Thus saith Jehovah Cursed is the man that confideth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah.
God speaks here to a nation that had stopped waiting on Him and started bargaining with the empires around it. The curse falls on no crime. It falls on a direction of confidence — and on the heart behind it.
(Older translations read "makes flesh his arm" instead of "makes flesh his strength." That is why the writers quoted below speak of "the arm of flesh.")
This warning lands on people who had every reason to know better.
A curse is pronounced on the one who trusts in man, who departs from the Lord. For such a person there is no hope; he shall not see good; he must be an outcast, like the shrub in the desert. And this is the natural condition of man. His heart has departed from the Lord. He trusts in himself, making flesh his arm to defend and uphold him... He had called them to this place of blessing... He had shown His glory and His power among them. But they turned away from Him, and leaned not on Him but on the arm of flesh, on Egypt.
Kelly sets Judah beside the surrounding nations.
The Jews were only men like the nations, but more guilty; for they turned away from Him whom the others had never known.
The verse lists three things, but Vine treats them as one movement.
Let him not confide in man; let him not make flesh his arm, whether it claims scholarship or anything else; for to do so is to depart in heart from the Lord. Cursed is the man who does this. Faith works by love. The heart is the seat of affection and faith. Where the heart trusts the Lord, that soul will be kept from handing its confidence to man and the arm of flesh. And so it will be kept from the consequences that must follow such a course.
The verse does not forbid receiving help through people. It forbids resting on the helper.
True, He may and does use men as instruments. But if we lean on men instead of God — if we lean on instruments instead of on the hand that uses them — we bring down a curse on ourselves. For it is written: "Cursed be the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord." The Lord used the ravens to feed Elijah; but Elijah never thought of trusting in the ravens.
Darby sets this verse beside Psalm 2 to argue who Christ is.
"Blessed are all they that put their trust in him" (Ps. 2:12), but "cursed be the man that trusts in man" (Jer. 17:5). He and the Father are one: can any creature say that?
The record of the Bible's great men points the same way.
Adam failed in his headship in Eden. Noah failed to govern himself when God entrusted the government of the earth to him. Moses failed and could not enter the land of promise... The divine verdict is, "Cursed be the man that trusts in a man, and makes flesh his arm."
Ahaz, one of Judah's kings, shows the verse acted out in one life.
He trusted in man and made flesh his arm, and his heart departed from the Lord. So he brought on himself and his kingdom the resulting curse and barrenness (Jer. 17:5).
The failure of people is not always bad news.
Our God, in real faithfulness to us, will cause our fellow-man to fail us, so that we may learn the folly of leaning on an arm of flesh.
The verse has a positive counterpart, and that is where the warning aims.
God never leaves us in a negative position, simply telling us what we are not to do. Too many dwell only on that side. The blessed man is the one marked by positive confidence in the Lord Himself. Here, then, is the secret of soul prosperity at all times... If Israel fails, if the churches fail, then the blessed Lord is to be exalted all the more clearly before the faith of the true believer.
- Heart — trusting man and turning from the Lord are one act, seen from two sides.
- Instrument — God feeds His people through ravens, but the ravens are never the point; lean on the hand, not the tool.
- Failure — Adam, Noah, Moses, Ahaz: every trusted man gives way, and God lets ours fail us so we learn it.
- Christ — Scripture curses trust in man and blesses trust in Him; so He is no mere man.
- Blessing — the warning exists to drive us the other way: to open, positive confidence in the Lord Himself.
And he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but he shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited.
Jeremiah has just described a sin engraved on Judah's heart. Now he draws two portraits: a man who trusts in people, and a man who trusts in God. This verse is the first portrait — a dried-up shrub in salty ground. It asks where our own supply comes from.
The word translated "shrub" (older versions read "heath") names a real desert plant. Its habits are the point of the comparison.
These words are thought to refer to the Arabic Arar, a juniper (Juniperus sabina). It grows on the rocks right up to their summits in the most barren soil. So it stands as a fitting emblem of the man who "makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord." Jer. 17:6. Moab, too, under God's judgement, is compared to "the heath in the wilderness." Jer. 48:6.
A plant that survives on bare rock is not strong. It scrapes by where nothing grows.
The people here were not strangers to God. That is what sharpens the charge against them.
The Jews were only men like the nations, but more guilty; for they turned away from Him whom the others never knew.
Three images pile up in one verse: desert shrub, parched ground, salt land. Each says the same thing about leaning on human strength.
Here we have both sides of this most weighty subject put before us in language that is forceful, clear and beautiful. Creature confidence brings a certain curse; it can only end in barrenness and desolation. God, in real kindness, will cause every human stream to dry up and every human prop to give way, so that we may learn the utter folly of turning away from Him. What figure could be more striking than those used in this passage? "A heath in the desert" — "parched places in the wilderness" — "a salt land not inhabited."
This is not just a sentence announced from a distance. The person who takes this road ends up living in that landscape.
Let him not confide in man; let him not make flesh his arm, whether the man claims scholarship or anything else; for to do so is to depart in heart from the Lord. Cursed is the man who does this (v. 5). Faith works by love. The heart is the seat of affection and faith. Where the heart trusts in the Lord, that soul will be kept from transferring its confidence to man and the arm of flesh. It will be kept from the consequences that must follow such a course. May God speak to us about this, so that none may take the path of the cursed man. It leads to places that are parched and sapless. The soul that is there will see no good coming, even though good is coming for others. He is moved away from the hope of the Gospel, and in his own experience lives among destitution and desolation, as in a desert (v. 6).
Both the cursed man and the blessed man of verse 8 fail to see something. What each one misses is the sharpest part of the contrast.
Of each of them it is said, he "shall not see." Both are blind to something! Yet how great the contrast is! The cursed man is blind to the coming good; the blessed man is blind to the coming evil. The cursed man, whose heart is away from the Lord, trusting in man and in the arm of flesh, has no power to lift up his eyes and see the abundant blessing that Christ's coming will bring. The blessed man, whose confidence is the Lord Himself, lives by faith and in the Spirit's power among scenes of plenty. He does not see the parching heat that comes with withering force, because his living fountains never fail.
The verse points the reader to its opposite. The same heat and drought come to both men. But one of them is rooted where the weather cannot reach.
So it is with the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. He is nourished by those eternal springs that flow from the heart of God. He drinks at the Fountain, life-giving and free. He finds all his resources in the living God. There may be "heat," but he does not see it. "The year of drought" may come, but he is not anxious. Ten thousand creature streams may dry up, but he does not notice, because he is not dependent on them.
- The cause. The desert life starts in the heart — a heart that departs from the Lord and leans on human strength.
- The condition. Like a juniper on bare rock, such a life survives in the most barren soil and flourishes nowhere.
- The consequence. Confidence in people ends in barrenness. God dries up every human prop so we learn the folly of turning from Him.
- The blindness. The cursed man cannot see the good that is coming; the blessed man cannot see the heat that is coming. Same weather, opposite roots.
- The cure. Trust the Lord Himself, and you stand beside springs that never dry. Ten thousand human streams may fail, and you will not notice.
Blessed is the man that confideth in Jehovah, and whose confidence Jehovah is.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out its roots by the stream, and he shall not see when heat cometh, but his leaf shall be green; and in the year of drought he shall not be careful, neither shall he cease to yield fruit.
Jeremiah 17 sets two men side by side: one leans on human strength and ends in parched ground, the other trusts the Lord. Verse 8 is the portrait of that second man — a tree by water that outlasts both heat and drought.
Older translations read "he shall not see when heat comes" where the ESV has "does not fear." The same phrase marks the cursed man in verse 6: he does not see when good comes. One writer draws out the contrast:
Of each of these two men it is said, he "shall not see." Both are blind to something! How great the contrast is, though! The cursed man is blind to the coming good; the blessed man is blind to the coming evil. The cursed man's heart is away from the Lord, and he trusts in man and in human strength. So he has no power to lift up his eyes and see the abundant blessedness that Christ's coming will bring. The blessed man, on the other hand, has the Lord Himself as his confidence. He lives in faith and in the Spirit's power surrounded by plenty. He does not see the parching heat that comes with withering force, because his living fountains never fail. This precious portion of the blessed man is open to every one of us today in Christ Jesus.
The tree is not just near water; it sends out its roots by the stream. Roots that reach are what draw the supply:
But what will be the result for the individual who has the Lord as his confidence? Instead of being in parched places, he will find himself where the living waters never stop flowing. Like a tree planted where moisture never fails, he will always be fresh and fragrant. He keeps his greenness and fruitfulness at all times, because his wide-spreading roots take in the plentiful supplies of God. Today the Holy Spirit strengthens him in "the inner man," so that Christ dwells in his heart through faith. He is rooted in God's unchanging and unfailing love, and there he finds divine abundance, despite all the outward failure.
