Jeremiah 5:4 - Exposition

Therefore I said ; rather, and as for me , I said . They are foolish ; rather, they act foolishly ( as Numbers 12:11 ). For; rather, because . Their want of religious instruction is the cause of their faulty conduct. In fact, it was only after the return from Babylon that any popular schools were founded in Judaea, and not till shortly before the destruction of the temple that the elementary instruction attained the regularity of a system. The judgment of their God . A similar phrase occurs in Jeremiah 8:7 . "Judgment ( mishpat ) here (as in some other passages) has acquired a technical sense. This may be illustrated by the corresponding word in Arabic ( din ), which means

"Judgment" is, therefore, here equivalent to "religious law," and "law" is a preferable rendering.