Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 5

Run ye to and fro. —The dark shades of the picture seem at first hardly to belong to the reign of Josiah, which is brought before us in 2 Kings 22-23; 2 Chronicles 34-35, as one of thorough reformation. It is, of course, possible that parts of the picture may have been worked up when the prophecies were rewritten under Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 36:32); but, on the other hand, it is equally possible that the prophet may have seen even at the time how hollow and incomplete that reformation was.

The form in which he utters his conviction reminds one of the old story of the Greek sage, Diogenes, appearing in the streets of Athens with a lantern, searching for an honest man. In the thought that the pardon of the city depended on its containing some elements of good which might make reformation possible, we find an echo of Genesis 18:25; but the picture is of a state more utterly hopeless. There were not ten righteous men found in Sodom (Genesis 18:32); in Jerusalem there was not one.

The Lord liveth. — The words imply that a distinction between the binding powers of different oath formulas, like that of the later scribes (Matthew 23:16), was already to some extent prevalent. The guilt of the men of Jerusalem was that they took the most solemn formula of all, “Jehovah liveth,” and yet were guilty of perjury. In Jeremiah 5:7 we find traces of the practice of swearing by other gods, with which this “oath of Jehovah” is apparently contrasted.

Falsely. — Literally, upon falsehood.

Upon the truth. —The Hebrew word, which has no article, implies truth in the inward parts, faithfulness, as well as truth in words. The “eyes” of God looked for this, and He found the temper that hardens itself against discipline, and refuses to repent.

Therefore. —Literally, And. The prophet makes for the poor the half-pitying plea of ignorance. Looking upon the masses that toil for bread, those whom the Scribes afterwards called the “people of earth,” it was not strange that they who had been left untaught should have learned so little. The thought finds a parallel in our Lord’s compassion for the multitude who were as sheep having no shepherd (Matthew 9:36), for the servant who knew not his Lord’s will (Luke 12:48).

The way of the Lord. —That which He approves, that which leads to Him, as in Genesis 18:19; Deuteronomy 31:29.

I will get me. — The prophet turns from the masses to the few, from the poor to the great, repeating, as with a grave, indignant irony, the words that describe the true wisdom which he has not found in the former but hopes to find in the latter.

But these. — Better, as less ambiguous, Surely they too. The clause begins with the same word as that in Jeremiah 5:4. What is meant is that the great as well as the poor, the learned as well as the ignorant, are altogether evil, the former even more defiant in breaking through all conventional constraints than the latter.