\\INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 5\\

This chapter contains a further account of the destruction of the Jews
by the Chaldeans, and the causes of it, the sins of the people, as want
of justice and truth; being so corrupt, that a just and faithful man was
not to be found among them; could there, the city would have been
pardoned for his sake, \\#Jer 5:1\\, their swearing falsely by the name of
the Lord, \\#Jer 5:2\\, their incorrigibleness by chastisements, which was
the case not only of the lower, but higher rank of people, \\#Jer 5:3-5\\,
wherefore the enemy, who for his cruelty is compared to a lion, a wolf,
and a leopard, is threatened to be let in among them, \\#Jer 5:6\\, then
other sins are mentioned as the cause of it, as idolatry and adultery,
\\#Jer 5:7-9\\ hence the enemy has a commission to scale their walls, take
away their battlements, though not to make a full end, the Lord
disowning them for his, \\#Jer 5:10\\, because of their perfidy against him,
their belying of him, contradicting what he had said, and despising the
word sent by his prophets, \\#Jer 5:11-13\\, wherefore it is threatened,
that his word like fire should devour them; and that a distant, mighty,
and ancient nation, of a foreign speech, should invade them; who, like
an open sepulchre, would devour them, and eat up the increase of their
fields, vineyards, flocks, and herds, and impoverish their cities, yet
not make a full end of them, \\#Jer 5:14-18\\, and in just retaliation
should they serve strangers in a foreign country, who had served strange
gods in their own, \\#Jer 5:19\\ then a declaration is published, and an
expostulation is made with them, who are represented as foolish,
ignorant, and blind, that they would fear the Lord; which is pressed by
arguments taken from the power of God, in restraining the sea, which had
no effect upon them; and from the goodness of God, in giving the former
and latter rain, and the appointed weeks of the harvest, which their
sins turned away and withheld from them, \\#Jer 5:20-25\\, and then other
sins are mentioned as the cause of God's visiting them in a way of
vengeance, as the defrauding of men in trade, and the oppression of the
fatherless and the poor in judgment; and false prophesying, to the
advantage of the priests, and the king of the people, \\#Jer 5:26-31\\.