Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 7:5
For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;
A summary of the conditions indispensable on mans part, before he can plead the terms of the covenant in his favor.
Jer 7:6
In this place – i. e., in Jerusalem. The prophet refers to innocent blood shed there judicially. Of one such judicial murder Jehoiakim had already been guilty Jer 26:23.
Jer 7:7
Why then do not the Jews still possess a land thus eternally given them? Because God never bestows anything unconditionally. The land was bestowed upon them by virtue of a covenant Gen 17:7; the Jews had broken the conditions of this covenant Jer 7:5-6, and the gift reverted to the original donor.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 7:5
If ye thoroughly amend.
Thorough amendment
1. Religion has to do with character and conduct. Religion is that which binds, and it has a tremendous grip. It has to do not only with creeds, and forms, and rites, but with character and conduct.
2. Religion makes little of mere emotion. Some persons delight in the excitation of the sensibilities. The Masters word is, If ye love Me, keep My commandments. This is the proof of genuine love. The mother takes her boys kiss as a sign of emotion, but sees in his obedience the proof of principle, which is more than mere feeling.
(1) The first characteristic of true religion is a right view of sin. Our prayer should be, Wash me thoroughly, even as the spotted robe was in Davids day cleansed in a vat with strong acid and alkali, mauled and bruised with mallet, till the stain was gone. God uses powerful methods to purify. Some dread to be born again, because they know that they will be required to thoroughly amend their ways, i.e., throughly, as the word was formerly spelled. True amendment goes through and through to the uttermost end–clear to the furthest limit.
(2) There must be not only right views, but a clean sweep of sin. The people of Israel found that those they spared of idolatrous nations were thorns in their sides and pricks in their eyes. If we do not drive sin out, sin will drive us out. What we call little sins accumulate, as do the snowflakes which stop a locomotive. We shall arrest the power and blessing of God by tolerating small transgressions.
(3) Thorough amendment comprehends character and conduct–what we are and what we do. It were useless to throw our prayers into a malarious swamp and leave the source, the well head, unclean. Pray that Gods Spirit may create a clean heart. Then follow conscience. The amendment enjoined in the text is a new life. Christ and the soul are firmly united, and He is the model. A little fibre, just enough to cling to the sacrament, is not enough. That Hamburg grapevine would not have yielded you those rich clusters if the branches had not been closely united to the vine. You are Christs. You will hate sin because He abhors it. You will also heed Christs demands on your time, your income, and your strength.
3. The text promises permanency; not merely a visit, but an abode where one can root and grow, work and worship, till transplanted to heaven. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)
Reformation must be thorough
Some men, when they attempt to reform their lives, reform those things for which they do not much care. They take the torch of Gods Word, and enter some indifferent chamber and the light blazes in, and they see that they are very sinful there; and then they look into another room, where they do not often stay, and are willing to admit that they are very sinful there; but they leave unexplored some cupboards and secret apartments where their life really is, and where they have stored up the things which are dearest to them, and which they will neither part with nor suffer rebuke for. (H. W. Beecher.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. If ye throughly amend your ways] Literally, If in making good ye fully make good your ways. God will no longer admit of half-hearted work. Semblances of piety cannot deceive him; he will not accept partial reformation; there must be a thorough amendment.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He tells them, it is not their vain confidence in their privileges, and boasting of the temple, but only their serious and thorough repentance in turning to God, both in point of piety and equity, that can secure them.
Between a man and his neighbour, i.e. impartially among one another, between man and man, without favour or hatred.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. For“But”[MAURER].
judgmentjustice (Jer22:3).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings,…. Or, “if ye make your ways good, and do your works well”, which is what is exhorted to Jer 7:3, and respects the duties of the moral law; which are more acceptable to God than legal sacrifices, when done from right principles, and with right views, from love, in faith, and to the glory of God; which is doing good works well; the particulars of which follow:
if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; without respect to persons, without favour and affection, without bribery and corruption; passing a righteous sentence, and making an equitable decision of the case between them, according to the law of God, and the rules of justice and equity: this respects judges and civil magistrates.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Interpreters do not agree as to the meaning of this passage. Some render כי אם, ki am, “But rather, “or, “But.” I indeed allow that it is so taken in many places; but they are mistaken who read כי אם, ki am, as one word; for the Prophet, on the contrary, repeats what he had said, and that is, that God would not be propitious to the Jews except their life proved that they had really repented. The words are sometimes taken as one in Hebrew, and mean “but;” yet in other places they are often taken as separate words, as we found in the second chapter, “Though thou washest thyself with nitre;” and for the sake of emphasis the particle “surely, “is put before “though.” But in this place the Prophet simply means, that the Jews were deceived in seeking to prescribe a law for God according to their own will, as it belongs only to him either to approve or to reject their works. And this meaning is confirmed by the latter part of the verse, for we read not there כי אם, ki am, but אם, am; “ If by doing ye shall do judgment;” and then in the same form he adds, “If ye will not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow;” and at last he adds, “Then (a copulative I allow is here, but it is to be taken as an adverb) I will make you to dwell in this place.”
