1Roam through the streets of Jerusalem,
and see, pray, and mark,
and seek in her squares.
if there be a man doing justice, seeking faithfulness,
I shall forgive her.
2But if, “as the LORD lives,” they say,
3O LORD, Your eyes look for faithfulness.
You struck them but they did not flinch,
You made an end of them, they refused to take reproof.
They made their faces harder than rock,
they refused to turn back.
4As for me, I said, they are but poor people,
they are foolish,
for they know not the way of the LORD,
their God’s justice.
5Let me go to the great ones,
and let me speak with them,
for they know the way of the LORD,
the justice of their God.
But they together broke the yoke,
they tore apart the bonds.
6Therefore has the lion from the forest struck them,
the wolf of the steppes destroys them,
the leopard lies in wait at their towns,
all who come forth from there are ripped up.
For their crimes are many,
numerous their rebellions.
7“Why, for this should I pardon you?
Your sons have forsaken Me
and sworn by ungods.
I sated them, yet they were adulterous,
and to the whore’s house they trooped.
8They were horses in heat rising early,
each man for his fellow’s wife neighed.
9For these shall I not exact judgment,” said the LORD,
“and against a nation such as this not wreak vengeance?
10Go up against her vine rows and ruin them,
but an utter end do not bring about.
Strip off her trailing branches,
for they are not the LORD’s.
11For the house of Israel and the house of Judah
have surely betrayed Me,” said the LORD.
12“They have been false to the LORD
And no harm will come upon us
and the sword and famine we shall not see.
13And the prophets are but wind,
and there is no Word in them—
14Therefore thus said the LORD God of Armies:
I am about to put My words in your mouth like fire
and this people shall be wood it consumes.
15I am about to bring against you a nation from afar,
O house of Israel,” said the LORD.
“It is a nation of unfailing strength,
a nation from of old,
a nation whose tongue you do not know,
nor understand what it speaks.
16Its quiver—an open grave,
all of them are warriors,
17It shall devour your harvest and your bread,
devour your sons and your daughters,
devour your sheep and your cattle,
devour your vines and your fig trees.
I shall slash with the sword your fortress towns
in which you trusted.”
18“And even in those days,” said the LORD, “I will not make an end of you. 19And it shall happen when they say, ‘For what has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ You shall say to them, ‘Because you forsook Me and served alien gods in your own land, thus shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’”
20Tell this in the House of Jacob,
and let it be heard in Judah, saying:
21Hear this, pray,
Eyes they have but they do not see,
ears they have but they do not hear.
22Is it Me you do not fear, said the LORD,
before Me you do not quake?
For I set sand a boundary to the sea,
an everlasting limit not to be crossed—
the waves tossed but could not prevail,
they surged but could not cross it.
23And this people had a wayward rebellious heart,
they swerved away and went off.
24And they did not say in their heart,
“Let us fear, pray, the LORD our God,
Who gives rain, early and late rain in its season,
the set weeks of harvest He keeps for us.”
25Your crimes turned aside these things,
and your offenses withheld the bounty from you.
26For among My people wicked men are found,
they watch as in a fowler’s blind,
they set out an ambush,
they capture men.
27Like a cage full of fowl,
so their homes are filled with deceit,
therefore have they prospered, become rich.
28They have fattened, have thickened,
even passed beyond words of evil.
They did not judge a just case—
the orphan’s case, that he should do well,
and the needy’s judgment they did not judge.
29For these shall I not exact judgment, said the LORD,
against a nation such as this not wreak vengeance?
30A frightful and fearsome thing
has come about in the land:
31The prophets have prophesied falsely,
and the priests held sway alongside them,
and My people loved it so.
But what will you do for its end?
CHAPTER 5 NOTES
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1. If you find a man, / if there be a man doing justice. Yair Hoffman detects an echo here of Abraham’s dialogue with God in Genesis 18 over whether Sodom can be spared if ten just men can be found in it. That allusion mobilizes the trope of Israel as Sodom (compare Isaiah 1) and also makes the terms more generous: God would forgive Jerusalem if a single just man could be found there.
2. But if, “as the LORD lives.” The habit of swearing in the LORD’s name persists, even as the people abandon God.
swear falsely. The Hebrew could also be rendered as “swear by a lie.” Lundbom proposes that this “lie” refers to Baal.
3. Your eyes look for faithfulness. “Look” is merely implied.
5. the great ones. The Hebrew term suggests high social status and, probably, wealth.
6. the lion . . . / the wolf . . . / the leopard. All three beasts of prey are metaphors for an invading army.
7. I sated them, yet they were adulterous. Though God bestowed great bounty on the people, they betrayed Him. Since Israel is thought of as God’s spouse, the adultery is its infatuation with alien gods, but the evocation of rampant lust in the next three lines is so vivid that one may see here a segue into a condemnation of actual sexual promiscuity.
8. They were horses in heat rising early. Two words in the Hebrew here are obscure, although the general reference to rampant sexuality is clear. The term meyuzanim, “in heat,” does not appear elsewhere; some interpreters take it to refer to large sexual organs. Mashkim, “rising early,” looks odd because it is singular and a plural form is required. If the present translation is correct, it would point to an eagerness of lust that impels these men to get up early in order to hop into bed with the wives of their fellow men.
12. Not He. These two words could also mean, “That’s not it.”
13. And the prophets are but wind. The Hebrew puns on ruaḥ, which means both “spirit”—what is supposed to imbue the prophets—and “wind.”
thus shall be done to them. This clause is best understood as the conclusion of the arrogant words of the people: having said that the prophets have no divine word to convey, they now curse them.
14. Because you spoke this word. This is the false word dismissing the prophets, saying that “there is no Word in them.” The measure-for-measure retribution will be a word of consuming fire placed by God in their mouths.
15. a nation whose tongue you do not know. As elsewhere in prophecies of assault by foreign forces, the terror is sharpened by the fact that the invaders speak an unintelligible language.
16. Its quivers—an open grave. This is a powerfully compressed image. The quiver is a grave because it holds death-dealing arrows, and its open cavity is a foreshadowing of the grave.
17. devour your sons and your daughters. The insistence through anaphora on “devour” conveys a strong sense of the comprehensiveness of the destruction. When “harvest” and “bread” are the object of this verb, it literally refers to eating. When the object is “your sons and your daughters,” it means killing them. One should recall that in biblical Hebrew, the sword is said to “devour” or “eat” its victims.
slash with the sword. The Hebrew verb more literally means “smash” or “shatter.”
19. thus shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours. Here the prophecy of exile—an imminent threat throughout Jeremiah’s career—is made explicit. Serving strangers is measure-for-measure retribution for serving alien gods.
21. mindless. Literally, “with no heart,” the heart conceived as the seat of understanding.
Eyes they have but they do not see, / ears they have but they do not hear. This is a direct citation of Psalm 115:5–6. In the psalm, the reference is to idols, but here, after the condemnation of the people’s ignorance and mindlessness, it probably refers to the people, who are too stupid to see that YHWH is the sole God of creation, as the next verse spells out.
22. I set sand a boundary to the sea. This is a recurring motif in biblical poetry, appearing often in Psalms and also in the Voice from the Whirlwind in Job. It ultimately harks back to the Canaanite creation myth in which Yamm, the sea god, is subdued and restrained from encroaching on the land.
23. they swerved away and went off. Again and again in biblical idiom, betraying God is represented as swerving from a straight path.
26. they watch as in a fowler’s blind. Of the three Hebrew words here, yashur keshakh yequshim, the only one that is certain in meaning is the last, “fowler’s.”
27. their homes are filled with deceit. Many interpreters understand the last word here to refer to what is gained through deceit, but the prophet wants to underline the actual activity of deception.
28. have thickened. The meaning of the unusual Hebrew verb is in dispute.
30. A frightful and fearsome thing. The idea is stronger in the Hebrew through the more pronounced alliteration, shamah weshaʿarurah.