Jeremiah 5:23 describes a people whose inner condition has drifted from God until their whole way of living has followed it. The verse is a diagnosis, not a single sin: the problem begins in the heart, and the turning away is what results. God speaks it through the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, in the years before Jerusalem 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 “this people,” a phrase that puts the whole nation under the same description. Jeremiah is not talking about a few bad individuals but about a shared condition, the kind of attitude that spreads through a community until it becomes normal. The words “revolting and rebellious heart” describe a heart that resists, that pushes against what it has been told, and that has grown stubborn about it. The Hebrew language often uses “heart” for the center of will and thought, so this is a problem of the will as much as of feeling.
The second half describes the result: “They have revolted and gone.” The people did not merely feel rebellious. They acted on it and walked away from the covenant relationship with God they had been given. The verse does not promise that a rebellious heart can never repent, and the chapter as a whole is an appeal to return. What it does make clear is that outward behavior grows out of an inward posture, and that God looks at both.
The Context of Jeremiah 5:23
The book of Jeremiah is traditionally attributed to the prophet himself, who was called to speak in Jerusalem roughly between 626 and 586 BC. His audience was the people of Judah, who were comfortable, religiously active, and largely convinced that God would not allow their city to fall. Chapter 5 is a sharp indictment of that confidence. Just before our verse, God asks why a people without understanding have eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear, and reminds them that the sea itself stays inside the limits God set for it. If the waves obey, the people are without excuse.
Read in that setting, verse 23 is not an isolated complaint. It explains why the people fail to fear God: their hearts have turned. The verses that follow describe the practical effects, including a lack of gratitude for the rains and harvests God provides and a society where the wicked prey on the vulnerable. Seeing the surrounding passage helps the reader understand that Jeremiah is naming a root cause behind a visible pattern of injustice and forgetfulness.
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 promises a new heart and a new spirit, which answers the problem Jeremiah diagnoses. Where Jeremiah names the stubborn heart, Ezekiel shows that God himself is the one who removes stone and gives a heart that can respond to him.
Jeremiah 31:33
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the LORD: I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
(WEB)
Written by the same prophet, this verse looks forward to a covenant in which God writes his law on the heart. It shows that the diagnosis in chapter 5 is not the last word, and that Jeremiah himself held out hope for a renewed inner life with God.
A Short Prayer From Jeremiah 5:23
Lord, you see the places in my heart that have grown stubborn and resistant to your ways. Where I have pulled away, quietly or openly, I ask you to show me clearly what has been happening inside me. Soften what has hardened, and give me a willingness to return to you without excuses. Help me to hear your voice and to follow it, starting today. Amen.
