“Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.”
My Notes
What Does Jeremiah 5:24 Mean?
God describes a fundamental failure: the people don't say in their hearts, "Let us fear the LORD." Their failure isn't intellectual—they know God gives rain, both early and late, and preserves the harvest seasons. They know His provision is real. They just don't respond with reverence. The knowledge is there. The fear isn't.
The detail about rain—"both the former and the latter, in his season"—is specific agricultural knowledge. The former rains (autumn) soften the ground for planting. The latter rains (spring) bring the crops to maturity. Both come from God. Both are precisely timed. And the harvest weeks—the appointed period of gathering—are reserved by God's faithful ordering of seasons.
The tragedy is the gap between receiving and responding. Every harvest is evidence of God's faithfulness. Every rainfall is proof of His provision. And the people receive it all without a single thought of reverence. They eat what God provides and don't say "let us fear Him." The provision continues. The gratitude doesn't.
Reflection Questions
- 1.How often do you eat, drink, and benefit from God's provision without any conscious recognition of where it comes from?
- 2.What would it look like to 'say in your heart, let us fear the LORD' in the middle of ordinary daily provision?
- 3.Why is daily provision so easy to take for granted? What makes routine gifts invisible?
- 4.If every harvest is evidence of God's faithfulness, what specific evidence are you overlooking right now?
Devotional
They receive the rain. They enjoy the harvest. They eat the food that God's seasons produce. And they never once say: maybe we should fear the God who gives all this. The provision is constant. The gratitude is absent.
This verse describes one of the most common and most dangerous spiritual conditions: receiving without recognizing. God provides the rain—early and late, perfectly timed. God reserves the harvest—the weeks when the crops are gathered. Every meal on the table is evidence of His faithfulness. And the response is... nothing. No reverence. No gratitude. No fear of the LORD. Just consumption.
You probably receive a hundred gifts from God every day without pausing to acknowledge any of them. The air. The food. The functioning body. The people who care about you. The rhythms of seasons that sustain life. Each one is God's version of the former and latter rain—carefully timed, faithfully provided. And most days, you eat the harvest without fearing the one who reserved it for you.
The verse says they don't say this "in their heart." The failure isn't public—it's internal. It's not that they refuse to worship at the temple. It's that the thought never occurs to them. The reverence that should be the most natural response to daily provision simply doesn't arise. And that's the spiritual danger: not rebellion but oblivion. Not rejection of God but forgetting Him entirely.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Neither say in their heart,.... It came not into their mind, they never once thought of it, namely, of what follows,…
Against the God (1) of Creation Jer 5:22, and (2) of Providence Jer 5:24, They sin, not merely by apostasy, but by a…
The prophet, having reproved them for sin and threatened the judgments of God against them, is here sent to them again…
God's graceas shewn in nature illustrated. As the people refused to fear Him in consideration of His power (Jer 5:5), so…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture