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3. Unfaithful Israel

¹ “If a man divorces his wife
   and she leaves him and marries another man,
should he return to her again?
   Would not the land be completely defiled?
But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—
   would you now return to me?” declares the LORD.
² “Look up to the barren heights and see.
   Is there any place where you have not been ravished?
By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers,
   sat like a nomad in the desert.
You have defiled the land
   with your prostitution and wickedness.
³ Therefore the showers have been withheld,
   and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;
   you refuse to blush with shame.
⁴ Have you not just called to me:
   ‘My Father, my friend from my youth,
⁵ will you always be angry?
   Will your wrath continue forever?’
This is how you talk,
   but you do all the evil you can.”

Unfaithful Israel

⁶ During the reign of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. ⁷ I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. ⁸ I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. ⁹ Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. ¹⁰ In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD.

¹¹ The LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah. ¹² Go, proclaim this message toward the north:

   “‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD,
   ‘I will frown on you no longer,
for I am faithful,’ declares the LORD,
   ‘I will not be angry forever.
¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt—
   you have rebelled against the LORD your God,
you have scattered your favors to foreign gods
   under every spreading tree,
   and have not obeyed me,’” declares the LORD.

¹⁴ “Return, faithless people,” declares the LORD, “for I am your husband. I will choose you—one from a town and two from a clan—and bring you to Zion. ¹⁵ Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶ In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” declares the LORD, “people will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made. ¹⁷ At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the LORD, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts. ¹⁸ In those days the people of Judah will join the people of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your ancestors as an inheritance.

¹⁹ “I myself said,

   “‘How gladly would I treat you like my children
   and give you a pleasant land,
   the most beautiful inheritance of any nation.’
I thought you would call me ‘Father’
   and not turn away from following me.
²⁰ But like a woman unfaithful to her husband,
   so you, Israel, have been unfaithful to me,” declares the LORD.

    ²¹ A cry is heard on the barren heights,
   the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel,
because they have perverted their ways
   and have forgotten the LORD their God.

²² “Return, faithless people;
I will cure you of backsliding.”

   “Yes, we will come to you,
   for you are the LORD our God.
²³ Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hills
   and mountains is a deception;
surely in the LORD our God
   is the salvation of Israel.
²⁴ From our youth shameful gods have consumed
   the fruits of our ancestors’ labor—
their flocks and herds,
   their sons and daughters.
²⁵ Let us lie down in our shame,
   and let our disgrace cover us.
We have sinned against the LORD our God,
   both we and our ancestors;
from our youth till this day
   we have not obeyed the LORD our God.”

As the Israelites say here nothing new, but continue the same subject, I propose only to touch briefly on the words, lest I should be too tedious. They say then that they were lying in their miseries; and why? because they had dealt wickedly with God We see that they are explaining what they had confessed, — even that the labor of their fathers had been consumed by their shame, that is, by their wickedness; and they ascribe to themselves what might have been put to the account of their fathers, because they knew that they were heirs to their iniquity. We have lain, they say, in our shame ⁹⁷⁹⁷     Calvin seems to have followed the Septuagint in rendering the verb in the past tense. The Vulgate and Syriac retain the future of the original; but the Targum gives the present, and rightly so, as the future in Hebrew is often to be so taken. It is the same in Welsh, the future conveys the meaning of the present. This distich might in that language be rendered exactly according to the Hebrew, and the future would be understood as expressing what the present state of things is, —
   Gorweddwn yn ein cywilydd, A gorchuddia ni ein gwarth.
   But in English the present must be used, as it is the confession of the penitent when returning to God, —
   We lie in our shame, And cover us does our disgrace, Because against Jehovah our God Have we sinned, we and our fathers, From our childhood even to this day; And we have not hearkened To the voice of Jehovah our God.
   — Ed. They here shortly confess that they were deservedly miserable, that they could not accuse God of cruelty, as that he afflicted them too severely. How so? because they were lying in their own shame, and their own disgrace covered them; as though they said, that the cause of all their evils was to be found in their sins, and that it was not to be sought anywhere else.

Because we and our fathers, they say, have done wickedly By these words they intimate that they had acted thus, not for a day only, but had been so perverse, that from early life they had imbibed the iniquity of their fathers, and thus added evils to evils. They had said before, that the labor of their fathers had been consumed from their childhood, thereby signifying the continuance of their punishment; for God had not for a day chastised them, but had often repeated his scourges, and yet without any benefit. Now they add, “As we have from our childhood dealt wickedly towards our God, so also he has warned us from our childhood to return to him; and it has been our fault that we have not returned, for he called us; but as we were obstinate, so also God has justly executed on us his vengeance.”

They afterwards say, even to this day; by which they confirm what I have already stated, — that they had been so perverse as not to cease from their vices. At the same time he points out the source of all their wickedness: they hearkened not to the voice of Jehovah Had they gone astray, and had God been silent, their fault might have been extenuated; but as God had daily sent prophets to them, who never ceased to cry in their hearing, and yet they continued deaf, their perverseness in their sinful courses was inexcusable. We then see that their sin was increased by the circumstance, that they refused to hear the voice of God; as though he had said, that God had done his part in calling them back from the way of ruin, but that they had been so obstinate as to disregard his favor, and that they thus justly suffered, not only for their impiety, but also for their ingratitude and perverse wickedness.