“They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters.”
My Notes
What Does Jeremiah 6:28 Mean?
Jeremiah characterizes the people with four descriptions: grievous revolters, slanderers, brass and iron (in the sense of base, impure metal), and corrupters. Each term addresses a different dimension of their corruption: behavioral (revolting), verbal (slandering), constitutional (base metal), and influential (corrupting others).
The metal metaphor — brass and iron — compares the people to the dross left over after refining. In the smelting process, precious metals are separated from base metals. The people are what's left after the silver and gold have been extracted: the impurities, the worthless residue, the material the refiner discards.
The word "all" is devastating: "they are all grievous revolters... they are all corrupters." Not some. Not most. All. The corruption is comprehensive, touching every person in the community. There is no righteous remnant in this assessment — the rot is total.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What would an honest, Jeremiah-level assessment of your community reveal?
- 2.How does the refining metaphor (all dross, no silver) challenge comfortable self-assessments?
- 3.Where might you be a 'corrupter' — actively spreading compromise rather than just being compromised?
- 4.What does it take for a community to reach the point where 'all' have become corrupters?
Devotional
All of them. Revolters. Slanderers. Base metal. Corrupters. Jeremiah's assessment of the community leaves no one standing. The corruption isn't concentrated in a few bad actors — it's universal. Everyone has been compromised.
The metal imagery is the most revealing. In refining, you heat the ore and the precious metal separates from the base. What's left — the dross — is brass and iron, the worthless residue. Jeremiah is saying: we ran you through the fire, and there's no silver. You're all dross. The refining process that should have produced something valuable produced only impurities.
This is one of the Bible's most hopeless assessments of a community — and it comes from someone who loves them. Jeremiah isn't a critic enjoying the catalogue of faults. He's a prophet who has wept over these people, prayed for them, interceded on their behalf. And his honest assessment is: all corrupters.
The word "corrupters" (mashchithim) means not just corrupt but actively corrupting — spreading the decay to everything they touch. They're not just bad; they make things around them bad. Their influence is toxic, and the toxicity is comprehensive.
This diagnosis should humble any community that thinks it's immune. All it takes is enough time, enough compromise, and enough looking the other way — and the silver disappears. Only dross remains.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
They are all grievous revolters,.... From the right way of God and his worship: or,
they are all revolters of…
Here, I. God appeals to all the neighbours, nay, to the whole world, concerning the equity of his proceedings against…
grievous revolters Heb. revolters of revolters, one of the ways of expressing the superlative. Cp. Gen 9:25; Eze 32:21…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture