I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth. Jeremiah 2:1-3 Youthful religion R. Winter, D. D. I. THE RICH AND GLOWING DESCRIPTION OF YOUTHFUL PIETY HERE GIVEN. 1. Ardent affection. 2. Union of the soul to Christ. 3. A going after God. 4. Not discouraged by difficulties and troubles. 5. A religion of holiness. II. THE ASPECT WHICH THE DIVINE REMEMBRANCE OF YOUTHFUL PIETY MAY HAVE ON DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFE. 1. A view of approbation.(1) When you are successfully struggling with the temptations of the world.(2) When you act under the influence of youthful impressions in promoting the cause of truth and holiness.(3) When sunk in deep affliction.(4) When young people come to be old people. 2. A remembrance of regret and displeasure. ( R. Winter, D. D. ) "Thy first love" I. GOD REMEMBERS WITH GRACE THE BEST THINGS OF HIS PEOPLE'S EARLY DAYS. 1. I think that it is, first, because all these were His own work. If there was in thee any light, or life, or love, it was the gift of the Spirit of God. 2. God also remembers with pleasure those best things in His people's early days because they gave Him great delight at the time. Those first tears, which we tried to brush away secretly, were so precious to the Lord that He stored them away in His bottle. 3. It is very sweet to reflect that, when God says that He remembers the love of our espousals, and the kindness of our youth, He does not mention the faults connected with our early days. Our gracious God has a very generous memory. 4. The Lord so remembers the best things of our early days that He recounts them. He says, "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth." Let us try whether we can recollect how we showed our kindness to our God in our early days. Then the Lord adds, "I remember thee the love of thine espousals." Oh, some of us did love God very fervently in our early days! Observe that the Lord speaks in our text of Israel's going after Him into the wilderness: "I remember thee...when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness." Perhaps some of you, when you became Christians, had to give up a situation, or to quit some evil trade. Perhaps you had to run the gauntlet of a workshop where everybody laughed you to scorn. Some of you had hard times in those days; yet I will not call them hard, for you never had in all your life such joy as you had then. When everybody gave you an ill word, then Christ was most precious to you, and your love to Him burned with a steady flame. II. GOD REMEMBERS WITH A GRACIOUS PURPOSE THE BEST THINGS OF OUR EARLY DAYS. 1. He remembers them that He may make use of and honour us in our after days. There is many a man, now honoured in the service of God, who would not have been if he had not been faithful to God as a youth; and I believe that there is many a man who has missed his opportunity of serving God through not beginning well. 2. God remembers these early faithful ones, to instruct them, and to reveal Himself to them. 3. The Lord also remembers what we do in our youthful love and kindness, that He may sustain us in the time of trouble. 4. Especially do I think that this must be true in the time of old age. "I remember how you worked for Me when you could work for Me; and now that you are getting grey and old, and can do but little in your last days, I will uphold you, and bear you safely through." III. GOD WOULD HAVE US REMEMBER THE BEST THINGS OF OUR EARLY DAYS FOR OUR REBUKE. Ah, you are not what you used to be, not so decided, not so joyous, not so faithful! What have you been at? Do you not owe more to God now than you did then! You have come a good way on the road since then; ought you to love Him less? He has blessed you; He has preserved you; He has forgiven you; He has manifested Himself to you. You have had some grand times when your heart has burned within you; you have sometimes had a taste of heaven upon earth. Should you not, therefore, love Him much more than at the first? Oh, come back with tears of deep regret, and give yourself again to God! Have you ever seen a water-logged ship towed into harbour? She has encountered a storm; all her masts are gone, she has sprung a leak, and is terribly disabled; but a tug has got hold of her, and is drawing her in, a poor miserable wreck, just rescued from the rocks. I do not want to enter heaven that way, "scarcely saved." But now look at the other picture. There is a fair wind, the sails are full, there is a man at the helm, every sailor is in his place, and the ship comes in with a swing, she stops at her proper place in the harbour, and down goes the anchor with cheery shouts of joy from the mariners who have reached their desired haven. That is the way to go to heaven; in full sail, rejoicing in the blessed Spirit of God, who has given us an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) God's remembrance of our covenant with Him Job Orton. I. A SOLEMN DEDICATION TO GOD AND ENTERING INTO COVENANT WITH HIM. 1. A contract founded in love. The soul is under the influence of a supreme love to God, a high esteem of His infinite excellences, and a grateful sense of His innumerable benefits. 2. This contract consists of mutual, unalterable engagements. The soul gives itself to the Lord; enters into covenant to be wholly devoted to His service and interest, and to admit no rival with Him. God avouches such a soul for His; and promises to be its God, its father, portion, and happiness. 3. This covenant, like the marriage covenant, is never to be dissolved. II. THE PLEASING REMEMBRANCE WHICH GOD HAS OF AN EARLY DEDICATION TO HIM. God accepts it as double kindness. 1. Because in youth the affections are most warm and lively. 2. Because it is rare and uncommon. ( Job Orton. ) Backsliding reproved W. Jay. I. REMARKS. 1. Behold in God a disposition to commend, rather than condemn. While we admire this tenderness, let us learn also to resemble it. Let us approve as far as we can; and, in examining characters, let us observe the good more largely than the evil. Let us beware of indiscriminate reflection; of speaking severely of persons in the gross; of branding a whole course of life with the reproach of a particular action. 2. God remembers the past. Our memories soon fail us. Old impressions soon give place to new ones, and we often find it difficult to recall, without assistance, an occurrence that happened a few months ago. But "a thousand years are in His sight but as yesterday," etc. 3. It is well to be informed of what we once were, and to be led back to our former experience. It is useful for a preacher sometimes to remind us of our natural state; that we may "look to the rock whence we are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence we were digged." We need everything that is favourable to self-examination and self-knowledge. II. APPLICATION. 1. To Christians under declensions in religion. How dreadful is it that, when everything requires our advancement, we should be stationary! that, when means and ordinances, mercies and trials, unite to urge us forward; that, when our obligations to God are daily increasing, and the day of account every hour approaching so we should not only stand still — but even draw back! 2. To those who promises fair in their youth, and are now become irreligious. Perhaps you say, "But we are not vicious and profligate." So far it is well. And oh that this was true of all! but, alas! we have swearers now, who in their youth feared an oath; we have Sabbath breakers now, who in their youth revered the sacred hours; we have sceptics and scoffers now, who from a child knew and admired "the Scriptures, which are able to make us wise unto salvation." You say, "We are not like them. But they were not thus drawn aside all at once; they became wicked by degrees. This is always the course of sin. They "proceed from evil to evil": they "wax worse and worse." 3. To those who in their early days are truly devoted to the service and glory of God. To such the words are applicable — not in a way of reproach, but honour — not in a way of rebuke, but encouragement. ( W. Jay. ) Failures W. Jay. "Many a fine morning has been overspread with clouds, and followed by foul weather. Many a tree in spring has been covered with blossoms, which have never settled into fruit." King George had it in his mind to build a marble palace, and he has left behind him nothing but a marble arch. All failures. ( W. Jay. ) Changed moral conditions A. Hampden Lee. It is difficult to think that the mighty rocks which are as hard as flint were once as soft as the flesh of a little child, and that your finger dent would have left a mark upon them as upon dough kneaded for the next batch of bread. Upon some rocks there is the impression of leaves and ferns. In our great museums there are stone slabs with the marks of raindrops that fell in gentle showers hundreds and hundreds of years ago, while on other rocks may be seen the footprints made by wild birds upon the soft beach by the side of some rushing stream in some remote age. Gradually the clayey soil hardened into stone, and from the tracery and marks upon the rocks it is possible to tell what kind of trees and birds grew and flourished in those early times. As with the hard rock, so with the hard heart. It was once soft and gentle. God said to the children of Israel, whose hearts had become like stone, "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth" ( Jeremiah 2:2 ). ( A. Hampden Lee. ) What iniquity have your fathers found in Me. Jeremiah 2:4-8 The evil nature of sin committed after conversion Andrew Fuller. I. VIOLATION OF SOLEMN VOWS AND COVENANT ENGAGEMENTS. At that time we took Christ's cause for our cause, His people for ours, His will for our law, His glory for our end, and Himself for our portion. Did we love Him too well then? II. WITHOUT ANY PROVOCATION WHATEVER ON GOD'S PART. 1. Was He wanting in forbearance when we were in rebellion? 2. Did He act unfeelingly when we were ruined, in that He gave His own Son to die for us? 3. Has He been a hard master since we entered His service? 4. Has He ever been a churlish father to us? 5. When we have returned to Him with our whole heart, has He not always been ready to receive us, and bury all in forgetfulness? ( Daniel 9:7 .) III. PECULIAR AND HORRIBLE INGRATITUDE. 1. He has given, not Egypt or Ethiopia for our ransom, but His own blood. 2. He has redeemed us, not from Egyptian thraldom, but "from the Power of darkness," etc. 3. We never were supported by miracles in lonesome deserts of Arabia, but "having obtained help of God, we continue." 4. We did not possess Canaan, but "God hath provided some better thing for us." IV. EXTREME AND SINGULAR FOLLY. 1. It is a foolish exchange — of liberty for drudgery, peace for remorse, joyfulness for anguish, abundance for penury and misery. 2. It is singular folly. The people of the only true God alone prove untrue! ( Andrew Fuller. ) Heaven's appeal to the sinner Homilist. 1. THE SINNER IS DIVINELY DESCRIBED. 1. Sin is departure from God. Alienation of sympathy and soul. 2. Sin is a progress of vanity. A going from the real to the unreal. (1) The pleasures he seeks are unsatisfactory; all empty, and outside him. (2) The honours he aspires to are unreal; neither enrich nor ennoble the soul. II. THE SINNER IS DIVINELY CHALLENGED. 1. If iniquity were found in God, there would be some justification for apostasy. 2. The discovery of such iniquity is an absolute impossibility. ( Homilist. ) God's mercies should evoke gratitude Selim, a poor Turk, had been brought up from his youth with care and kindness by his master, Mustapha. When the latter lay at the point of death Selim was tempted by his fellow servants to join them in stealing a part of Mustapha's treasures. "No," said he, "Selim is no robber! I fear not to offend my master for the evil he can do me now, but for the good he has done me all my life long." May not many Christians learn a lesson from Selim? Neither said they, Where is the Lord, that brought us up? Three shameful possibilities in human life J. Parker, D. D. I. THE POSSIBILITY OF DISHONOURING THE GREAT MEMORIES OF LIFE. "Neither said they, Where is the Lord?" etc. The dark night was forgotten, and Israel did not know who had lifted upon it the brightness and hope of morning. 1. The great memories of life are dishonoured — (1) When the vividness of their recollection fades. (2) When their moral purpose is over looked or misunderstood. (3) When their strengthening and stimulating function is suspended. 2. What would human life be without its hallowed memories? Man must have facts as well as hopes, — something to which he can go back with confidence; back to some place where he met God. There is, however, a possibility of forgetting sacred scenes, and of cheating the soul of reminiscences which ought be a perpetual inspiration. Let each man find the proofs in his own history: Sickness, poverty, danger, etc. II. THE POSSIBILITY OF UNDERESTIMATING THE INTERPOSITIONS OF GOD. 1. Look at the case in the text, — through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt. Viewed prospectively, men shrink from such difficulties; viewed retrospectively, a good many of the terrors are forgotten. Granted that we have not the same outward difficulties, will any man deny that his moral pilgrimage is beset by many perils, and that the grave is constantly open at his feet? Not only was the dark side of history forgotten, but the bright side was overlooked. "I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof." What was the result? Did they erect the altar, and bow in long-continued prayer, and unite in the loud, sweet psalm of thankfulness? "Ye defiled My land, and made Mine heritage an abomination." 2. If we try our own lives by these historical disclosures, shall we shame Israel by our purity and love? Remember the Deliverer! Remember the Giver! III. THE POSSIBILITY OF THE LEADING MINDS OF THE CHURCH BEING DARKENED AND PERVERTED (ver. 8). The priests, the pastors, and the prophets, all out of the way! 1. In all ages there have, of necessity, been foremost men; men whose capacity, culture, and Divine election have entitled them to leadership; men whom God Himself has acknowledged as the guides of the people. How easy it is for such men to succumb in periods of general corruption is too evident from universal history. What then? (1) Such men should watch themselves with constant jealousy. (2) Such men should never be forgotten by those who pray. 2. The most affecting of all subjects to contemplate is, — God grieved, God complaining! Would He complain without reason? Would He startle the universe for some trifling cause? It is as the cry of one whose heart is breaking; His great deliverances have been forgotten; His heritage has been defiled; His power has been despised, and His mercy been treated as an empty sentiment; what if the throb of His great sorrow should send a shudder of distress through the heavens and the earth! Look at Calvary for the full expression of all this Divine emotion. Seeing that such pain was inflicted by sin, let us avoid it as the abominable thing which God hates. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) The priests said not, Where is the Lord?...the rulers also transgressed...and the prophets, etc. The three ruling classes accused C. J. Ball, M. A. 1. The priests, part of whose duty was to "handle the law," i.e. , explain the Torah, to instruct the people in the requirements of Jehovah, by oral tradition and out of the sacred law books, gave no sign of spiritual aspiration; like the reprobate sons of Eli, "they knew not Jehovah," that is to say, paid no heed to Him and His will as revealed in the book of the law. 2. The secular authorities, the king and his counsellors, not only sinned thus negatively, but positively revolted against the King of kings, and resisted His will. 3. The prophets went further yet in the path of guilt, apostatising altogether from the God of Israel, and seeking inspiration from the Phoenician Baal, and following worthless idols that could give no help. ( C. J. Ball, M. A. ) The corruption and ignorance of the priests and prophets Two centuries ago the religious state of the English-speaking world was bad, and was rapidly becoming worse. Infidelity was fast spreading among the people, and, consequently, there was an open and professed disregard of religion and morals. The secret of this sad state was simple. The clergy, though their lives in general might not be scandalous, were, as a rule, ignorant of all spiritual truth, and in too many cases even devoid of a sound intellectual apprehension of scriptural teaching. As Cowper, referring to those clergy, tersely put it — "Except a few with Eli's spirit blest, Hophni and Phinehas may describe the rest." Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? Jeremiah 2:9-13 Christian controversy J. Parker, D. D. The text may be put into other words, thus: "Go over to the islands of the Chittim, the isles and coast lands of the far west; then go to Kedar, away in the eastern desert, — go from east to west, — and ask if any heathen land has given up its idols, and you will find that no such thing has ever taken place; but whilst the heathen have kept to their gods as if they bad strong love for them, My people, for whom I have done so much, whose names are on the palms of My hands, have turned away from Me, and have given up their living and loving God for that which can do them no good." There must be some way of accounting for conduct so clearly unreasonable and ungrateful. We may perhaps find our way to the secret step by step, if we notice one or two things that we ourselves are in the habit of doing. We all know how much easier it is to keep up the form of religion than to be true to its spirit. Say that religion is a number of things to be done, some at this hour and some at that, and you bring it, so to speak, within range of the hand, and make it manageable; but instead of doing this, show that religion means spiritual worship, a sanctified conscience, and a daily, sacrifice of the will, and you at once invoke the severest resistance to its supremacy. Or say that religion simply means a passive acceptance of certain dogmas that can be fully expressed in words, which make no demand upon inquiry or sympathy, and you will awaken the least possible opposition; but make it a spiritual authority, a rigorous and incessant discipline imposed upon the whole life, and you will send a sword upon the earth, and enkindle a great fire. Earnest religious controversy seems to be but the higher aspect of another controversy which has vexed man through all time. The study of God is the higher side of the study of man. It is a singular thing that man has never been able to make himself quite out, though he has been zealously mindful of the doctrine that "the proper study of mankind is man." He wants to know exactly whence he came and what he is; but the voice which answers him is sometimes mocking, and nearly always doubtful. Is it wonderful that man, who has had so much difficulty with himself, should have had proportionately greater difficulty with such a God as is revealed in the Bible? On the contrary, it will be found that the two studies — the study of man and the study of God — always go together, and that the ardour of the one determines the intensity of the other. In this view the text might read thus: Pass over the isles of the Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see whether the inhabitants thereof have studied the physiology and chemistry of their own bodies; but the philosophers of Christendom have built themselves upon protoplasm. Kedar cared nothing about humanity, and therefore it cared nothing about divinity. When man is not deeply interested in himself it is not likely that he will be deeply interested in God. In the doctrine that the very greatness of God is itself the occasion of religious controversy, and even of religious doubt and defective constancy, we find the best answer to a difficulty created by the words of the text. That difficulty may be put thus: If the people of Chittim and of Kedar are faithful to their gods, does it not prove that those gods have power to inspire and retain confidence? and if the people of Israel are always turning away from their God, does it not show that their God is unable to keep His hold upon their occasional love? Such a putting of the case would be valid if inquiry be limited to the letter. But if we go below the surface we must instantly strip it of all worth as a plea on behalf of idolatry. Clearly so; for, not to go further, if it proves anything it proves too much; thus — the marble statue which you prize so highly has never given you a moment's pain; your child has occasioned you days and nights of anxiety; therefore a marble statue has more moral power (power to retain your admiration) than has a child. Your clock you understand thoroughly; you can unmake and make it again, and explain its entire mechanism down to the finest point of its action; but that child of yours is a mystery which seems to increase day by day: therefore you have more satisfaction in the clock than in the child. So the argument in favour of Kedar proves nothing, because it not only proves too much, but lands the reasoner in a practical absurdity. The foundation of this argument is, that of all subjects that engage the human mind, religion (whether true or false) is the most exciting; that in proportion as it enlarges its claims, will it be likely to occasion controversy; and that, as the religion of the Bible enlarges its claims beyond all other religions, assailing the intellect, the conscience, the will, and bringing every thought and every imagination of the heart into subjection, and demanding the corroboration of spiritual faith by works that rise to the point of self-crucifixion, the probability is that there will not only be a controversy between man and man as to its authority and beneficence, but also a controversy between man and God as to its acceptance; and that out of this latter controversy will come the very defection complained of in the text, and will come also the vexatious human controversies which may really be but so many excuses for resisting the moral discipline of the Gospel. This is the whole argument. Specially is to be noted that the principal controversy is not between man and man, but between man and God; our hearts are not loyal to our Maker; His commandments are grievous to souls that love their ease. The God of grace, rich in all comfort and promise, we do not cast off. We want such a God. But the God of law, of purity, of judgment, terrible in wrath and not to be deceived by lies, our hearts can only receive with broken loyalty, loving Him today, and grieving Him tomorrow. It is in this sad fact that we find the only satisfactory explanation of the slowness of the spread of the Christian kingdom. Evil hates goodness, hates light, hates God; and as truth cannot fight with carnal weapons, or force, itself upon the world by physical means, it can only "stand at the door and knock," and mourn the slowness which it cannot accelerate. It is God's will that the rock grow slowly, and that the forest hasten not its maturity; but it is surely not the will of the Lord that His children should grieve Him long, and provoke Him to wrath through many generations. We have been speaking of the controversy respecting the Unseen and Invisible God. There is a distinct effort made in our day to turn the controversy out of historical channels, and to fasten it upon abstract speculation. We must resist this effort, for we, at all events, believe that the discussion concerning essential Deity was started from a new centre when Jesus Christ came into the world. No name given under heaven amongst men has occasioned, and is now occasioning, so much controversy as the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Men do not know what to make of Christ. You cannot get rid of Christ: you exclude Him from your schools by Act of Parliament, but He, passing through the midst of you, says, "Suffer Me and the children to meet; let the flowers see the sun"; you find Him in statute books, in philanthropic institutions, in literature; you find Him now just as His disciples found Him, in out-of-the-way places, doing out-of-the-way things; — "they marvelled that He spake with the woman," — the eternal marvel, the eternal hope! This leads us to remark that how strong soever Christianity may be in force and dignity of pure argument — and in that direction it has proved itself victorious on all fields — its mightiest force for good is in its vital and inexhaustible sympathy. Christianity as a sympathetic religion, tender, hopeful, patient, with morning light forever falling on its uplifted eyes, leaning with all its trust upon the Cross of the atoning Son of God, calling men from sin, ignorance, and death, is a figure the world will not willingly spare in its day of anguish and sore distress. It will be interesting to observe how God Himself meets the controversy which He deplores, for in doing so, we may learn a method of reply. When God answers, His reply must be the best. Look at the Divine challenge: "What iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me?" This sublime challenge you cannot find in all the sayings of heathen gods. And this is the invincible defence of the Christian religion in all ages and in all lands, — you have purity at the centre, you have holiness on the throne! Those who have read s immortal work, The City of God , will remember with what fierce eloquence he scourges the gods of pagan Rome. How biting his tone, how keen his retorts, how broad his sarcasm! "Why," he sternly demands, "did the gods publish no laws which might have guided their devotees to a virtuous life?" And again, "Did ever the walls of any of their temples echo to any such warning voice? I myself," he continues, "when I was a young man, used sometimes to go to sacrilegious entertainments and spectacles; I saw the priests raving in religious excitement, and before the couch of the mother of the gods there were sung productions so obscene and filthy for the ear that not even the mother of the foul-mouthed players themselves could have formed one of the audience." History, as you know, is full of such instances. Remembering these things, you may see the force of the inquiry, "What iniquity have your fathers found in Me?" This is the invincible defence of the Christian religion today. Observe how Jesus Christ repeats the very challenge we find in the text, — "Which of you convinceth Me of sin?" And, later on, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil." They had accused Him often, but had convicted Him never! We apply this doctrine with timidity, for who would wilfully slay himself, or bring judgment upon a thousand men? Yet the application is this: When the Church is holy, the Christian controversy is ended in universal and immortal triumph! ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Changing gods Christian Observer. The records of all ages exhibit the strange obstinacy with which the heathen usually cling to their superstitions. If we except the triumphs obtained over paganism by the Gospel of Christ from the apostolic age up to the present, some of which even in our own day have been most signal, the idolatrous nations of the world still perpetuate the absurd and unholy practices transmitted to them by their fathers. Most urgent then is it upon all Christians to feel pity for their fellow creatures sunk in the darkness and guilt of heathenism, and by Christian teachers to rescue them from their fearful condition. But there is also another practical consideration connected with a survey of the obstinate blindness and superstition of the heathen, and their devotion to their idolatrous worship, namely, the contrast which it affords to the conduct of too many who consider themselves worshippers of the one true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. May it not too truly be said, "Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit." I. WE HAVE SET BEFORE US EVIL CONDUCT OF THE PEOPLE. 1. The first step in the career of evil is "forsaking God." This is the fountain and root of all other sins. While the prodigal son remained contented under his parent's roof he knew nothing of the want, the hunger, which he afterwards experienced. His first sin, and that which led to all the evils which overtook him, was his neglect towards his parent, his indifference to his approbation, his wish to cast off the duties he owed to him. If then we would guard against evil, we must watch over our hearts, and beware of forsaking God. The more gross violations of His law are readily discovered, while perhaps we think little or nothing of that great sin which is the foundation of all others. 