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2. Israel Forsakes God

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem:

“This is what the LORD says:

   “‘I remember the devotion of your youth,
   how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through the wilderness,
   through a land not sown.
³ Israel was holy to the LORD,
   the firstfruits of his harvest;
all who devoured her were held guilty,
   and disaster overtook them,’” declares the LORD.

⁴ Hear the word of the LORD, you descendants of Jacob,
all you clans of Israel.

⁵ This is what the LORD says:

   “What fault did your ancestors find in me,
   that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
   and became worthless themselves.
⁶ They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD,
   who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
   through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
   a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
⁷ I brought you into a fertile land
   to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
   and made my inheritance detestable.
⁸ The priests did not ask,
   ‘Where is the LORD?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
   the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
   following worthless idols.

    ⁹ “Therefore I bring charges against you again,” declares the LORD.
   “And I will bring charges against your children’s children.
¹⁰ Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
   send to Kedar In the Syro-Arabian desert and observe closely;
   see if there has ever been anything like this:
¹¹ Has a nation ever changed its gods?
   (Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
   for worthless idols.
¹² Be appalled at this, you heavens,
   and shudder with great horror,” declares the LORD.
¹³ “My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
   the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
   broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
¹⁴ Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth?
   Why then has he become plunder?
¹⁵ Lions have roared;
   they have growled at him.
They have laid waste his land;
   his towns are burned and deserted.
¹⁶ Also, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes
   have cracked your skull.
¹⁷ Have you not brought this on yourselves
   by forsaking the LORD your God
   when he led you in the way?
¹⁸ Now why go to Egypt
   to drink water from the Nile Hebrew Shihor; that is, a branch of the Nile?
And why go to Assyria
   to drink water from the Euphrates?
¹⁹ Your wickedness will punish you;
   your backsliding will rebuke you.
Consider then and realize
   how evil and bitter it is for you
when you forsake the LORD your God
   and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

    ²⁰ “Long ago you broke off your yoke
   and tore off your bonds;
   you said, ‘I will not serve you!’
Indeed, on every high hill
   and under every spreading tree
   you lay down as a prostitute.
²¹ I had planted you like a choice vine
   of sound and reliable stock.
How then did you turn against me
   into a corrupt, wild vine?
²² Although you wash yourself with soap
   and use an abundance of cleansing powder,
   the stain of your guilt is still before me,” declares the Sovereign LORD.
²³ “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled;
   I have not run after the Baals’?
See how you behaved in the valley;
   consider what you have done.
You are a swift she-camel
   running here and there,
²⁴ a wild donkey accustomed to the desert,
   sniffing the wind in her craving—
   in her heat who can restrain her?
Any males that pursue her need not tire themselves;
   at mating time they will find her.
²⁵ Do not run until your feet are bare
   and your throat is dry.
But you said, ‘It’s no use!
   I love foreign gods,
   and I must go after them.’

    ²⁶ “As a thief is disgraced when he is caught,
   so the people of Israel are disgraced—
they, their kings and their officials,
   their priests and their prophets.
²⁷ They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’
   and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
They have turned their backs to me
   and not their faces;
yet when they are in trouble, they say,
   ‘Come and save us!’
²⁸ Where then are the gods you made for yourselves?
   Let them come if they can save you
   when you are in trouble!
For you, Judah, have as many gods
   as you have towns.

    ²⁹ “Why do you bring charges against me?
   You have all rebelled against me,” declares the LORD.
³⁰ “In vain I punished your people;
   they did not respond to correction.
Your sword has devoured your prophets
   like a ravenous lion.

³¹ “You of this generation, consider the word of the LORD:

   “Have I been a desert to Israel
   or a land of great darkness?
Why do my people say, ‘We are free to roam;
   we will come to you no more’?
³² Does a young woman forget her jewelry,
   a bride her wedding ornaments?
Yet my people have forgotten me,
   days without number.
³³ How skilled you are at pursuing love!
   Even the worst of women can learn from your ways.
³⁴ On your clothes is found
   the lifeblood of the innocent poor,
   though you did not catch them breaking in.
Yet in spite of all this
    ³⁵ you say, ‘I am innocent;
   he is not angry with me.’
But I will pass judgment on you
   because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’
³⁶ Why do you go about so much,
   changing your ways?
You will be disappointed by Egypt
   as you were by Assyria.
³⁷ You will also leave that place
   with your hands on your head,
for the LORD has rejected those you trust;
   you will not be helped by them.

Now follows the cause; the Prophet, after having shewn that Israel were forsaken by God, now mentions the reason why it so happened, Has not this done it for thee? Some read in the second person, “Hast thou not done this for thee?” but the meaning is still nearly the same. More probable, however, is the rendering which others have given, “Has not this happened to thee, because thou hast forsaken Jehovah thy God?” Jeremiah, in short, teaches us that the cause of all the evils was the defection of the people, as though he had said, “Thou hast concocted for thyself all this evil; then must thou swallow it, and know that the blame cannot be cast on God; for he would have been faithful to thee, except thine impiety had prevented him. God has not, indeed, chosen thee in vain, nor has he in vain preferred thee to other nations; but thou hast rejected his kindness. Thy condition then would have never been as it is, hadst thou not procured thine own ruin.” How so? “Because thou hast departed from thy God.”

And he further exaggerates this sin by saying, At the time when he led thee in the way To lead in the way, is rightly to govern, so as to make people happy. The Prophet then shews, that the people’s perfidy and defection were without excuse in rejecting the worship of their God, for they were happy during the time they served him. Had they been in various ways tempted, or tried, they might have reigned some pretense. “We thought ourselves deceived in hoping in the true God, for he concealed his favor from us; we were therefore compelled by necessity. There ought at least some indulgence to be shewn to our levity; for we could have formed no other conjecture but that God had removed far from us.” The Prophet meets this objection, as he does in the fifth verse, “What iniquity have your fathers found in me?” and, as it is done in another place,

“My people, what have I done to thee, or in what have I been troublesome to thee?”
(Micah 6:4)

for God in that passage shews that he was prepared to defend his own cause, and to clear himself from whatever the people might object to him. So also he does in this place, “I have led thee,” he says, “in the way;” that is, “Thou didst live happily under my government, and yet I could not retain thee by my goodness while I kindly treated thee; and thou knewest that nothing could be better for thee than to continue under my protection; but thou hast determined to go over into the service of idols. Now what excuse hast thou, or what pretense is left thee?” We hence see, that the sin of the people is greatly enhanced, for they were induced by no temptation or trial to forsake God, but through mere perfidy gave themselves up to idols: and a confirmation of this verse follows —