Jeremiah 5:27

As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) A cage.—The large wicker basket (Amos 8:1-2) in which the fowler kept the birds he had caught, or, possibly, used for decoy-birds.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Deceit - The wealth gained by deceit and fraud.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. full of deceit—full of treasures got by deceit.

rich—(Ps 73:12, 18-20).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit, i.e. they fill up their houses with the goods and wealth of those that they deceive and overreach; ill-gotten goods; a metonymy of the efficient; as the fowler carries his cage along with him, wherein he puts the birds which he catcheth, to keep safe that they get not away, when once they are caught, as also by their appearance and singing to entice others.

Therefore they are become great, and waxen rich; showing how and in what manner they got their riches, therefore, or by this means; such as are gotten by a lying tongue, Proverbs 21:6, called the treasures of wickedness, Micah 6:10.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

As a cage is full of birds,.... Jarchi and Kimchi understand it of a place in which fowls, are brought up and fattened, what we call a "pen"; and, so the Targum renders it, a house or place of fattening. The word is rendered a "basket" in Amos 8:1 and may here design one in which birds taken in snares, or by hawking, were put. The Septuagint version, and those that follow it, render it, "a snare": which agrees with what goes before. It seems to intend a decoy, in which many birds are put to allure others; and, what with them, and those that are drawn in by them, it becomes very full; and this sense of the comparison is favoured by the rendition or application, which follows:

so are their houses full of deceit; of mammon, gathered by deceit, as Kimchi interprets it; ungodly mammon; riches got in a fraudulent way, by cozening and cheating, tricking and overreaching:

therefore they are become great; in worldly things, and in the esteem of men, and in their own opinion, though of no account with God:

and waxen rich; not with the true riches, the riches of grace, the unsearchable riches of Christ, his durable riches and righteousness; nor indeed with the riches of the world, honestly and lawfully gotten; but with unrighteous mammon.

Geneva Study Bible

As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. cage] The Hebrew word occurs elsewhere only in Amos (Jeremiah 8:1), “a basket of summer fruit.” Here, however, Cheyne (Pulpit Comm., ad loc.), quoting Hitzig, thinks that “the cage was at the same time a trap.” He quotes Sir 11:30 (see note in C.B.), “As a decoy partridge in a cage,” where the Greek word used is that with which LXX render “baskets” in Jeremiah 6:9.

deceit] riches won by craft, as birds by the fowler.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - A cage. The Hebrew word klub is used in Amos 8:1 for a basket such as was used for fruit; it seems to be the parent of the Greek word κλωβός, used in the 'Anthology' for a bird-cage. The root means to plait or braid; hence some sort of basket-work seems to be meant. Connecting this with the preceding verse, Hitzig seems right in inferring that the "cage" was at the same time a trap (comp. Ecclus. 11:30, "Like as a partridge taken in a cage ἐν καρτάλλῳ, a peculiar kind of basket], so is the heart of the proud"). Canon Tristram suggests that there is an allusion to decoy-birds, which are still much employed in Syria, and are carefully trained for their office ('Natural History of the Bible,' p. 163), But this seems to go beyond the text. Deceit; i.e. the goods obtained by deceit. Jeremiah 5:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The people has by its sins brought about the withdrawal of these blessings (the withholding of rain, etc.). הטּוּ, turned away, as in Amos 5:12; Malachi 3:5. "These," i.e., the blessings mentioned in Jeremiah 5:24. The second clause repeats the same thing. The good, i.e., which God in His goodness bestowed on them.

This is established in Jeremiah 5:26. by bringing home to the people their besetting sins. In (amidst) the people are found notorious sinners. ישׁוּר in indefinite generality: they spy about, lie in wait; cf. Hosea 13:7. The singular is chosen because the act described is not undertaken in company, but by individuals. שׁך from שׁכך, bend down, stoop, as bird-catchers hide behind the extended nets till the birds have gone in, so as then to draw them tight. "They set;" not the fowlers, but the wicked ones. משׁחית, destroyer (Exodus 12:23, and often), or destruction (Ezekiel 21:36); here, by virtue of the context, a trap which brings destruction. The men they catch are the poor, the needy, and the just; cf. Jeremiah 5:28 and Isaiah 29:21. The figure of bird-catching leads to a cognate one, by which are set forth the gains of the wicked or the produce of their labours. As a cage is filled with captured birds, so the houses of the wicked are filled with deceit, i.e., possessions obtained by deceit, through which they attain to credit, power, and wealth. Graf has overthrown Hitz.'s note, that we must understand by מרמה, not riches obtained by deceit, but he means and instruments of deceit; and this on account of the following: therefore they enrich themselves. But, as Graf shows, it is not the possession of these appliances, but of the goods acquired by deceit, that has made these people great and rich, "as the birds that fill the cage are not a means for capture, but property got by cunning." כּלוּב, cage, is not strictly a bird-cage, but a bird-trap woven of willows (Amos 8:1), with a lid to shut down, by means of which birds were caught.