2. But this sin leads to another; for we are not content when we forsake God, that our hearts should continue a mere blank; we seek to fill up the void which His absence has made, and to find our satisfaction in other objects, which can never afford us true repose. Having forsaken God, we choose to ourselves idols. In the words of the Almighty in the chapter before us, "they are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and become vain"; they even refuse His offers of peace and reconciliation. II. Such is the universal offence of mankind against God: we proceed now to show THE SINFULNESS, THE INGRATITUDE, AND THE FOLLY, WHICH ARE INVOLVED IN IT. 1. Its extreme sinfulness. Persons are apt to speak and to think of these subjects with the most careless indifference. They do not consider themselves as virtually addressed in such words as those in the chapter which precedes our text, where Jehovah says by His prophet, "I will utter My judgments against them, touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other gods." They do not open their eyes to the aggravation of their crime, as pointed out even by our natural sense of obligation to our Creator, of which the very heathen are examples; for, says the Almighty, "hath any nation changed their gods, which are yet no god?" The light of natural reason taught them that they ought to obey their Creator, their preserver, and their benefactor. But the proof of our sinfulness in forsaking God, and in placing our trust and happiness in the things of this present life, does not depend upon the mere light of natural conscience; for we have in our possession a revelation from Himself, in which He plainly declares to us His own unerring decision upon the subject. "Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His voice; and ye shall serve Him, and cleave unto Him." 2. But the sinfulness of forsaking God, and preferring other things to His service, is greatly aggravated by the ingratitude involved in the offence. The Almighty reminds His rebellious people of the miracles of mercy which He had performed on their behalf; how He had brought them out of the land of Egypt, etc. He gave them His law to guide them, and pastors to teach them; and He challenges them, as it were, to point out any instance in which He had acted unjustly or unkindly towards them: "what iniquity have your fathers found in Me?" 3. But there is still another consideration dwelt upon by the prophet in reference to this sinful and ungrateful course of conduct, namely, its unparalleled folly. The very heathen would not give up their vain hope of benefit from the supposed protection of their images of wood and stone; yet the professed worshippers of the one living and true God are too often willing to sacrifice the inestimable blessings of His favour for the most trifling gratifications of a frail and sinful life. "My people have changed their glory, for that which doth not profit." No! it is the height of folly thus to choose the worldly mammon before the true riches; to forsake God for the creature; and to prefer earth to heaven, and time to eternity. Are we not conscious that we have seen guilty of the sin of forsaking God? ( Christian Observer. ) "Hath a nation changed their gods?" John Trapp. Xenophon said it was an oracle of Apollo, that these gods are rightly worshipped which were delivered them by their ancestors; and this he greatly applaudeth. Cicero also saith, that no reason shall ever prevail with him to relinquish the re

Benson Commentary Jeremiah 2:1 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Jeremiah 2:1 . Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me — The discourse begun here is continued to the end of the fifth verse of the next chapter. In it God professes to retain the same kind and merciful disposition toward his people which he had manifested in their earlier days. He expostulates with them on their ungrateful returns for his past goodness, and shows that it was not want of love in him, but their own extreme and unparalleled wickedness, which had already subjected, and would still subject them, to calamities and misery. He concludes with a pathetic address, exhorting them to return to him, with an implied promise of acceptance; and laments the necessity he was under, through their continued obstinacy, of giving them further proofs of his displeasure. See Blaney. Jeremiah 2:2 Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Jeremiah 2:2-3 . Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem — In the most public parts of the city, that all may hear; saying, Thus saith the Lord — I deliver his message, and not my own. I come to you with a commission from God, and speak in God’s name. I remember thee, &c. — I remember my first kindness to thee, when I delivered thee out of Egypt; (see Hosea 2:15 ;) and espoused thee to myself, to be my own peculiar people. The covenant which God made with the Israelites, at mount Sinai, is commonly represented under the metaphor of a marriage contract. Upon this account idolatry is represented as spiritual adultery, because it is the same degree of unfaithfulness to God which an adulteress is guilty of in respect of her husband. When thou wentest after me in the wilderness — Out of that love and affection that thou didst manifest to me in following my conduct. Or rather, when thou wast led by me through the wilderness, and I took such care both to protect and provide for thee, and that by a train of miracles; in a land that was not sown — Or, as Houbigant reads it, in an uncultivated land. Israel was holiness to the Lord — A people dedicated to God; and the first-fruits of his increase — Or, as the first-fruits. As the first-fruits are holy to God, so was Israel. All that devour, or rather, devoured, him — For it refers to the time past, not to the future; and so the following words: all that were injurious to him; shall, or, did, offend — Were obnoxious and liable to punishment, as if they had devoured holy things, Proverbs 20:25 . Evil shall come, rather, came, upon them — Some evil was inflicted on them from the Lord, who was always wont to stand forth for the vindication of his people; as upon the Egyptians, Amalekites, Sihon, Og, the Midianites, Canaanites, and others, as the four last books of Moses abundantly testify. Jeremiah 2:3 Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD. Jeremiah 2:4 Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel: Jeremiah 2:4-6 . Hear, O house of Jacob, &c. — The prophet here directs his discourse to the twelve tribes, as he does afterward, Jeremiah 3:14 , &c. For the captivity of the ten tribes was not so total but that there were some Israelites still remaining in the land among the Assyrian colonists. What iniquity have your fathers found in me? — That is, what injustice or unfaithfulness in not performing my part of the Sinai covenant? That they are gone far from me — Far from the love and fear of me, and from obedience to my laws; far from my worship and service; and have walked after vanity — Have followed after vain idols, incapable of affording them either protection or help. And are become vain — In their imaginations, Romans 1:21-22 ; fools, as senseless as the stocks or stones, of which they made their idols. Neither said they, Where is the Lord? — They made no inquiry after him, took no thought about their duty to him, nor expressed any desire to recover his favour; that brought us up out of the land of Egypt? — Working such a deliverance for us as had never been wrought for any people. That led us through the wilderness — Conducting and sustaining our whole nation in that barren desert for the space of forty years, by almost incessant miracles; through a land of deserts and pits — Through desolate and dangerous places; through a land of drought — Where we had no water but by a miracle; and of the shadow of death — Houbigant renders it, where death threatened us. A barren and deadly land, where no man could live; bringing forth nothing that could support life, and therefore where nothing but death could be expected; and, besides, possessed by great numbers of venomous and destructive creatures, such as scorpions, serpents, &c., and where we were exposed to the attacks of many enemies. A land that no man passed through — As having in it no accommodation for travellers, much less for habitation. Jeremiah 2:5 Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? Jeremiah 2:6 Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt? Jeremiah 2:7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination. Jeremiah 2:7-8 . And I brought you into a plentiful country — Hebrew, into the land of Carmel. Carmel was so fertile a part of Judea, that the word from thence came to be used to express a fruitful place in general. Canaan was as one great, fruitful field, Deuteronomy 8:7 . When ye entered, ye defiled my land — By your sins, especially by your idolatries, Psalm 106:38 ; that sin being greatly aggravated by this circumstance, that the people thereby renounced God’s authority in that very land into which he had brought them, by a train of unparalleled wonders, and the propriety of which he had reserved to himself, though he had graciously bestowed upon them the use of it: see Leviticus 25:23 . The priests said not, Where is the Lord? — That race of men, whom I exalted to the honourable office of ministering to me in holy things, neither inquired after me, nor cultivated any acquaintance or intercourse with me. And they that handle the law knew me not — They, whom I appointed to the important office of instructing others in the knowledge of me and their duty, (see Malachi 2:6-7 ,) were ignorant or regardless of it themselves. And this was the principal cause of that degeneracy of manners which prevailed among the people. The pastors also transgressed against me — By pastors here, distinguished from the priests and prophets, are meant the kings, princes, and chiefs of the nation; for the word pastor is used in the prophets for a magistrate, as well as for a teacher of the people, and ecclesiastical governor. And the prophets prophesied by Baal — Gave forth prophecies in the name of Baal, with a view to recommend him as a god. Or, they that should have taught the people the true worship of God, were themselves worshippers of, and advocates for, Baal, and drew others from God to the worship of that idol; and walked after things that do not profit — Namely, after idols; things that could not possibly do them any service, but were sure to bring ruin upon them. It appears from hence, that all orders and degrees of men in authority had contributed to that general corruption of manners, whereof Jeremiah complains. Jeremiah 2:8 The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. Jeremiah 2:9 Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead. Jeremiah 2:9 . Wherefore I will yet plead with you — By my prophets, and by my judgments, as I pleaded with your fathers, that you may be left without excuse. And with your children’s children will I plead — According to the tenor of the law, wherein God threatens to visit the sins, particularly the sin of idolatry, of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation. Jeremiah 2:10 For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Jeremiah 2:10-11 . For pass over the isles of Chittim — The neighbouring isles and peninsulas, which lay west of Judea, meaning especially the countries of Greece and Macedonia, and the islands and continents of Europe in general; the countries that were more polite and learned. And send unto Kedar — To Arabia, and the countries to the east and south, as the others lay to the west and north: send to them that are more rude and barbarous. And consider diligently — As a matter well worth your attention; and see if there be such a thing — As if he had said, If you search from east to west, from south to north, you will find no instance of apostacy from the objects of their worship like this of yours. Hath a nation changed their gods? — The gods worshipped by their forefathers? or shown a disposition to change them? Which are yet no gods? — But mere imaginary beings, or images made by men’s hands, or the creatures of the living and true God. But my people have changed their glory, have relinquished the worship of the infinite and eternal Jehovah, their Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, Redeemer, Friend, and Father, to whom they owe their all, and whose worship and service, favour and protection, were their greatest glory. For that which doth not profit — For those idols which never did, nor can, do them any good; that have no essence or power; and of which they must necessarily be ashamed. Jeremiah 2:11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Jeremiah 2:12 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. Jeremiah 2:12-13 . Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this — A pathetical expression, in the poetic style, signifying that the wickedness of these apostates from God was so great, that the very inanimate creatures, could they be sensible of it, might well stand amazed at it: that the heavens might be affrighted to behold it, and the celestial bodies withdraw their light and influences from that part of the world where such enormities were practised. “Such rhetorical apostrophes import the unusualness, and likewise the indignity, of the things spoken of; implying them to be such that, if men take no notice of them, the elements themselves will testify against such practices.” — Lowth. See note on Isaiah 1:2 . For my people have committed two evils — Two remarkable evils, ingratitude and folly: they have acted contrary both to their duty and to their interest; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters — In whom they had an abundant and constant supply of all that comfort and relief they stood in need of, and had it freely; and hewed them out cisterns — Have had recourse to creatures, and to schemes of their own devising; to gods of their own making, for relief in their necessities, for deliverance out of, or support and comfort in, their troubles. Broken cisterns — False at the bottom, and leaky, so that they can hold no water — They have acted as foolishly as persons would do who should reject the waters of a clear, perpetual spring, to drink rain-water, received in cisterns, which could neither be so sweet nor so wholesome as that of pure springs; and not only so, but should betake themselves to such cisterns as, being broken, could hold no water, or none for any length of time, and therefore could give them no assurance of finding any upon having recourse to them. God may, indeed, be justly compared to a perpetual spring, as he is the fountain or origin of all good things; the author and giver of all blessings, both spiritual and temporal, from whom all good gifts are derived, as from an inexhaustible source; see Psalm 36:9 . “And wherever else men place their happiness, whether in false religions, or in the uncertain comforts of worldly blessings, they will find themselves as wretchedly disappointed as those who expect to find water in broken cisterns or conduits. Hereby is strongly set forth the folly of the Jews in renouncing the worship of the true God, and their dependance upon him, and betaking themselves to the worship of idols, and the alliance and protection of idolaters.” — Lowth. Jeremiah 2:13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Jeremiah 2:14 Is Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave ? why is he spoiled? Jeremiah 2:14 . Is Israel a servant? is he a home-born slave? — Is he of a condition to be delivered as a prey to his enemies? Is he of those people whom God regards as slaves and strangers? These interrogations imply, and have the force of, a negative. As if he had said, Is not Israel the son, the chosen and peculiar people of God? Why then hath the Lord treated him as a common slave, and given him up into the power of tyrannical lords and masters? The sense is, God redeemed Israel from the bondage of Egypt, and adopted him to be his son, Exodus 4:22 . So that the servitude he now undergoes, and his being made a prey to so many foreign enemies, cannot be owing to his birth, or primitive condition, but must be imputed to his sins, of which his slavery is the consequence. Compare Isaiah 50:1 ; Isaiah 52:3 . Jeremiah 2:15 The young lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste: his cities are burned without inhabitant. Jeremiah 2:15-16 . The young lions roared upon them — Lions, in the figurative style of prophecy, denote powerful princes and conquerors; see Jeremiah 50:17 ; where the king of Assyria is mentioned as one of those lions which had devoured him, and Nebuchadnezzar as another. If we consider the prophet as speaking here of what was past, by the young lions he probably means the kings of Syria and Assyria, who laid the country waste, not only of the ten tribes, but also Judah and Benjamin; and carried the Israelites into captivity; see Isaiah 1:7 . But the words ????? ?????? are more properly rendered, The young lions shall roar upon him; and so may be understood of Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar, whose successive hostilities against the kingdom of Judah were foreseen by the prophet, and are probably here foretold. It is true, the following verbs of this verse are in the past time, but the context favours interpreting them of the future. Nor is it unusual for the prophets to speak of events yet to come, and foreseen by them, as if they had been already accomplished. They made his land waste, his cities are burned, &c. That Jeremiah speaks here of the future, and not of the past, appears from this: that in the time of Josiah, when this prophecy was uttered, the country was not in the condition here described; the land had not been reduced to desolation, nor the cities burned with fire; but the determination of the Lord was past, and the prophet clearly foresaw that these calamities would come. Also the children of Noph, &c., have broken the crown of thy head — By the children of Noph and Tahapanes are meant the Egyptians, these being the two principal cities of Egypt, called by heathen writers Memphis and Taphanes, or Daphnæ Pelusicæ. “This no doubt alludes,” says Blaney, “to the severe blow which the nation received in a capital part, when the good King Josiah was defeated by the Egyptians, and slain in battle; or when, afterward, upon the deposition of Jehoahaz, the glory of the monarchy was debased, by its being changed into a tributary and dependant kingdom, 2 Kings 23:29-34 , and 2 Chronicles 35:20 . Jeremiah 2:16 Also the children of Noph and Tahapanes have broken the crown of thy head. Jeremiah 2:17 Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way? Jeremiah 2:17 . Hast thou not procured this unto thyself? — Are not all these calamities owing to thy sins, thy known and wilful sins? By their sinful confederacies with the nations, and especially their conformity to them in their idolatrous customs and usages, they had made themselves very mean and contemptible, as all those do that have made a profession of religion, and afterward throw it off. Nothing now appeared of that which, by their constitution, made them both honourable and formidable, and therefore the neighbouring nations neither respected nor feared them. But this was not all: they had provoked God to give them up into the hands of their enemies, who, after becoming a dreadful scourge to them, at last subdued them, and overturned their government. And thus they brought their miseries upon themselves, in forsaking the Lord their God, in revolting from their allegiance to him, and so throwing themselves out of his protection; for protection and allegiance go together. When he led thee, &c. — Hebrew, ?????? ??? ????? , at the time, the very time, he was leading thee