Jeremiah (1-31) 7:5 Commentary and Bible Study

‘For if ye throughly amend [repair, make beautiful] your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour’ – he is now going into detail. They must be fair and honest with each other, right throughout society. They must not take advantage of one another, or try to gain for themselves at another’s expense. They must have a greater adherence to justice and fair dealing than to their own interests. This should be in the heart of every believer, who knows that the Lord sees his heart and weighs all that he does. Any private gain that he might obtain for himself is obtained at a terrible price if it is at the loss of his own integrity or the abandonment of fairness.‘If ye oppress not the stranger,’ – in other words, there is to be no slavery of people who have been taken into captivity – ‘the fatherless, and the widow,’ – taking advantage of them, pressing the homeless into slavery service; that’s what they were doing – ‘and shed not innocent blood in this place,’ which is possibly not only intended literally, but as a figure of speech: no injustice – ‘neither walk after other gods to your hurt:’ – no idolatry – ‘then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.’ They were a largely unregenerate people, but they were still responsible for living according to God’s reasonable standards. This was the beautiful society that God had intended for them and called them to cultivate. He had provided so amply for them that they had all that they needed, and there was no excuse for them oppressing one another. They were quite capable of reforming their society outwardly, but they had not even done this. They were instead characterised by cruelty, oppression, selfishness and greed, and for that they would be judged. But even now Jeremiah makes this genuine promise that if they will repent and amend their ways, they would be blessed. They are reminded of the promise made long before to their fathers, which of course was conditional on how they lived.Is Jeremiah, by the way, preaching salvation by works? No, because the passage goes on, as we shall see, to counter that. But if people really are concerned to obey God and his law, and to follow these exhortations, they would soon be seeking the salvation which comes freely from God, and his pardoning love, and see their inadequacy and failure to do these things.