 serve strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.
A man may often see his sin in its punishment. Because they had served strange gods, therefore the Lord sent them to serve strangers in a strange land. Remember, O transgressor, that thy sin will come home to thee in some form or other! if we sow the wind, we shall reap the whirlwind. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Therefore, let us beware of scattering seeds of sin, for they will produce a terrible harvest of woe.
Jer 5:20-21. Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying, Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:
And, alas! there are far too many of such people still about. They hear Gods Word, yet it never reaches their hearts. They see what Gods hand is doing all around them, yet they do not and they will not really see it as they should.
Jer 5:22. Fear 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?
There is a little belt of sand which checks the surging sea, and says to it, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. Now, if sand, which is so weak a thing, can, nevertheless, control the mighty ocean within bounds, how readily ought you and I to be governed by God, and held in check even by the slightest intimations of his will!
Jer 5:23. But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone.
God restrains the sea, but nothing seems to be able to restrain the sinfulness of man. He breaks ever every barrier that should keep him back; he is like a desolating torrent when he gives way to iniquity.
Jer 5:24. 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.
Though God gives timely and suitable seasons for the growth and in-gathering of the corn,rain when it is needed to aid the upspringing of the blade, and fine weather for garnering the harvest,yet many men see not the hand of God at all, and they are therefore not moved by gratitude to bless his name, and fear him to whom they are indebted for all that they receive. Oh, what an ungrateful and blind creature is man!
Jer 5:25. Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.
Does any unconverted man here know what good things he has missed up to the present moment? Suppose you, my friend, were to be saved tonight, yet can you even imagine what joy you have lost through all the years of your past impenitence? Nothing can ever give back to you the years that have gone, or impart to you, in the future, the joy you might have had, but which you have missed. And, mark you, if there were no hell to be endured, it is enough of hell to have missed heaven. It will be grief enough to your heart, at the last, to find that your sins have withholden good things from you.
Jer 5:26. For among my people are found wicked men:
Among my people, saith the Lord,in the very church itself, making as loud a profession as the most genuine Christian,among my people are found wicked men. Here, in this place, tonight, mingling with the godly in this congregation, are found wicked men. The Lord have mercy upon them, and turn them from their evil ways!
Jer 5:26. They lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
Beware of these man-catchers, who entrap souls, and ruin them for ever, ensnaring them by leading them into evil habits and transgressions.
Jer 5:27-28. As a, cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked:-
The manifestly wicked,
Jer 5:28-29. They judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Shall I not visit for these things?
Angels in heaven, God says to you, Shall I not visit for these things? And they answer, Yea, Lord. Even to the devils in hell, he may put the same question. They are already smarting under his wrath, and he may say to them, Shall I not visit for these things? And they also answer, Yea. He puts the question to all intelligent beings who know what is right and true, Shall I not visit for these things? And they, with one consent, reply, Yea, Lord; it must be so.
Jer 5:29-31. Saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so:
It is a most horrible thing that Gods own people should ever be willing that error should be preached, and that oppression and wrong-doing of any kind should be practiced. You know that, if Gods own people did not tolerate false doctrine, it would soon cease to be heard in many places. But it is when those who profess to know Gods Word endorse that which is contrary to the truth that error is kept in power in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so.
Jer 5:31. And what will ye do in the end thereof?
That is a question which I would propose in Gods name to all here. Is your religion of such a character that, when you come to die, it will bear you up? Or have you taken up with some form of falsehood which will not stand the test of your dying hour? Are you living in neglect of God? Is your life such that he must be angry with you, for he is angry with the wicked every day? Then, take home to yourself the question with which this chapter closes, What will ye do in the end thereof? I am going to speak to you presently about those who go forth with Christ, without the camp, bearing his reproach, so let us read a few verses about the glory which awaits them by-and-by.
