No One Repents of His Wickedness
4 “Moreover you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “‘Do men fall, and not rise up again? Does one turn away, and not return? 5 Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit. They refuse to return. 6 I listened and heard, but they didn’t say what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle. 7 Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know Yahweh’s law. 8 “‘How do you say, “We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us”? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made that a lie. 9 The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them? 10 Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to those who will possess them. For everyone from the least even to the greatest is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely. 11 They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. 12 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. They couldn’t blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the time of their visitation they will be cast down, says Yahweh. 13 “‘I will utterly consume them, says Yahweh. No grapes will be on the vine, no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf will fade. The things that I have given them will pass away from them.’” 14 “Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves! Let’s enter into the fortified cities, and let’s be silent there; for Yahweh our God has put us to silence, and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against Yahweh. 15 We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! 16 The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan. The whole land trembles at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it, the city and those who dwell therein.” 17 “For, behold, I will send serpents, adders among you, which will not be charmed; and they will bite you,” says Yahweh.
Falling and getting up is the normal course of things, and the chapter's charge is that Judah has managed the abnormal feat of falling and staying down.
The argument opens with two questions whose answers are obvious. Do men fall and not rise up again? Does one turn away and not return? Both describe reflexes rather than decisions. A man who trips gets up. A traveler who takes a wrong road turns around. The point is that repentance is classified as the natural thing rather than the heroic thing. What Jerusalem has achieved is a perpetual backsliding, a permanent version of what should have been momentary, and the verse says how it is maintained: they cling to deceit.
God is then described as listening. He listened and heard, and what was missing was one sentence: No one repents of his wickedness, saying, "What have I done?" Four words would have been enough, and none of them were said. The image for the alternative is a warhorse rushing headlong into battle: animal momentum, all direction and no reflection. Then comes an argument from birds. The stork knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow and the crane keep the seasons of their coming. Migration is used as evidence. Creatures with no law and no revelation keep the timetable written into them, and a people given the law outright does not know it.
The next charge is aimed at people who would have said they did know it. They claim to be wise and to have the law of Yahweh with them, and the reply names an instrument: the false pen of the scribes has made that a lie. This is a rare accusation about the handling of the written word rather than about ignoring it. It does not specify how the pen worked — whether by copying, by interpretation, or by teaching. What it fixes is responsibility. The people possessing the law and the professionals administering it are the same group here. The charge is that possession was turned into a claim of security by the men holding the pens.
Two verses then repeat, almost word for word, the verdict already delivered on the leadership two chapters earlier: everyone given to covetousness, the wound healed superficially, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, and the men who could not blush Jeremiah 6:13–15. The repetition is itself part of the meaning. The same diagnosis is delivered twice because nothing changed between the two deliveries. And the section ends with the people quoting their own disappointment back: we looked for peace, and no good came. They had been promised peace by their prophets and had believed it. That is what makes the arrival of the horses from Dan the collapse of a religion as well as of a border.
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