Jeremiah 4:5 - Meaning and Application

God’s usual way is to warn before he strikes. So here, God gives Judah notice of the ruin that would soon come through a foreign invasion. This warning was to be announced in every city of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, so all would hear, fear, and either turn back in repentance or stand without excuse. The prophecy is stated at length, in vivid words, because it ought to have awakened even the most dull-hearted people.

Notice the war being announced and the enemy’s advance made known. Jeremiah published it years ahead of time, but since the people would ignore that warning, it would also be made known in another way when judgment actually began (Jeremiah 4:5, Jeremiah 4:6). The trumpet was to sound, the banner was to be raised, and the people were to be called together and drawn toward Zion, either to defend it or to take shelter there. There was to be a full gathering of the forces, with able men going into the fortified cities to defend them, while those who were weak and would only consume supplies were to leave.

Then an official report comes in about the king of Babylon and his army. This is the evil God would bring from the north, as he had already said (Jeremiah 1:15), a destruction greater than anything the nation of Judah had yet faced. The enemy is compared to a lion coming out of his hiding place hungry for prey (Jeremiah 4:7). Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is that roaring, tearing lion, the destroyer of nations, now rushing toward Judah. The destroyer of the Gentiles would also destroy the Jews, when they had made themselves like the Gentiles through idolatry. He has left his place, whether Babylon itself or the place where his army gathered, and he is coming for this land. He does not mean only to plunder it, but to make it empty, so that the cities are laid waste and left without people.

The enemy is also compared to a dry, blasting wind (Jeremiah 4:11), a hot, parching wind that burns up crops and dries them out. This is not a wind that brings rain, but one that drives rain away (Proverbs 25:23) and leaves something worse in its place. So this evil from the north would be to that people like a black, freezing wind. They could not defend themselves against it or escape it. It would come upon the high places and across the open land, where there is no shelter. It would strike the daughters of my people, women who had been brought up in softness and would not be used to such hardship. This fierce wind would not come to fan or cleanse them, as a gentle wind might when grain is winnowed, but as a full, strong, violent wind (Jeremiah 4:12). It comes with God’s commission and carries out what he sends it to do, for even storm winds fulfill his word.

The same army is also compared to clouds and whirlwinds because of its speed (Jeremiah 4:13). The Chaldean army would come up like clouds driven by the wind, so dense and so fast-moving that stopping them would be useless, just as useless as trying to halt a cloud or check a whirlwind. Their horses would be swifter than eagles when they swoop on prey. It would be pointless to try to oppose them or outrun them.

They are further described like watchmen and field-keepers (Jeremiah 4:15-17). News is heard from Dan, the city farthest north in Canaan, so it was the first to hear of this evil coming from the north and to pass it on to Mount Ephraim, the part of Israel nearest Judah. The report of trouble spread quickly, and an unrepentant people can expect no better news. The message is, in effect: tell the nations, meaning the mixed peoples living in the cities of the ten tribes, so they can care for their own safety. But announce it against Jerusalem, the place really aimed at. Let them know that watchers have come from a far country, that is, soldiers watching for every chance to do harm. Private soldiers are like watchmen, always on the lookout. They are coming full force against the cities of Judah, shouting as they advance and expecting victory. Like keepers of a field who surround it and keep everything out, so they will surround the cities of Judah and keep everything in, until the people are forced to surrender. They are against her on every side (Luke 19:43). Earlier, God’s holy watchers had protected Jerusalem like field-keepers around a guarded place. Now her enemies surround her in the same way, shutting out help and relief.

Here is the sad cause of this judgment. Why has Judah and Jerusalem been left so open to ruin? Because they sinned against God. It was their own doing: “She has been rebellious against me,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 4:17). Their enemies could surround them like field-keepers because they had risen in rebellion against their true Lord and king, so they were taken as rebels. The Chaldeans were breaking in, but sin had opened the gap for them. “Your way and your deeds have brought these things upon you” (Jeremiah 4:18). It was not just a few mistakes, but a whole way of life that was evil. Sin is the cause that brings on all our troubles. People may try to keep trouble away with one hand while they are pulling it onto their own heads with the other.

