Jeremiah 4 Study Notes

4:1 The people’s cry of repentance (3:21-25) is answered with the assurance of what will happen in the future when they genuinely return to the Lord. To this point they had not yet truly repented.

4:2 When Judah and Israel truly repent, then the nations will be blessed by the Lord. The promises made to Israel were never meant to bless them alone, but through them all nations (Gn 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14).

4:3 Unplowed ground was soil long untended and abandoned to wild growth. Hosea issued the same challenge (Hs 10:12). Ground that had lain fallow too long needed to be broken up and cultivated again. Jeremiah and Hosea used this image to picture the need for spiritual renewal.

4:4 A hard build-up around the hearts of the people had to be cut away (Dt 10:16; Rm 2:28-29). Circumcision was a sign of the covenant (Gn 17:10-14), but religious ritual without the right heart relationship to God was worthless.

4:5-31 In this section Jeremiah was so sure that God’s judgment was imminent that he described it as already present.

4:7 Jeremiah used many animals, including the lion, to portray the furious warfare that would come from the north. Add to this the eagle (v. 13), wolf, and leopard (5:6), plus the images of the hot winds of the sirocco (4:11), or fire (v. 4), and the threatened disaster grows more frightening.

4:10 This is one of the most controversial verses in Jeremiah. Was Jeremiah accusing God of deceiving the nation? James 1:13 says God does not do that. The solution is to recall that God rules over history (Ps 22:28). Scripture is often silent about secondary causes, and since God rules history even things he merely permits can be attributed to him. In the present case, God allowed false prophets to mislead the nation by saying peace was on the way. Understanding God’s rule over history, Jeremiah felt justified in asking this question though he knew that God is not a deceiver. God both allowed this deception and protested against it.

4:11 The phrase my dear people (lit “the daughter of my people”) occurs for the first time here. It occurs a total of eight times between here and 9:7 where it ends (to be picked up again five times in Lamentations). Sometimes it is the Lord who uses it, and sometimes it is the prophet.

4:15-17 The advances of the enemy from the north can be heard from Dan, at the northern limit of Israel and at the headwaters of the Jordan River, on down to Mount Ephraim, the highlands stretching from Shechem to Bethel.

4:19-22 These verses contain the first of Jeremiah’s “confessions” (see his other confessions at 11:18-23; 12:1-6; 15:10-11,15-21; 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-13,14-18; and possibly 5:3-5; 8:18-9:1). The confessions reflect the pain Jeremiah experienced about the calamity that awaited his people. The prophet was accused of being a traitor, but these verses reveal his patriotism and his sincere love for Judah. It gave him no joy or satisfaction to proclaim such devastating words; he was under divine obligation to do so.

4:23-28 This is one of the most haunting passages in all the Prophets because of its vivid, realistic portrayal of God’s coming wrath against sin. The judgment moves beyond the Babylonian conquest to the coming day of the Lord at the end of history.

4:23 Jeremiah borrowed the phrase the earth . . . was formless and empty from Gn 1:2. The imagery portrays the reversal of God’s acts of creation. Such will be the devastation of the coming day of the Lord.

4:27 Though the earth will be laid waste, it will not come to an end. There is always the promise of a remnant of those who are faithful to the Lord.

4:30 Jeremiah depicted Jerusalem in her death agony, still rejecting God as her husband. Instead of choosing repentance and mourning, she dressed in scarlet, adorned herself with gold jewelry, and enhanced her eyes with makeup. This imagery plays off the fact that women of Bible times applied a silver-white metallic substance as a base for black kohl on the upper and lower eyelids. But Jerusalem prettied herself for nothing; her lovers would only take her life.