The verse never promises that the heat stays away. Heat comes and the drought year arrives; what changes is where the man draws from:
This is how it is with the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. He is nourished by those eternal springs that flow from the heart of God. He drinks at the Fountain, life-giving and free. He finds all his resources in the living God. There may be "heat," but he does not see it. "The year of drought" may come, but he is not anxious. Ten thousand creature streams may dry up, but he does not notice it, because he is not dependent on them. He stays close by the ever-gushing Fountain. He can never lack any good thing. He lives by faith.
The last clause is the test of the picture: the tree keeps bearing. One writer traces that yield to what fills the man's attention:
In Jeremiah 17:5-8 the man who trusts in the Lord is not taken up with the barrenness, but with God — the fountain of living waters. He spreads out his roots by the river, and so he does not stop yielding fruit. See also Psalm 1, where we see separation from evil men and meditation on the word of God day and night!
One writer looks past the description to the Man it fits without flaw:
There was One of whom all this was true in perfection, and it is that One we are to consider well, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. He lived by the Father; His love was the joy and rejoicing of His heart, as He trusted in Him alone every day. And, oh! what rich fruit in immeasurable bounty comes from this for eternal ages.
Another writer marks who else shares that blessing — the faithful remnant of Israel — and on what different ground:
And we may notice here that the remnant have the same character of blessing, though He alone has it in its fullness. Indeed they receive their blessing for an altogether different reason, as Jeremiah declares in this very passage. This looks onward to millennial peace and joy. Israel restored will enter into the joy of their King; their prosperity will take its colour from His joy.
- Confidence. Lean on human strength and you end in parched ground. Trust the Lord and you stand planted by water.
- Roots. Wide-spreading roots take in God's supplies, so his greenness holds despite all the outward failure around him.
- Heat. The drought still comes. He does not feel it, because he never lived off the streams that dried up.
- Fruit. Attention fixed on God, not on the barrenness, keeps the yield coming season after season.
- The perfect Man. All of this was true of Christ without flaw, and a restored Israel will share the joy of their King.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and incurable; who can know it?
Jeremiah has just set two men side by side: one leans on human strength and dries up like desert scrub, the other trusts the Lord and stays green in a drought. Here is why the first choice comes so naturally to us — and the verdict raises two questions: how bad is the heart, and if no one can know it, who can?
Most people admit that some human beings do terrible things. Few of them include themselves. One writer presses the question of who exactly the prophet has in view:
Many people say that only the worst examples of fallen humanity commit the disgusting sins Scripture forbids, and that the rest of us do not. This is a complete mistake. Hear what the Holy Spirit says in the seventeenth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Whose heart is he speaking of? Is it the heart of some terrible criminal, or of someone who has never been taught? No; it is the human heart, the heart of the writer and of the reader of these lines.
This is not a conclusion anyone reaches by looking inward. It is a judgment handed down, and one that our own sense of ourselves keeps disputing:
The teaching that the heart is desperately wicked applies to everyone. It is the verdict of the God who knows all things, however much our own experience questions it. Every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has doubted it about himself, until God Himself taught it to him... Receiving this doctrine in its power helps to keep the believer humble and watchful.
The ESV reads "desperately sick" here. Older versions read "desperately wicked," and one writer compares those versions and defends the stronger wording:
"Desperately wicked" clearly renders the Hebrew word well when that word describes moral evil rather than physical sickness. "Incurable" might suit this verse, but it would not do in other passages... The old Latin version, the Vulgate, is far worse... it gives a much weaker reading, if not a false one.
Later in the chapter, God's dealings with Israel expose that same incurable heart:
The human heart is incurable, and so deceitful that no child of Adam can see how corrupt it is (v. 9). It is set on doing evil and on leaving God, however many privileges it is given. In the Old Testament the Lord tested man, and He tested Israel, His chosen nation, under the law — but only to show how completely ruined man is (v. 10).
The question at the end of the verse is not rhetorical decoration. It marks the limit of self-examination, and one writer confesses that limit about himself:
If I examine my own heart I cannot find it out. I know more of God's heart than I do of my own. My own is so slippery that I cannot get to the bottom of it, for "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" The best man on earth will be the first to admit this.
Jeremiah answers his own question in the next breath, and one writer finds comfort in that answer:
We do not know how deceitful our own hearts are, for the same passage that tells us it is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked goes on to ask, "Who can know it?" The prophet answers at once: "I the Lord search the heart and test the mind" (Jer. 17:10). The One who searches and knows is the One who alone is able to keep us from falling, and to restore us when we fall.
That searching gaze has not made God withdraw. Commenting on the same verses, another writer notes what God does with what He sees: "He has sounded its depths... So He knew and knows what we are, yet in sovereign love and grace He has loved us and bears with His own." — Arno Clemens Gaebelein
If the verse is true, then consulting your own heart as a guide is a poor plan. One writer puts the reasoning simply (older versions read "his own heart" here; the ESV reads "his own mind"):
"Whoever trusts in his own heart is a fool." Why? Because the heart "is desperately wicked" and "deceitful above all things." Only a fool would trust a wicked man, or believe someone who lies through and through.
A disease called incurable rules out treatment and calls for something else entirely:
By nature our hearts are like a rotten egg: so bad they could not be worse, and so bad that nothing can make them better. When we learn that, we see the truth of the word, "You must be born again." Then we give up trying to improve ourselves, and cast ourselves wholly on the Lord.
- The heart diagnosed. The verse describes not criminals but "the heart of the writer and of the reader" — everyone's.
- The heart doubted. Every believer doubts this about himself until God teaches it. Accepting it keeps him humble and watchful.
- The heart unfathomable. No child of Adam can reach the bottom of it. The honest man admits he knows God's heart better than his own.
- The heart searched. The Lord answers "Who can know it?" at once: He does. And the One who knows is the One able to keep us and restore us.
- The heart replaced. Because it is incurable, it cannot be repaired — it must be made new. Give up self-improvement and cast yourself wholly on the Lord.
I Jehovah search the heart, I try the reins, even to give each one according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
The verse before this one calls the human heart deceitful beyond anyone's understanding. This verse is God's reply: He searches that heart Himself, and He repays each person for the way they have lived.
God's answer does more than expose the heart:
We do not know how deceitful our own hearts are. The same passage that tells us the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked goes on to ask, "Who can know it?" At once the prophet gives the answer: "I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins." The One who searches and knows is the only One able to keep us from falling, and to restore us when we fall.
Where the ESV says God tests "the mind," older translations say He tries "the reins." That word is not about control or restraint. It names a part of the body:
The kidneys, used symbolically for the inward thoughts and feelings.
So God's search covers the whole inner person: the heart, and the thoughts and feelings hidden under it.
No one but God can search hearts. One writer notes that what God declared about Himself here is later declared about Jesus:
This was full, complete, perfect understanding of man, in the way God understands. Jesus was God in His knowledge of man. What the Lord declared Himself to be through His prophet, Jesus is now declared to be by the Gospel writer. Jesus did not know fallen man, or the heart's corruption, by sympathy. He knew it all as God — the One who searches the hearts and tries the reins of the children of men, to give every man according to his ways.
Another writer applies it to Christ and the churches:
In Old Testament times this belonged to the Lord alone (Jer. 17:10). The churches are to learn the lesson — or rather to know that Christ, the One they have to deal with, carries out this solemn work. He knows everything.
The verse states the purpose of the search: to repay each person according to their ways and the fruit of their deeds. One writer shows what that testing proved about Israel:
The heart of man cannot be cured. It is set on doing evil and departing from God, however greatly privileged it may be. The Lord was testing man in the Old Testament, testing favoured Israel under law, but only to prove his utter ruin (v. 10). Judgment must therefore fall. For believers now it has already taken place at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
One writer marks a change. Under law, God searched the heart to reward each person's work. In Romans He searches it with a different aim:
By the apostle, God is revealed as the Searcher of the heart with another intent. "He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit." He is not searching the heart to reward the works, or even to refine as gold is refined. In His search of the heart He finds the exercises of the spirit. This is what He looks at there. It is not a search ending in the detection of evil, but of good — good to be owned according to Himself, not evil to be judged and punished. (Rom. 8:27.)
This truth works two ways. First, it guards a person against self-confidence:
Receiving this teaching with real power helps to keep the believer humble and watchful. So "the Lord keeps the feet of His saints," putting His fear in their hearts. They live in the fear of the Lord all day long. So they are kept from many an outbreak of desperate wickedness, the usual result of walking in self-confidence.
Second, it becomes a comfort — once you know what the Searcher is like:
Has it ever been a comfort to you that Christ searches the heart and the reins? That there is not one single thing God does not see? … Whatever comes out, it is the greatest comfort to know that He knew what was inside before. What comes out must have been inside first. You cannot bear God's searchings until you know that He is love.
- Searched. No one can know the human heart. God searches it, and He tests the inward thoughts and feelings.
- Divine. Searching hearts belongs to God alone. So Jesus's knowledge of man, and Christ's searching of the churches, are claims to be God.
- Repaid. The searching ends in repayment. Each person receives according to his ways and the fruit of his deeds.
- Redirected. Under law the search proved man's ruin. For the believer, judgment fell at the cross. God now searches the heart to find the mind of the Spirit there.
- Rested. This truth humbles self-confidence and keeps the believer watchful. And since the One who sees everything is love, His searching becomes comfort, not terror.
[As] the partridge sitteth on [eggs] it hath not laid, [so] is he that getteth riches and not by right in the midst of his days shall he leave them, and at his end shall be a fool.
God has just said that He searches the heart and repays each person for his ways; here He turns that test on money. A bird sitting on a nest of eggs becomes the picture of a man holding wealth he had no right to gather.
The picture turns on a habit of the bird. Older translations read the first line as a partridge sitting on eggs and not hatching them; the ESV follows the margin note beside it.
In the margin, Jeremiah 17:11 reads, she "that gathers young which she has not brought forth." The Greek and Latin versions confirm this reading. It is thought to refer to a partridge sitting on eggs she has not laid. Other birds leave those eggs in her nest on the ground. When they hatch, the young birds desert her. This agrees with the context.
Kelly takes the verse with the two before it. Dishonest gain is wrong. It also has no power to stay.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds." ... The ill-gotten flies away. Continuance is only in God even for what He gives.
The verse says the riches leave the man in the middle of his days. One of Judah's own kings shows what that looked like.
The Lord was testing man in the Old Testament, testing favoured Israel under law, but only to prove his utter ruin (v. 10). Judgment must therefore fall... It fell on the nation, as the prophet foretold. Even the greedy King Jehoiakim becomes an individual example. From his ill-gotten goods he was cut off in the middle of his years (at 36), as a partridge might be taken from her many eggs. Like Nabal at his end, he was a fool (v. 11); so is every man who follows the promptings of his own heart and forsakes the Lord.
Jeremiah later names what Jehoiakim did. It is the verse in action: a house built on other people's unpaid work.
"Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbour work without wages, and gives him nothing for his work... But your eyes and your heart are set on nothing but your covetousness, on shedding innocent blood, and on oppression and violence." ... Who of the kings had lived with less conscience? Who had died with more shame?
The verse ends with the word "fool." That verdict can land on a man whose gain broke no law at all.
Covetousness does not imply dishonesty. It is not even hard or sharp dealing. It is no more than the desire for more — the very driving force of modern effort... The rich man was not content, but proud, and trusted not in God but in the certainty of what is most uncertain... He aspired after greater things and planned for nothing but his own ease and enjoyment, as if he had a lease for ever. God was in none of his thoughts, but read them all. When the rich man called on his soul to be merry over the many goods laid up for many years, the summons came: "Fool, this night your soul is required of you."
The man in the verse loses his riches halfway through life. There is one way to hold money that removes the risk.
For the Christian, if he has money he holds it only as a steward... Those who have money like to invest it wisely, and the Lord shows here how to do it. "He that gives to the poor, lends to the Lord." One could not have a safer investment, or better interest. We do not know what a day or an hour may bring... Riches take to themselves wings and fly away. They will never fly away if invested like this. Heaven is the place to store them.
So where does trust belong when everything around is corrupt?
When the state of things becomes thoroughly evil and corrupt, the only object of trust is God. We must look to Him. Such is the blessing of the Lord that if we simply trust Him, no day is so dark that God cannot give us His richest blessings and the light of His presence.
- Nest. The partridge sits on eggs she never laid; when they hatch, the young desert her. That is the picture of holding what was never rightly yours.
- Gain. Riches taken "not by right" cannot stay. The ill-gotten flies away, and even what God gives has its lasting power in Him alone.
- Grip. Jehoiakim built his house by unrighteousness and unpaid work. He lost it all in the middle of his years, at 36 — the proverb with a name attached.
- End. "Fool" is God's verdict. It lands even on the man whose gain was lawful, if he planned for nothing but his own ease, as if he had a lease for ever.
- Transfer. Hold money as a steward's trust and give it to the poor, and you store it where it cannot fly away — the one investment no death can interrupt.