to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
poor
דַּלִּ֖יםda.Lim
H1800
properly · adjective, masculine plural absolute
foolish
נוֹאֲל֕וּno.'a.Lu
H2973
properly · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
know
יָדְעוּ֙ya.de.'U
H3045
to know (properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
way
דֶּ֣רֶךְDe.rekh
H1870
a road (as trodden) · noun, common both genders singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֔הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
judgment
מִשְׁפַּ֖טmish.Pat
H4941
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct
God
אֱלֹהֵיהֶֽם'e.lo.hei.Hem
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 8:7 Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but…
Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest t…
Isaiah 28:9-13 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts…
Matthew 11:5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the…
Isaiah 27:11 When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding…
Jeremiah 4:22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but…
Jeremiah 7:8 Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.
John 7:48-49 Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 5:1-9
Here is, I. A challenge to produce any one right honest man, or at least any considerable number of such, in Jerusalem, Jer 5:1. Jerusalem had become like the old world, in which all flesh had corrupted their way. There were some perhaps who flattered themselves with hopes that there were yet many good men in Jerusalem, who would stand in the gap to turn away the wrath of God; and there might be others who boasted of its being the holy city and thought that this would save it. But God bids them search the town, and intimates that they should scarcely find a man in it who executed judgment and made conscience of what he said and did: "Look in the streets, where they make their appearance and…
poor--rather, "the poor." He supposes for the moment that this utter depravity is confined to the uninstructed poor, and that he would find a different state of things in the higher ranks: but there he finds unbridled profligacy.
John Gill on Jeremiah 5:4
Then I said, surely these are poor, they are foolish,.... The prophet, observing that reproofs and corrections in providence had no effect upon the people, he thought within himself that surely the reason must be, because these people are poor, and in low circumstances in the world, and are so busy in their worldly employments to get bread for their families, that they were not at leisure to attend unto divine things; nor of capacity to receive instruction and correction by providences; therefore it is they were so foolish, stupid, and infatuated:
for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God; either the way which God takes in the salvation of the sons of men, and in…
Jeremiah 5:4-5
4. Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God.
4. Et ego dixi, Certe (alii vertunt, forsan, 'k) pauperes sunt hi, stulte egerunt, quia non cognoscunt viam Jehovae, judicium Dei sui:
5. I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
5. Ibo ad optimates (ad magnos, ad verbum) et loquar apud eos; quia ipsi cognoscunt viam Jehovae judicium Dei sui: atque ipsi fregerunt jugum, ruperunt vincula.
Some think that the Prophet here makes an excuse for…
The Church Fathers
"Well-off" refers to the priests and the teachers of the law; "poor" refers to the rest, insofar as they did not possess the wealth of divine knowledge. Yet he accuses both of lawlessness, proceeding in this way, "They all alike broke the yoke, they snapped the bonds." It was not without purpose the prophet said this. Instead, since the Lord promised lovingkindness, provided he found someone "doing justice and seeking faith," he explains that though he went looking, as he was commanded to do, he found they had all broken the yoke of the law.
Truly, slander humiliates a person, and slander troubles the poor person. The evil of slander is so great that it brings down both the perfect person … from his height, and the poor person, that is, the one who lacks great learning, as it seems to the prophet, who says, "Perhaps they are poor … therefore they will not hear. I will go to the great ones," meaning by "the poor" those lacking in intelligence, and here, of course, those not yet made orderly in the inner person or having attained to the perfect measure of their age. These, the proverb says, are troubled and made to waver.
Paul says about those who live in piety and prosperity, "I thank God that in every way you were enriched in him with all speech and all knowledge." And to those who are impious, the blessed Jeremiah says, "Maybe they are poor. For this reason, they could not hear the word of the Lord." Do you see that he calls poor those who have distanced themselves from piety? Therefore, God is merciful to those who sin because they are spiritually poor, and he places demands on those who act justly because they are spiritually rich. To the former he gives freely, on account of their poverty. From the latter he collects with great care, on account of their wealth of piety. That which he does to the righteous and to sinners, he does to both the rich and the poor.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Blindness · 21:14;22:13,14; — 21:14;22:13,14;
Jerusalem · Wickedness of — Wickedness of
Sins, National · Pervade all ranks — Pervade all ranks
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The Causes which Called Down the Judgment Pronounced: The Total Corruption of the People. - Chr. B. Mich. has excellently summed up thus the contents of this chapter: Deus judicia sua, quae cap. IV praedixerat, justificat ostendens, se quamvis invitum, tamen non aliter posse quam punire Judaeos propter praefractam ipsorum malitiam. The train of thought in this chapter is the following: God would pardon if there were to be found in Jerusalem but one who practised righteousness and strove to keep good faith; but high and low have forsaken God and His law, and serve the false gods. This the Lord must punish (Jer 5:1-9). Judah, like Israel, disowns the Lord, and despises the words of His prophet…
Jeremiah searched for an economic reason behind Jerusalem’s rebellion but found that the leaders, despite their advantages, were as rebellious as the uneducated poor. • A wooden yoke was placed on the neck of a farm animal, with chains attached to a plow or another implement for working the fields (cp. 27:2-12; Ps 2:3).
Rashi on Jeremiah 5:4
And I said The prophet says so, “They are but impoverished of wisdom,” these with whom I speak.
they have become foolish Heb. נואלו, an expression of אויל, a fool, as the Targum renders: אטפשו.