This exposition consisted of readings from Jer 5:1-6; Jer 5:10-31; and Rev 22:1-7.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Jer 5:10-18
3. Treacherous unbelief (Jer 5:10-18)
the work of judgment against Israel. In verse ten Judah is compared to a vineyard or perhaps an olive orchard. The enemy is instructed to go up against the rows of vines and begin a ruthless pruning operation. The American Standard and King James versions have rendered this Hebrew word as walls. While this translation has the support of some of the ancient versions the translation rows is equally possible and fits better the imagery of the verse. The degenerate and dead shoots, the apostate people who no longer render allegiance to the Lord, are to be removed. The rendering of the American Standard, branches, is much to be preferred over the King James battlements. But the enemy is not to completely destroy the vine. Through the process of their pruning the degenerate members of the nation will be removed and the believing kernel of the nation will be left (Jer 5:10). Here again is the idea of the remnant which plays such an important role in the Old Testament (cf. Jer 4:27).
But why must any judgment against Judah take place? The house of Israel and the house of Judah, both kingdoms, have been treacherous with the Lord (Jer 5:11). The word treacherous in the Old Testament carries the idea of violating the most sacred relationships as, for example, marriage vows (Mal 2:11). Furthermore, the people of Judah have lied against the Lord (Jer 5:12). They were saying, No calamity of any kind shall befall us for His is not (lit., not He!). Were they denying the very existence of God? This is not likely. Were they saying, God has nothing to do with either our well-being or our misfortune? In view of the prevailing religious attitudes of that day this again seems unlikely. Were they saying, It is not He who is speaking through prophets like Jeremiah? This seems to be reading too much into the text. In the view of the present writer the people were saying,
God will not turn against us, He will not bring calamity upon us. The notion that God could not destroy Judah because of the covenant with them was deeply rooted in the popular theology of that time. Whatever it was that they were saying God regarded it as a lie concerning Himself.
Not only were the people lying against God, they were ridiculing the prophets of God. They regarded the prophets who claimed to be men of the Spirit as nothing but windbags. The same Hebrew word can be rendered spirit or wind. The word of God is not in them (lit., He who speaks is not in them). Let these prophecies of doom fall upon those who utter them, sneered the people (Jer 5:13). But God will not let the slanderous words of the people go unchallenged. He acknowledges Jeremiah as His spokesman and affirms that He, the Almighty, has placed those words upon the lips of the prophet. The judgment words spoken by Jeremiah will eventually consume the people as fire consumes dead timber (Jer 5:14). The title Lord God of Hosts appears in Jer 5:14 for the first time in the book. This title, frequent in Isaiah, became even more popular in the period of the exile and restoration. The identity of the hosts is uncertain. Is He Lord of the hosts of angels, the hosts (armies) of Israel or the hosts of the nations? God is Lord of all hosts; He is sovereign over all men and angels.
The threat of divine judgment so repugnant to the people of Judah is repeated in Jer 5:15-18. God is about to bring a powerful and ancient nation against the house of Israel. The house of Israel is here the kingdom of Judah, for after the destruction of Samaria in 722 B.C. Judah became the sole representative of the people of Israel. The attacking nation is powerful. The word used here is one used primarily of rivers which flow the year around. The enemies have inexhaustible resources and therefore do not fail in the purpose which they undertake. The nation is ancient, dating back to the very dawn of history. They speak a language which the men of Judah cannot comprehend (Jer 5:15). Here Jeremiah seems to borrow the terminology used earlier by Isaiah to describe the Assyrians (Isa 28:11; Isa 33:19). Every man in the enemy army is a mighty of valor. The arrows of their archers are deadly (Jer 5:16). The armies of the enemy sweep over the land and devour the crops and the cattle. The phrase, they shall eat up your sons and your daughters, is metaphorical, meaning they shall eat the food which the children would normally eat. This would mean, of course, that the children would then die of starvation. With the sword, i.e., with their weapons of war, they will batter down the walls of the cities in which the men of Judah placed their confidence (Jer 5:17). Yet as terrible as this judgment is, the nation will not be utterly destroyed. A remnant will survive (cf. Jer 4:27; Jer 5:10).
Jer 5:10
“Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her branches; for they are not Jehovah’s.”
Due to its importance, we shall take a careful look at this verse. Note the figure of pruning the grapevine, “Take away her branches,” the ones that do not pertain to Jehovah. The figure here is not that of destroying the vine completely, but that of pruning it severely. This is important in refuting the speculations that would delete the pledge here that God would not allow the complete destruction of Judah. Not only here, but in Jer 5:18 below, and in Jer 4:27 above, this pledge is given no less than three times. It is one of the most important things in Jeremiah. It meant that all of the glorious promises to the patriarchs would yet be fulfilled in that “righteous remnant” announced by Isaiah, which would indeed return from Babylon and form the nucleus of the New Israel in Jesus Christ.
