(30) Wonderful.--Better, terrible.

Is committed.--Better, has come to pass.

Verses 30, 31. - The result of the prophet's examination of the moral condition of the people. Verse 30. - A wonderful and horrible thing, etc.; rather, an appalling and horrible thins hath happened in the land. The word rendered "appalling" (or stupefying) has a peculiar force, it only occurs again in Jeremiah 23:14, though a cognate adjective is found in Jeremiah 18:13 (comp. on Jeremiah 2:11).

5:19-31 Unhumbled hearts are ready to charge God with being unjust in their afflictions. But they may read their sin in their punishment. If men will inquire wherefore the Lord doeth hard things unto them, let them think of their sins. The restless waves obeyed the Divine decree, that they should not pass the sandy shores, which were as much a restraint as lofty mountains; but they burst all restraints of God's law, and were wholly gone into wickedness. Neither did they consider their interest. While the Lord, year after year, reserves to us the appointed weeks of harvest, men live on his bounty; yet they transgress against him. Sin deprives us of God's blessings; it makes the heaven as brass, and the earth as iron. Certainly the things of this world are not the best things; and we are not to think, that, because evil men prosper, God allows their practices. Though sentence against evil works is not executed speedily, it will be executed. Shall I not visit for these things? This speaks the certainty and the necessity of God's judgments. Let those who walk in bad ways consider that an end will come, and there will be bitterness in the latter end.A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. What may justly raise admiration in some, and horror in others, or both in all: it is so amazing that it can hardly be conceived of, and so shameful and filthy as not to be expressed; what it is follows: