Jeremiah 5:23 describes a people whose inner life has become stubborn and defiant, so that they have turned away from the Lord and gone their own way. The verse is a prophetic diagnosis, not a casual complaint: God, speaking through Jeremiah, names the root of Judah’s problem as a heart that refuses to listen and keeps moving further from him. The words come from the Lord himself, delivered by the prophet Jeremiah, and they are addressed to the people of Judah and Jerusalem in the years before the nation fell to Babylon.
“But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart. They have revolted and gone.
Jeremiah 5:23 (WEB)
What Jeremiah 5:23 Means
The verse begins with the phrase “a revolting and a rebellious heart.” The Hebrew language often treats the heart as the seat of the will and the mind, so this is not about feelings alone. It describes a settled inner disposition that has become resistant, even hardened, against what God asks. The word for rebellion carries the sense of pushing against authority and refusing to submit.
The second half, “They have revolted and gone,” shows how that inner stance works itself out in behavior. The people have not merely doubted God; they have actually left the path of obedience and walked away. The verb “gone” suggests a deliberate departure, a turning of the back on the one who had made covenant with them.
What the verse does not do is offer a formula for ending the problem or promise that the people will change on their own. It names the condition clearly and leaves the reader to face it honestly. The surrounding chapter shows that God still calls them to return, so the diagnosis is meant to lead to repentance, not despair.
The Context of Jeremiah 5:23
The book of Jeremiah is traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, who ministered in Jerusalem roughly from the late seventh century BC until after the Babylonian conquest in 586 BC. Chapter 5 is part of a series of oracles calling Judah to account for its idolatry, social injustice and false confidence in its own religious privileges. The audience is the covenant people, who assumed God’s favor no matter how they lived.
Verses 20 to 22 open the passage with a call to hear and an appeal to the people’s failure to fear God, illustrated by the sea, which God restrains with a perpetual decree. Verse 23 then turns to the people’s heart. Verses 24 and 25 go on to say that they do not acknowledge the God who gives seasonal rain and harvest, and that their sins have withheld good things from them. Read this way, the rebellion of verse 23 is not a private matter but the reason behind the broken order described around it.
Key Phrases in Jeremiah 5:23
Ezekiel 36:26
I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
(WEB)
Ezekiel speaks of God giving a new heart in place of a stony one. Read alongside Jeremiah 5:23, it shows that the problem diagnosed by Jeremiah has a divine remedy, pointing to renewal that God himself brings about.
Psalm 95:8
Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness…
(WEB)
This psalm warns against hardening the heart as the people did in the wilderness. It echoes the concern of Jeremiah 5:23 and reminds readers to respond to God’s voice while there is still time to listen.
A Short Prayer From Jeremiah 5:23
Lord, you see the parts of my heart that I would rather keep hidden, including the places where I resist you or quietly turn away. Thank you for telling the truth about the human heart, even when it is uncomfortable to hear. I ask you to soften what has grown hard in me and to bring me back to walking with you each day.
Give me the honesty to name my rebellion without excuse, and the courage to turn toward you when I have drifted. Renew my desire to follow your ways, and let my choices flow from a heart that trusts you. Amen.
