---
title: "Clarke"
description: "Verse Jeremiah 5:1. Broad places — Market-places, and those where there was most public resort. If ye can find a man — A certain philosopher went through"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/clarkes-commentary/jeremiah/5"
---

Verse [Jeremiah 5:1](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/1). ***Broad places*** — Market-places, and those where there was most public resort.
***If ye can find a man*** — A certain philosopher went through the streets of Athens with a lighted lamp in his hand; and being asked what he sought, answered, "I am seeking to find a MAN." So in Jerusalem none was found, on the most diligent search, who acted worthy the character of a rational being.
***I will pardon it.*** — I will spare the city for the sake of *one* *righteous person*. So at the intercession of Abraham, God would have spared Sodom if there had been *ten* righteous persons found in it; [Genesis 18:26](../../../kjv/genesis/18/26).

Verse [Jeremiah 5:2](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/2). ***The Lord liveth*** — Though they profess to *bind themselves* by Jehovah, as if they acknowledged him their God and only Lord, yet they *swore falsely*; for not believing in him, they took *a* *false oath*; one by which they did not believe themselves bound, not acknowledging him as their Lord. See on [Jeremiah 4:2](../../../kjv/jeremiah/4/2).

Verse [Jeremiah 5:4](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/4). ***These*****are*****poor*** — They are ignorant; they have no education; they know no better.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:5](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/5). ***I will get me unto the great men*** — Those whose circumstances and rank in life gave them opportunities of information which the others could not have, for the reasons already given.
***These have altogether broken the yoke*** — These have cast aside all restraint, have acted above law, and have trampled all moral obligations under their feet, and into their vortex the lower classes of the people have been swept away. *Solon* said, "The laws are like cobwebs; they entangle the small fry, but the great ones go through them, and carry all away with them."

Verse [Jeremiah 5:6](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/6). ***Wherefore a lion*** — Nebuchadnezzar, according to the general opinion; who is called here a *lion* for his courage and violence, a *bear* for his rapaciousness, and a *leopard* for his activity. *Dahler* supposes the *Scythians* to be intended, both here and in [Jeremiah 4:7](../../../kjv/jeremiah/4/7).

Verse [Jeremiah 5:7](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/7). ***In the harlots' houses.*** — In places consecrated to idolatry. In the language of the prophets, adultery generally signifies *idolatry*. This we have often seen.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:8](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/8). ***After his neighbour's wife.*** — This may have been *literally* true, as the abominations of idolatry, in which they were so deeply practised, would necessarily produce such a state of things as that here mentioned.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:10](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/10). ***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 נטישות *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."

Verse [Jeremiah 5:12](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/12). ***They have belied the Lord*** — כחשו *kichashu*. They have *denied* or disavowed the Lord.
**It is*****not he*** — לוא הוא *lo hu, he is not*; there is no such being; therefore this evil shall not come upon us. On their premises, this conclusion was just. There is no judge; therefore there shall be no judgment. Thus they denied the Lord. They were atheists at heart.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:13](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/13). ***And the prophets shall become wind*** — What are the prophets? Empty persons. Their words are wind; we hear the *sound* of their threatenings, but of the matter of the threatenings we shall hear no more.
***And the word*****is*****not in them*** — There is no inspirer, but may their own predictions fall on their own heads! This seems the natural sense of this passage.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:14](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/14). ***Because ye speak this word*** — Because ye thus treat my message, "I will make my words in thy mouth fire." They have said *they are but air*; but I will make them *fire*, and a *fire* too that shall *devour them*. And how this was to be done, and by whom, is mentioned in the next verse.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:15](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/15). ***I will bring a nation*** — The *Scythians*, says *Dahler*; the *Babylonians*, whose antiquity was great, that empire being founded by Nimrod.
***Whose language thou knowest not*** — The Chaldee, which, though a dialect of the Hebrew, is so very different in its words and construction that in hearing it spoken they could not possibly collect the meaning of what was said.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:16](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/16). ***Their quiver*****is*****an open sepulchre*** — They are such exact archers as never to miss their mark; every arrow is sure to slay one man.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:18](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/18). ***I will not make a full end*** — There are more evils in store for you. You shall not only be spoiled, and all your property destroyed, but ye shall be carried into *captivity; and ye* *shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours*, [Jeremiah 5:19](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/19).

Verse [Jeremiah 5:22](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/22). ***Which have placed the sand*****for*****the bound of the sea*** — What can I not do, who confine the sea, that enormous mass of waters, and prevent it from overflowing the earth; not by immense *mountains* and *rocks*, but by the *sand*, no particle of which is in cohesion with another? The most tremendous waves cannot displace nor pass over this simple barrier.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:23](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/23). ***They are revolted and gone.*** — They have abandoned me, and are gone farther and farther into transgression. They are gone *entirely* away from truth and righteousness.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:24](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/24). ***Giveth rain, both the former and the latter*** — [Jeremiah 3:3](../../../kjv/jeremiah/3/3).
***The appointed weeks of the harvest.*** — As the early rains fell in the northern parts of Judea about the end of *September*, in the *civil year* of the Hebrews, so the *latter rains* fell before harvest, in the months of *March* and *April*. The appointed weeks of the harvest were those which fell between the *passover* and *pentecost*. In the southern parts the harvest was earlier than in the northern. Dr. *Blayney* translates, "A sufficiency of the appointed things of harvest he secureth to us."
If the word שבעת weeks, be read with a ש *sin* instead of a ש *shin*, it will signify *fulness* or *sufficiency*; and thus the *Septuagint* and *Vulgate* have read it. I think the present reading is much to be preferred. God *appoints a harvest time*, and in his good providence he generally gives *harvest weather*.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:25](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/25). ***Your iniquities have turned away these*****things**] When these appointed weeks of harvest do not come, should we not examine and see whether this be not in God's judgments? Have not our iniquities turned away these good things from *us*?

Verse [Jeremiah 5:26](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/26). ***They lay wait, as he that setteth snares*** — A metaphor taken from *fowlers*, who, having fixed their nets, lie down and keep out of sight, that when birds come, they may be ready to draw and entangle them.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:27](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/27). ***As a cage is full of birds*** — There is no doubt that the reference here is to a *decoy* or *trap-cage*, as Dr. *Blayney* has rendered it; in these the fowlers put several tame birds, which when the wild ones see, they come and light on the cage, and fall into the snare.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:28](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/28). ***They judge not the cause, yet they prosper*** — Perhaps we might be justified in translating, "And shall they prosper?"

Verse [Jeremiah 5:30](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/30). ***A wonderful and horrible thing is committed on the**********land*** — *Dahler* translates: "Strange crimes and horrible trespasses have been committed in the land." These have been already detailed; but this may refer to what follows.

Verse [Jeremiah 5:31](../../../kjv/jeremiah/5/31). ***The prophets prophesy falsely*** — The false prophets predict favourable things, that they may please both the princes and the people.
***The priests bear rule by their means*** — The false prophets affording them all that their influence and power can procure, to enable them to keep their places, and feed on the riches of the Lord's house.
***And my people love*****to have it*****so*** — Are perfectly satisfied with this state of things, because they are permitted to continue in their sins without reproof or restraint. The prophets and the priests united to deceive and ruin the people. The prophets gave out false predictions; by their means the priests got the government of the people into their own hands; and so infatuated were the people that they willingly abandoned themselves to those blind guides, and would not hearken to the voice of any reformer. In my Old Bible the words stand thus: - *Stonyng and mervailis ben* *made in the erthe, prophets prophecieden lesing; and prestis* *flappiden with joye with ther bondes, and my peple lovid siche* *thingis*. False prophets and worldly priests have been in all ages the bane of religion, and the ruin of many souls. When profligate people stand up on behalf of profligate priests, corruption must then be at its height.

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