God’s anger also stands behind the judgment. It is the fierce anger of the Lord that makes the Chaldean army so fierce and violent. His anger is kindled against them and has not turned back from them (Jeremiah 4:8).

When people are angry with us and act with violence, we must also see God’s anger and power in it. If his anger were turned away, our enemies could not come against us. In his just and holy anger, God had already sentenced them to this terrible punishment, as Jeremiah 4:12 says. The punishment was carried out not in a rush, but after a solemn judgment, made fairly and with careful thought.

We may also read it as, “Now I will carry out the sentence I have already passed.” We can be sure that God’s judgment is true, and so is its execution. The effects of this judgment are heartbreaking, and they begin as soon as the warning is given.

The people who should fight will lose all courage and will not even try to stand against the enemy (Jeremiah 4:8). God says, “Put on sackcloth, mourn, and cry out,” meaning, “That is what you will do.” When the cry goes through the land, “Arm yourselves!” everyone will be thrown into panic and confusion. Instead of putting on armor, they will put on sackcloth. Instead of encouraging one another to resist, they will lament and shout in fear. Even while the enemy is still far away, they will give up hope and cry, “Woe to us, for we are ruined” (Jeremiah 4:13).

Judah and Jerusalem had once been known for brave men. But sin has this effect: it takes away confidence toward God, and with it, courage toward people. Their leaders, who should have planned for the nation’s safety, will be helpless (Jeremiah 4:9). “On that day the king’s heart will fail,” meaning he will lose both wisdom and courage. He will despair of success and will not know what to do, even if he had the will to act. His princes and advisers, who should support him, will be just as confused and hopeless.

This shows how easily God can ruin a people he has judged. He can do it simply by draining away their courage, taking the heart from their leaders (Job 12:20, Job 12:24), or cutting off the spirit of princes (Psalm 76:12). The priests were supposed to encourage the people in war. They were to tell them, “Do not be afraid, and do not lose heart” (Deuteronomy 20:2-3). They were also to blow the trumpets, reminding the people that they would be remembered before the Lord their God in battle (Numbers 10:9). But now even the priests will be stunned and will have no spirit to do their duty, so they will not be able to strengthen the people.

The prophets too, meaning the false prophets, who had promised peace, will be overwhelmed with fear. They will see that their own guilty blood is about to be shed by the very sword they kept telling the people was no danger. God’s judgments fall with greatest terror on those who felt safest. Jesus foretold that at the final destruction of Jerusalem, people’s hearts would fail them for fear (Luke 21:26). It is often like this: those who have misled people into careless security will fail them and frighten them when trouble comes.

Jeremiah then complains that the people were deceived (Jeremiah 4:10). His words sound strange as we read them: “Ah, Lord God, surely you have greatly deceived this people, saying, ‘You shall have peace.’” But we know that God deceives no one. No one should say, when tempted or misled, that God has tempted or misled him. The people deceived themselves by relying on God’s general promises of favor to that nation and on their special privileges, while ignoring the conditions attached to those promises. They also ignored the warnings in the law that stood against those promises when they disobeyed.

The false prophets deceived them by speaking peace in God’s name (Jeremiah 23:17; Jeremiah 27:9). If God had truly sent them, then the people would have been deceived by him, but he had not. The fault was the people’s, because they trusted them. In another sense, God allowed the false prophets to deceive them and gave both prophets and people over to strong delusion as punishment for refusing the truth and loving it. In that way the Lord was right, though this was a very bitter judgment, because it hardened them in sin.

The verse may also be read as a question: “Have you really deceived this people?” It is plain that they are deeply deceived, because they expect peace while the sword is already at their very life, meaning it is a deadly sword and many lives are already lost, with more to come. Was it God who deceived them? No. He had often warned them, both in general and about this specific disaster. Their own prophets deceived them and promised peace to people to whom the God of heaven was not speaking peace.

It is a sad thing, and one that every good person should mourn, to see people flattered into destruction, expecting peace when war is right at the door. We should bring such a sorrow to God in prayer, because only he can stop such deadly deception.

Jeremiah then works to undeceive them. When the prophets they liked and honored spoke falsely, he, the prophet they hated and chased, spoke truthfully. He first shows them their wound. They did not want to see it, and they did not want it examined. But if they would think honestly, they could see their punishment in their sin (Jeremiah 4:18). “This is your wickedness, because it is bitter.” They should now see that it is a bitter thing to turn away from God, and that bitterness always comes in the end (Jeremiah 2:19). Sin brings bitter results and grief that reaches the heart, touching the deepest part of a person. “The sword reaches to the soul” (Jeremiah 4:10).

God can make trouble reach even the heart of those who refuse to take anything seriously. By this, they should also see what their wickedness really is, a bitter root that grows gall and wormwood. It has reached the heart because it is the corruption of the soul, the imagination and thoughts within. If the heart were not made dirty by sin, it would not be so troubled and restless in the middle of affliction.

He also shows them the cure (Jeremiah 4:14). Since their wickedness reaches the heart, that is where the remedy must begin. “O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, so that you may be saved.” By Jerusalem he means each person living there, because each man has his own heart to guard. Public reform must begin with personal reform.

Everyone must turn away from his own evil way, and to do that, he must cleanse his own evil heart. The heart of the city also must be purified, not just its edges and outer parts. A nation’s real strength must be repaired by reforming the people who have the most influence in it.

The lesson is clear. Reform is absolutely necessary for salvation, that is, for being rescued from sin and God’s judgment. There is no other way to stop judgments, or to turn them aside when they are already coming, except to remove the sin that brought them on us. No reform is truly saving unless it reaches the heart. There is heart-wickedness that pollutes the soul, and we must wash ourselves from it. By repentance and faith, we must cleanse our hearts from the guilt we have brought on ourselves by spiritual wickedness, sins that begin and end in the heart and go no farther. By self-denial and watchfulness, we must also restrain and keep down this heart-wickedness in the future.

The tree must be made good, or the fruit will not be. Jerusalem was completely covered with the leprosy of sin. Physicians agree that when the body has leprosy, outside treatments will not help unless medicine is also taken inwardly to clear out the harmful matter hidden within and change the blood itself. It is the same with the soul, and with a nation. There will be no true reform of behavior unless the mind is reformed too. Wrong thinking must be corrected, corrupt desires must be put to death, and evil habits of mind must be changed. Even if you are Jerusalem, called a holy city, that will not save you unless you wash your heart from wickedness.

In the latter part of the verse, God reasons with them: How long will your useless thoughts stay with you? He complains, first, about how long they delay reform. How long will that filthy heart of yours stay unwashed? When will it ever change? The God of heaven feels the time is too long when his place is pushed aside and his rule is resisted in our souls (Jeremiah 13:27).

He also points to the root of their corruption, the useless thoughts that lived inside them and defiled their hearts, and from which they needed to wash themselves. These are thoughts of sin and mischief, the evil thoughts that grow out of an evil heart, from which all other wickedness comes (Matthew 15:19). These are our own thoughts, the birth of our own desires (James 1:15), and they are most dangerous when they settle in us, when we welcome them and let them stay.

Some understand this as thoughts of trouble, thoughts that bring only misery and distress. Others take these vain thoughts to mean all the shallow excuses they used to push away the warnings and calls of God’s word, making those warnings useless and strengthening themselves in sin. Wash your heart from wickedness, and do not think you can excuse yourself by saying, We are not defiled (Matthew 2:23), or, We are Jerusalem, or, We have Abraham as our father (Matthew 3:8-9).