Scripture Daily

Context No. 1262 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 5:23-31: in context

23“But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart. They have revolted and gone. 24They don’t say in their heart, ‘Let’s now fear the LORD our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season, who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’ 25“Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you. 26For wicked men are found among my people. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men. 27As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich. 28They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy. 29“Shouldn’t I punish for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 30“An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land. 31The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

Jeremiah exposes the rot in Judah. The people have a stubborn, rebellious heart; they do not even say, let us fear the LORD who gives the rain and the harvest. Among God's own people are wicked men who lie in wait like bird-trappers, filling their houses with the profits of deceit, growing fat and rich, excelling in evil, refusing to defend the cause of the orphan or the rights of the needy. Should I not punish this, God asks. And the passage ends with a devastating summary: the prophets prophesy falsely, the priests rule by their own authority, and, worst of all, my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end?

The damning line in the whole indictment is the last part: my people love to have it so. Jeremiah has just described corrupt leaders, false prophets telling comfortable lies and priests grabbing power for themselves, and then he names the deepest problem, that the people liked it that way. It was not only that the leaders were corrupt; the people preferred them corrupt, loved the false prophets who told them what they wanted to hear, welcomed the comfortable lie over the disturbing truth. A society does not usually get leaders it does not, at some level, want; the false prophets flourished because the people loved having their ears tickled. That is a searching diagnosis, because it puts responsibility back on the ordinary person. It is easy to blame corrupt leaders and dishonest teachers, but Jeremiah asks whether we love to have it so, whether we prefer the voices that flatter us to the ones that tell us the truth. And he ends with a question that hangs in the air: what will you do in the end of it? A people that loves comfortable lies is building toward a reckoning, and the question is whether they will face it before the end forces it.

Do I love to have it so, preferring the voices that tell me what I want to hear over the ones that tell me the truth, and what will I do when the comfortable lies finally run out?

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