by the way. Then, when he was leading thee on to a happy peace and settlement, and thou wast arrived at the very borders of it, thou didst draw back, and forsake thy guide. We may observe here, that although Josiah was a very pious prince, and exerted himself to the utmost to restore the worship of God, breaking down the altars and groves, and beating the graven images into powder, &c., 2 Chronicles 34., 35., nevertheless, from the complaints of Jeremiah, and his reproofs of their idolatry, it sufficiently appears that the people were far from being reformed. Jeremiah 2:18 And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river? Jeremiah 2:18 . And now what hast thou to do, &c. — “The kings of Egypt and Assyria were the most potent monarchs in the neighbourhood of Judea; and according as either of these was the stronger, the Jews made their court to him, and desired his assistance. This is expressed by drinking the waters of Sihor, an Egyptian river, which some suppose, and Dr. Waterland renders, the Nile; (see note on Isaiah 42; Isaiah 3;) and of the Euphrates, called here the river, by way of eminence. The expressions allude to Jeremiah 2:13 , where human assistances are styled broken cisterns, and opposed to God, who, by reason of his all-sufficiency, is called the fountain of living waters. To drink of the waters of these rivers might possibly allude, further, both to the strong propensity which the Israelites had to return to Egypt, and that which they showed for adopting the idolatrous worship of these countries. For the Egyptians worshipped the water, and particularly that of the Nile.” See Div. Leg., vol. 3., and Calmet. Jeremiah 2:19 Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts. Jeremiah 2:19 . Thy own wickedness shall correct thee — The miseries that your own sins have brought upon you, one would suppose, might be sufficient to reclaim you from your evil courses, and induce you to return to God, by a sincere repentance, Hosea 2:7 . Know therefore — Upon the whole matter; and see that it is an evil thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God — For that is the thing that makes thine enemies, enemies indeed, and thy friends, friends in vain. The sense of the clause is, Call to mind what thou hast found by experience, and reflect seriously upon it, and thou canst not but be convinced how dear the forsaking of God hath cost thee. And that my fear — Or, the fear of me; or, that thou hast not my fear in thee, saith the Lord — Consider this well, for it is the ground of all thy sin and suffering, in order that thy correction may not end in thy utter ruin. This whole discourse of Jeremiah is a kind of pleading, wherein the prophet maintains the cause of God against his people. Jeremiah 2:20 For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot. Jeremiah 2:20-21 . For of old time I have broken thy yoke — That is, I have delivered thee from the bondage and tyranny that thou wast under, of old time, in Egypt; as also divers times besides. See the book of Judges. And burst thy bands — Alluding either to the bands and fetters with which prisoners were wont to be bound, Jeremiah 40:4 , or those bands wherewith yokes were usually fastened upon the necks of beasts. And thou saidst, I will not transgress — When the deliverance was fresh, thou didst form good resolutions. This translation is according to the marginal reading of the Masoretes; but in the Hebrew text, confirmed by the LXX., Syriac, and Vulgate, we read ?? ????? , I will not serve, namely, Jehovah. According to this reading, which seems very just and unexceptionable, and is approved by Houbigant and Dr. Waterland, the meaning of the passage is, that even after the Jews had been freed, by God, from their Egyptian bondage, and admitted into an immediate covenant and alliance with him, they had been guilty of the utmost ingratitude in refusing obedience to the divine law, and particularly in respect to the prohibition of idolatry. When upon every high hill, and under every green tree, &c. — Alluding to their worshipping their idols upon the hills, and under the trees; thou wanderest, playing the harlot — Worshipping false gods. As idolatry is frequently called whoredom in the Scripture language, so the prophet describes the Israelites under the image of a strolling harlot, seeking for lovers wherever she can, without any shame. Yet I planted thee a noble vine — Hebrew, the vine of Sorek; concerning which see note on Isaiah 5:2 . Israel is here compared to a shoot, or branch, taken from a generous or good vine, and transferred to another soil, where it degenerates. Wholly a right seed — Without any mixture; the offspring of those true believers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: and the laws which I gave thee, and the means of grace which I afforded thee, were sufficient to have made thee fruitful in every good work. How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine? — That is, one which has degenerated from the nature of the vine whence it was taken, and bears worse fruit than that did. The constitution of the Israelitish government, both in church and state, was excellent; their laws righteous, and all their ordinances instructive, and very significant; and there was a generation of good men among them, when they first settled in Canaan. For we learn, Joshua 24:31 , that Israel served the Lord, and kept close to him, all the days of Joshua, and of the elders that outlived Joshua. They were then wholly a right seed, likely to replenish the vineyard they were planted in with choice vines: but it proved otherwise; the very next generation knew not the Lord, nor the works that he had done, Jdg 2:10 , and they grew worse and worse, till they became the degenerate plant of a strange vine — The very reverse of what they were at first. Their constitution was now quite broken, and there was nothing in them of that good which one might have expected from a people so happily formed; nothing of the purity or piety of their ancestors; but their vine was, according to Moses’s prediction, as the vine of Sodom. Jeremiah 2:21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? Jeremiah 2:22 For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD. Jeremiah 2:22 . For though thou wash thee with nitre, &c. — Though thou shouldest use ever so many methods of washing away thy sins, such as the rites of expiation prescribed by the law, or practised by idolaters; though thou shouldest insist ever so much upon thy own innocence and righteousness, yet the marks or stains of thy sins will always appear in the sight of God, till they are done away by his pardoning mercy, exercised toward thee in consequence of thy repentance and reformation. “The nitre here mentioned is not what we call nitre, or salt-petre, but a native salt of a different kind, distinguished among naturalists by the name of natrum, or the nitre of the ancients. It is found in abundance in Egypt, and in many parts of Asia, where it is called soap-earth, because it is dissolved in water, and used like soap in washing.” — Blaney. Jeremiah 2:23 How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways; Jeremiah 2:23-24 . How canst thou say, I am not polluted? — With what face canst thou go about to excuse thyself, or deny what is so evident, and so truly charged upon thee? see Jeremiah 2:20 . I have not gone after Baalim — The word is plural, because meant to comprehend all their idols; being a name usually given to several of them, as Baal-peor, Numbers 25:3 ; Baal-zebub, 2 Kings 1:16 . Because they had the temple, and sacrifices offered therein, &c., they still persuaded themselves that they worshipped the true God, though they joined their idolatries with his worship. Thus the Papists, though they make use of idols in their worship, yet pretend they are not idolaters. See thy way in the valley — Whether of Hinnom, (where they burned their children in sacrifice,) or in any valleys where thou hast been frequent in thy idolatries. Know what thou hast done — Look on, and consider thy ways. Thou art a swift dromedary, traversing her ways — Or, as a swift dromedary. The prophet compares their fondness for a variety of idols to the eagerness with which, in the time of breeding, the swift dromedaries are wont to traverse the plain, and run to and fro in every direction. “And the impossibility of restraining one of those fleet animals, when hurried away by the impetuous call of nature, is represented as a parallel to that unbridled lust and eagerness with which the people of Judah ran after the gratification of their passion for idolatry, called spiritual whoredom.” — Blaney. A wild ass — Or, as a wild ass; used to the wilderness — Another similitude, for the more lively description of the same thing. That snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure — This should rather be rendered, When she snuffeth up the wind in her lust; meaning the time when the female asses seek the males by the wind, smelling them afar off. In her occasion — When she is desirous of the male; who can turn her away? — She bears down all opposition. All that seek her will not weary themselves — They will not bestow their labour in vain, but will let her take her course, and wait their time and opportunity for taking her. In her month they shall find her — Hebrew, ?????? , which Blaney renders, when her heat is over; or, in her renewal, deriving the noun from the verb ???? , to renew. “That is,” says he, “when the heat is abated, and she begins to come about again to the same state as before the fit came on. The LXX. seem so to have understood it: ?? ?? ?????????? ????? ?????????? ????? , ‘when she is humbled, they shall find her.’ And perhaps it was designed to insinuate to the Jews, by way of reproach, that they were less governable than even the brute beast, which, after having followed the bent of appetite for a little time, would cool again, and return quietly home to her owners: but the idolatrous fit in them seemed never to abate, nor to suffer the people to return to their duty. Or else it may mean, that when their affairs took a new turn, and became adverse, then would be the time when, being humbled, they would again have recourse to the true God who alone could save them.” The expression, in her month, is explained in the margin of our ancient Bible to mean, when she is with foal, an interpretation which many commentators follow. Thus Henry: “They that seek her will have a little patience till she is big with young, heavy, and unwieldy; and then they shall find her, and she cannot outrun them.” And he thus applies it: “The time will come when the most fierce will be tamed, and the most wanton will be manageable: when distress and anguish come upon them, then their ears will be open to discipline; that is the month in which you may find them.” Psalm 141:5-6 . Jeremiah 2:24 A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her. Jeremiah 2:25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go. Jeremiah 2:25 . Withhold thy foot from being unshod, &c. — “Do not wear out thy shoes, or sandals, and expose thyself to thirst and weariness in undertaking long journeys, to make new alliances with idolaters.” Thus Lowth, and many other expositors. “But I rather take it,” says Blaney, “to be a warning to beware of the consequences of pursuing the courses they were addicted to: as if it had been said, Take care that thou dost not expose thyself, by thy wicked ways, to the wretched condition of going into captivity unshod, as the manner is represented Isaiah 20:4 ; and of serving thine enemies in hunger, and in thirst, and in want of the necessaries of life,” Deuteronomy 28:48 . But thou saidst, There is no hope — The language of desperate sinners, who are resolved to continue in their wickedness, in spite of every reason that can be offered to the contrary. No; for I have loved strangers — Strange gods, idols; and after them will I go — The Jews probably did not really speak in this manner, but they acted thus: this, the prophet signifies was the language of their conduct. By their actions they professed that idolatry which they denied with their mouths. Jeremiah 2:26 As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, Jeremiah 2:26-28 . As the thief is ashamed — As the thief has nothing to say for himself, but is perfectly confounded when he is taken in the very act, so the house of Israel hath no manner of plea wherewith to defend or excuse their idolatry. They, their kings, their princes — Whose duty it was to have restrained them from such practices by their authority; their priests, and their prophets — Who ought to have set them a better example, and have given them better instruction. Saying to a stock, Thou art my father — Giving the title of father, which belongs to God, as the sovereign Creator and Preserver of all things, (see Jeremiah 3:19 ,) to senseless images, made of wood and stone. They did not, indeed, think themselves to be created or made by these images, but thus they addressed the gods whom they thought to be present in the consecrated images. But as there was in fact no such deity residing in the image, but it was a mere nothing, a fiction of the idolaters, their worship in reality centred in, or went no higher than, the image itself. For they have turned their back unto me — A token of contempt and aversion; and not their face — Which they turn wholly toward their idols. But in the time of their trouble — A time which is approaching; they will say, Arise, and save us — As they did formerly; see the margin. When they prove, by experience, the vanity of their idols, and their own folly in relying on things that cannot help or save them, and in rejecting me, then they will apply to me for relief and aid. But where are thy gods? — Thy idols, the gods of thy own making? Let them arise — From the places where they are fixed; if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble — In thy great distress, when thou art in such need of help. For according to the number of thy cities are thy gods — For t

Expositor's Bible Commentary Jeremiah 2:1 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, { e-Sword Note: In the printed edition, this material appeared near the end of 2 Kings.} JEREMIAH AND HIS PROPHECIES Jereremiah 1:1 - Jeremiah 5:31 "Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes-they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone; Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme design." - LOWELL TRULY Jeremiah was a prophet of evil. The king might have addressed him in the words with which Agamemnon reproaches Kalchas. "Augur accursed! denouncing mischief still: Prophet of plagues, forever boding ill! Still must that tongue some wounding message bring, And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king." Never was there a sadder man. Like Phocion, he believed in the enemies of his country more than he believed in his own people. He saw "Too late" written upon everything. "He saw himself all but universally execrated as a coward, as a traitor, as one who weakened the nerves and damped the courage of those who were fighting against fearful odds for their wives and children, the ashes of their fathers, their altars, and their hearths. It had become his fixed conviction that any prophets-and there were a multitude of them-who prophesied peace were false prophets, and ipso facto proved themselves conspirators against the true well-being of the land Jeremiah 6:14 ; Jeremiah 8:11 Ezekiel 13:10 . In point of fact, Jeremiah lived to witness the death struggle of the idea of religion in its predominantly national character. {Jer 7:8-16; Jer 6:8} The continuity of the national faith refused to be bound up with the continuance of the nation. When the nation is dissolved into individual elements, the continuity and ultimate victory of the true faith depends on the relations of Jehovah to individual souls out of which the nation shall be bound up." And now a sad misfortune happened to Jeremiah. His home was not at Jerusalem, but at Anathoth, though he had long been driven from his native village by the murderous plots of his own kindred, and of those who had been infuriated by his incessant prophecies of doom. When the Chaldaeans retired from Jerusalem to encounter Pharaoh, he left the distressed city for the land of Benjamin, "to receive his portion from thence in the midst of the people"-apparently, for the sense is doubtful, to claim his dues of maintenance as a priest. But at the city gate he was arrested by Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the captain of the watch, who charged him with the intention of deserting to the Chaldaeans. Jeremiah pronounced the charge to be a lie; but Irijah took him before the princes, who hated him, and consigned him to dreary and dangerous imprisonment in the house of Jonathan the scribe. In the vaults of this house of the pit he continued many days. {Jer 37:11-15} The king sympathized with him: he would gladly have delivered him, if he could, from the rage of the princes; but he did not dare. Meanwhile, the siege went on, and the people never forgot the anguish of despair with which they waited the re-investiture of the city. Ever since that day it has been kept as a fast-the fast of Tebeth. Zedekiah, yearning for some advice, or comfort-if comfort were to be had-from the only man whom he really trusted, sent for Jeremiah to the palace, and asked him in despicable secrecy, "Is there any word from the Lord?" The answer was the old one: "Yes! Thou shalt be delivered into the hands of the King of Babylon." Jeremiah gave it without quailing, but seized the opportunity to ask on what plea he was imprisoned. Was he not a prophet? Had he not prophesied the return of the Chaldaean host? Where now were all the prophets who had prophesied peace? Would not the king at least save him from the detestable prison in which he was dying by inches? The king heard his petition, and he was removed to a better prison in the court of the watch where he received his daily piece of bread out of the bakers’ street until all the bread in the city was spent. For now utter famine came upon the wretched Jews, to add to the horrors and accidents of the siege. If we would know what that famine was in its appalling intensity, we must turn to the Book of Lamentations. Those elegies, so unutterably plaintive, may not be by the prophet himself, but only by his school but they show us what was the frightful condition of the people of Jerusalem before and during the last six months of the siege. "The sword of the wilderness"-the roving and plundering Bedouin-made it impossible to get out of the city in any direction. Things were as dreadfully hopeless as they had been in Samaria when it was besieged by Benhadad. {Lam 5:4} Hunger and thirst reduce human nature to its most animal conditions. They obliterate the merest elements of morality. They make men like beasts, and reveal the ferocity which is never quite dead in any but the purest and loftiest souls. They arouse the least human instincts of the aboriginal animal. The day came when there was no more bread left in Jerusalem. {Jer 37:21; Jer 38:9; Jer 52:6} The fair and ruddyNazarites, who had been purer than snow, whiter than milk, more ruddy than corals, lovely as sapphires, became like withered boughs, {Lam 4:7-8} and even their friends did not recognize them in those ghastly and emaciated figures which crept about the streets. The daughters of Zion, more cruel in their hunger than the