The purport of the whole is, — that sacrifices are of no importance or value before God, unless those who offer them wholly devote themselves to God with a sincere heart. The Jews sought to bind God as it were by their own laws: he shews that he was thus impiously put under restraint. He therefore lays down a condition, as though he had said, “it belongs to me to prescribe to you what is right. Away, then, with your ceremonies, by which ye think to expiate your sins; for I regard them not, and esteem them as nothing.” What then is to be done? He now shews then, “If you will rightly order your life, ye shall dwell in this place.”
For yesterday the Prophet exhorted the people to repent; and he employed the sentiment which he now repeats. He commanded the people to come to God with an upright and pure mind; he afterwards added another sentence, “Trust not in words of falsehood, saying, The Temple of the Lord, “etc. He now again repeats what he had said, “If ye will make your ways good.” He shews now more clearly that no wrong was done to the people when God repudiated their ceremonies; for he required a pure heart, and external rites without repentance are vain and useless. This then is what the Prophet had in view: “Though God seems to treat you with great severity, he yet promises to be kind to you, if you order your lives according to his law: is this unjust? Can the condition which is proposed to you by God be liable to any calumnies, as though God treated you cruelly!” This then is the meaning of the Prophet.
If ye will make good your ways, that is, if your life be amended; and if ye will do judgment, etc. He now comes to particulars; and first he addresses the judges, whose duty it was to render to every one his right, to redress injuries, to pronounce what was just and right when any contention arose. If then, he says, ye will do justice between a man and his neighbor, that is, if your judgments be right, without favor or hatred, and if no bribes lead you from what is right and just, while pronouncing judgment on a case between a man and his brother.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) A man and his neighbour.The Jewish idiom for the English one man and another.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5, 6. If ye thoroughly amend, etc. If you shall, in experience and character, join yourself to the Almighty if you shall become his spiritual habitation, and thus be endowed with the wealth of his attributes then will you be safe in a sense in which no material thing, not even the temple of Jehovah, could make you so. The conditions which are here specified are doubtless suggestive of the crimes which prevailed among them. One of these is, the not shedding innocent blood; showing that the bloody rites of Moloch were practised among the people.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 7:5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;
Ver. 5. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways. ] If ye thoroughly execute judgment; if ye be serious in the one, and sedulous in the other. See Jer 7:2 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
man. Hebrew. ‘ish. App-14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
For if: Jer 7:3, Jer 4:1, Jer 4:2, Isa 1:19
if ye thoroughly: Jdg 5:1, Jdg 21:12, 1Ki 6:12, 1Ki 6:13, Isa 16:3, Eze 18:8, Eze 18:17
Reciprocal: Pro 23:10 – fatherless Jer 35:15 – ye shall dwell Amo 5:15 – establish Zec 7:7 – cried Zec 7:9 – saying Mat 7:12 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 7:5. Thoroughly amend your waps indicates the reformation that might have avoided their downfall had they produced it at the proper time.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 7:5-7. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways, &c. In these verses the prophet tells them particularly what the amendment was which was necessary that they might escape destruction. It must be a thorough amendment, a universal, continued, persevering reformation; not partial, but entire; not hypocritical, but sincere; not wavering, but constant. They must make the tree good, and so make the fruit good; must amend their hearts and thoughts, and so amend their ways and doings. In particular, 1st, They must be honest and just in all their dealings. They who had power in their hands must thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour, without partiality. They must not, either in judgment, or in matters of contract, oppress the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow Nor countenance or protect those that did oppress them, nor refuse to do them right when they sought for it. They must not shed innocent blood And with it defile the temple, the city, and the land wherein they dwelt. 2d, They must keep close to the worship of the true God only, neither walking after other gods, nor hearkening to those that would draw them into communion with idolaters. Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, &c. Upon this condition I will establish and fix you in this land for ever and ever That is, from age to age, and you shall possess it, as your fathers did before you, from the days of Joshua until now.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jeremiah proceeded to explain God’s promise (Jer 7:3). He listed three examples to illustrate what God wanted: two related to actions toward fellow Israelites, and one related to actions toward God. True repentance meant dealing justly with one another, namely, refraining from oppressing the vulnerable such as strangers, orphans, and widows. It also meant not putting people to death without proper justification. The Mosaic Law demonstrates a profound concern for human welfare (cf. Deu 14:29; Deu 24:19-21; et al.). God-ward, repenting meant not worshipping other gods, which the people were doing to their own ruin.