We shall note together what the critics have said about this pledge of “no full end” in both Jer 5:10 and Jer 5:18. Robinson stated that, “Like many similar remarks, this seems to be a later insertion meant to qualify the rigor of the destruction in Jer 5:17. On this expression in Jer 5:10, Hyatt declaimed, “The word `not’ is probably a mitigating gloss. Notice the absolute lack of evidence cited in support of these presumptuous and arrogant denials of what the Word of God says. Fortunately, this type of blatant denial has been tempered significantly by current critics, who still mention the old prejudice against these pledges, but point out reasons for rejecting them.
Feinberg, for example, mentioned the old canard about those pledges in Jer 5:10; Jer 5:18. being “later additions or glosses”; but immediately added that, “That view lacks MS authority; furthermore the immediate context speaks of pruning not of destroying the vine.” (This comment, written in 1965, shows how far we have come from the arrogant denial of Robinson in 1924). Why do not the critics ever tell us that no MS authority whatever backs up their devices against these verses but that the, “Syriac, Septuagint, and Arabic versions all agree with the words, `Destroy, but make not a full end’? (See Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible (London: T. Mason and G. Lane, 1837), p. 369). We learned long ago that the strict fairness of radical critics cannot be counted upon. We also appreciate what Ash said about this: “Some suggest that the word `not’ be deleted from Jer 5:10; but since the vine was not uprooted, the idea of its continued existence can be supported from the rest of the verse.
We shall be happier when Christian scholars no longer feel it is necessary to pay lip service to those old shibboleths of the radical critics. They have already been long discredited and rejected by believers.
Jer 5:11-13
“For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith Jehovah, They have denied Jehovah, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine: and the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them.”
“It is not he …” (Jer 5:12). Ash tells us that the Hebrew expression, “It is not he,” simply means that, “God will do no such thing as punish us, regardless of what any prophet says. Zephaniah accused the people of exactly that same attitude (Zep 1:12).
It is strange indeed that, despite all of the specific warnings God gave to his people through Moses in such specific terms as those of the last three or four chapters of Deuteronomy, the Jewish people should have decided that, as God’s Chosen People, they were blessed forever no matter what they did! Green gave an explanation of that thus:
“The people perverted the doctrine of election. Instead of regarding it as a moral act subject to moral criticism and control, they came to look upon it as an unconditional relationship, guaranteeing them national victory and glory. They made it the basis of grandiose dreams and; `It can’t happen here … not to us… God’s elect!
Jer 5:14-18
“Wherefore thus saith Jehovah, the 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. Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith Jehovah: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. Their quiver is an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. And they shall eat up thy harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat; they shall eat up thy flocks and thy herds; they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig-trees; they shall beat down thy fortified cities, wherein thou trustest, with the sword. But even in those days, saith Jehovah, I will not make a full end with you.”
In regard to the identity of that terrible nation God would bring against Judah, two clues are given here. (1) It is an ancient nation, which excludes the Scythians and points squarely at Babylon. Ash, quoting Herodotus, called the Scythians, “The youngest of the nations.” (2) The other clue comes from the words “mighty nation,” rendered “enduring nation” by Ash. “These words describe Babylon, not the Scythians.
Feinberg listed the earmarks of Babylonian identity here as: (1) distant, (2) ancient, (3) enduring, (4) unintelligible in speech, and (5) deadly in war, all of these being evident in this passage.
“Their quiver is an open sepulchre …” (Jer 5:16). This is an unusual metaphor indicating the deadliness of the Babylonians in waging war.
“I will not make a full end with you …” (Jer 5:18). See a full discussion of this promise under Jer 5:10. This is one of the great phases of Jeremiah’s prophecy, reiterating God’s pledge to spare a remnant of the rebellious nation. It is a remarkable contrast with God’s promise to make “a full end” of Nineveh (Nahum 8), ranking it among the most remarkable predictive prophecies of the Bible. Anyone familiar with critical writing against the scriptures has no difficulty at all of pinpointing right here the reason behind critical hostility toward this and similar passages throughout Jeremiah. “If it is undeniably a predictive prophecy,” according to critical bias, “Get rid of it by any means whatsoever: (1) call it gloss; (2) ascribe it to another writer; (3) late-date it; (4) refer it to some unrelated subject; (5) delete it from the text; (6) mis-translate it; or (7) simply declare, “Of course, we must not make too much of this!”
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
ye up: Jer 6:4-6, Jer 25:9, Jer 39:8, Jer 51:20-23, 2Ki 24:2-4, 2Ch 36:17, Isa 10:5-7, Isa 13:1-5, Eze 9:5-7, Eze 14:17, Mat 22:7
but make: Jer 5:18, Jer 4:27, Jer 30:11, Jer 46:28, Eze 12:16, Amo 9:8
they are not: Jer 7:4-12, Psa 78:61, Psa 78:62, Hos 1:9
Reciprocal: Deu 28:55 – in the siege 2Ki 25:4 – the city 2Ki 25:10 – brake 2Ch 12:4 – the fenced Neh 1:3 – the wall Neh 2:13 – the walls Neh 9:31 – for thy great Isa 37:27 – their inhabitants Jer 39:2 – was Lam 2:2 – he hath thrown Lam 2:8 – purposed Eze 26:4 – destroy Dan 11:15 – cast up Joe 2:7 – climb Rom 9:27 – a remnant
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 5:10. Gods feeling of compassion never ceases, and usually it will be expressed even in the midst of severe threatenings. It is predicted that the wails of the peooie were to he mounted and destroyed, hut make not a full end. This is a reference to the “remnant that has been mentioned frequently and fulfilled in Ezr 2:64.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 5:10-13. Go ye up upon her walls, &c. Ye Babylonians, go, execute my vengeance on them; and destroy I commission you not only to take the city, but to make havoc of its inhabitants. But make not a full end Leave a remnant. Thus he sets bounds to the destroying sword, beyond which it must not go. Take away her battlements Lay her fortifications level with the ground. For they are not the Lords I disown them, and take away my protection from them. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the ten; have dealt very treacherously Have acted perfidiously beyond measure. They have belied the Lord Given the lie to his threatenings in the mouth of his prophets: or have disbelieved and denied his providence, justice, and power, and his government of human affairs, ascribing his judgments to chance or fortune, or mere second causes. And have said, It is not he Hebrew, , not he: that is, he hath not spoken, or he wilt not do as the prophets have threatened in his name; or, he hath no hand in these affairs. Thus the wicked are represented as speaking, Psa 94:7, The Lord shall not see: neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. Neither shall we see sword or famine The dreadful judgments which the prophet speaks of shall not befall us. And the prophets shall become wind A proverbial expression, implying that the prophecies of the prophets were vain, and to no purpose; and that all their threats should come to nothing. And the word is not in them That is, the word of true prophecy; the prophets words are not from God. Thus shall it be done unto them Nay, the very evils which they denounce upon others shall happen to themselves. So said the infidels.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 5:10-19. The Coming of the Foe.Let the enemy, therefore, destroy the vineyard of Judah, for of its owner Judah has said, He does nothing, rejecting His warnings by (true) prophets. The word they have rejected now becomes a fire to consume (cf. Jer 23:29; ancient thought attached great power to the spoken word). The enemy (Scythians or, later, Babylonians) comes to destroy, being enduring (mg.), foreign in speech (Isa 28:11), and a nation of warriors (mighty men), whose arrows do not miss (Jer 5:16). Heathenism at home shall bring exile abroad (Jer 5:19).
Jer 5:10. walls should probably be vine-rows; for the figure, cf. Jer 2:21).
Jer 5:12. It is not he: lit. not he; cf. Zep 1:12, end.
Jer 5:18, like many similar remarks, seems to be a later insertion, meant to qualify the rigour of the destruction in Jer 5:17.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
5:10 {h} Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: {i} take away her battlements; for they [are] not the LORD’S.
(h) He commands the Babylonians and enemies to destroy them.
(i) Read Jer 4:27 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Judah’s false security 5:10-19
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Speaking to the invading soldiers that He would use to judge Judah, the Lord instructed them to prune His vine (cf. Isa 5:1-7). However, they were to leave a remnant (cf. Jer 5:18). They were to take many branches away because they were not His, namely, not faithful to Him (cf. Joh 15:1-6; Rom 11:17-24).