very jackals, lost the instincts of pity and motherhood. Mothers and fathers devoured their own little unweaned children. There was parricide as well as infanticide in the horrible houses. They seemed to plead that none could blame them, since the lives of many had become an intolerable anguish, and no man had bread for his little ones, and their tongues cleaved to the roof of their mouth. All that happened six centuries later, during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, happened now. Then Martha, the daughter of Nicodemus ben-Gorion, once a lady of enormous wealth, was seen picking the grains of corn from the offal of the streets; now the women who had fed delicately and been brought up in scarlet were seen sitting desolate on heaps of dung. And Jehovah did not raise His hand to save His guilty and dying people. It was too late! And as is always the case in such extremities, there were men who stood defiant and selfish amid the universal misery. Murder, oppression, and luxury continued to prevail. The godless nobles did not intermit the building of their luxurious houses, asserting to themselves and others that, after all, the final catastrophe was not near at hand. The sudden death of one of them-Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah-while Ezekiel was prophesying, terrified the prophet so much that he flung himself on his face and cried with a loud voice, "Ah, Lord God! wilt Thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?" But on the others this death by the visitation of God seems to have produced no effect; and the glory of God left the city, borne away upon its cherubim-chariot. {Eze 11:22} Even under the stress of these dreadful circumstances the Jews held out with that desperate tenacity which has often been shown by nations fighting behind strong walls for their very existence, but by no nation more decidedly than by the Jews. And if the rebel-party, and the lying prophets who had brought the city to this pass, still entertained any hopes either of a diversion caused by Pharaoh Hophrah, or of some miraculous deliverance such as that which had saved the city from Sennacherib years earlier, it is not unnatural that they should have regarded Jeremiah with positive fury. For he still continued to prophesy the captivity. What specially angered them was his message to the people that all who remained in Jerusalem should die by the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, but that those who deserted to the Chaldaeans should live. It was on the ground of his having said this that they had imprisoned him as a deserter; and when Pashur and his son Gedaliah heard that he was still saying this, they and the other princes entreated Zedekiah to put him to death as a pernicious traitor, who weakened the hands of the patriot soldiers. Jeremiah was not guilty of the lack of patriotism with which they charged him. The day of independence had passed forever, and Babylon, not Egypt, was the appointed suzerain. The counseling of submission-as many a victorious chieftain has been forced at last to counsel it, from the days of Hannibal to those of Thiers-is often the true and the only possible patriotism in doomed and decadent nations. Zedekiah timidly abandoned the prophet to the rage of his enemies; but being afraid to murder him openly as Urijah had been murdered, they flung him into a well in the dungeon of Mal-chiah, the king’s son. Into the mire of this pit he sank up to the arms, and there they purposely left him to starve and rot. But if no Israelite pitied him, his condition moved the compassion of Ebed-Melech, an Ethiopian, one of the king’s eunuch-chamberlains. He hurried to the king in a storm of pity and indignation. He found him sitting, as a king should do, at the post of danger in the gate of Benjamin; for Zedekiah was not a physical, though he was a moral, coward. Ebed-Melech told the king that Jeremiah was dying of starvation, and Zedekiah bade him take three men with him and rescue the dying man. The faithful Ethiopian hurried to a cellar under the treasury, took with him some old, worn fragments of robes, and, letting them down by cords, called to Jeremiah to put them under his arm-pits. He did so, and they drew him up into the light of day, though he still remained in prison. It seems to have been at this time that, in spite of his grim vaticination of immediate retribution, Jeremiah showed his serene confidence in the ultimate future by accepting the proposal of his cousin Hanameel to buy some of the paternal fields at Anathoth, though at that very moment they were in the hands of the Chaldaeans. Such an act, publicly performed, must have caused some consolation to the besieged, just as did the courage of the Roman senator who gave a good price for the estate outside the walls of Rome on which Hannibal was actually encamped. Then Zedekiah once more secretly sent for him, and implored him to tell the unvarnished truth. "If I do, " said the prophet, "will you not kill me? and will you in any case hearken to me?" Zedekiah swore not to betray him to his enemies; and Jeremiah told him that, even at that eleventh hour, if he would go out and make submission to the Babylonians, the city should not be burnt, and he should save the lives of himself and of his family. Zedekiah believed him, but pleaded that he was afraid of the mockery of the deserters to whom he might be delivered. Jeremiah assured him that he should not be so delivered, and, that, if he refused to obey, nothing remained for the city, and for him and his wives and children, but final ruin. The king was too weak to follow what he must now have felt to be the last chance which God had opened out for him. He could only "attain to half-believe." He entrusted the result to chance, with miserable vacillation of purpose; and the door of hope was closed upon him. His one desire was to conceal the interview; and if it came to the ears of the princes-of whom he was shamefully afraid-he begged Jeremiah to say that he had only entreated the king not to send him back to die in Jonathan’s prison. As he had suspected, it became known that Jeremiah had been summoned to an interview with the king. They questioned the prophet in prison. He told them the story which the king had suggested to him, and the truth remained undiscovered. For this deflection from exact truth it is tolerably certain that, in the state of men’s consciences upon the subject of veracity in those days, the prophet’s moral sense did not for a moment reproach him. He remained in his prison, guarded probably by the faithful Ebed-Melech, until Jerusalem was taken. Let us pity the dreadful plight of Zedekiah, aggravated as it was by his weak temperament. "He stands at the head of a people determined to defend itself, but is himself without either hope or courage." CHAPTER II THE TRUST IN THE SHADOW OF EGYPT Jeremiah 2:1-37 ; Jeremiah 3:1-5 THE first of the prophet’s public addresses is, in fact, a sermon which proceeds from an exposure of national sin to the menace of coming judgment. It falls naturally into three sections, of which the first { Jeremiah 2:1-13 } sets forth Iahvah’s tender love to His young bride Israel in the old times of nomadic life, when faithfulness to Him was rewarded by protection from all external foes; and then passes on to denounce the unprecedented apostasy of a people from their God. The second ( Jeremiah 2:14-28 ) declares that if Israel has fallen a prey to her enemies, it is the result of her own infidelity to her Divine Spouse; of her early notorious and inveterate falling away to the false gods, who are now her only resource, and that a worthless one. The third section { Jeremiah 2:29-37 ; Jeremiah 3:1-5 } points to the failure of Iahvah’s chastisements to reclaim a people hardened in guilt, and in a self-righteousness which refused warning and despised reproof; affirms the futility of all human aid amid the national reverses; and cries woe on a too late repentance. It is not difficult to fix the time of this noble and pathetic address. That which follows it, and is intimately connected with it in substance, was composed "in the days of Josiah the king," { Jeremiah 3:6 } so that the present one must be placed a little earlier in the same reign; and, considering its position in the book, may very probably be assigned to the thirteenth year of Josiah, i.e., B.C. 629, in which the prophet received his Divine call. This is the ordinary opinion; but one critic (Knobel) refers the discourse to the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, on account of the connection with Egypt which is mentioned in Jeremiah 2:18 , Jeremiah 2:36 , and the humiliation suffered at the hands of the Egyptians which is mentioned in Jeremiah 2:16 ; while another (Graf) maintains that chapters 2-6 were composed in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, as if the prophet had committed nothing to writing before that date-an assumption which seems to run counter to the implication conveyed by his own statement, Jeremiah 36:2 . This latter critic has failed to notice the allusions in Jeremiah 4:14 ; Jeremiah 6:8 to an approaching calamity which may be averted by national reformation, to which the people are invited; -an invitation wholly incompatible with the prophet’s attitude at that hopeless period. The series of prophecies beginning at Jeremiah 4:3 is certainly later in time than the discourse we are now considering; but as certainly belongs to the immediate subsequent years. It does not appear that the first two of Jeremiah’s addresses were called forth by any striking event of public importance, such as the Scythian invasion. His new born consciousness of the Divine call would urge the young prophet to action; and in the present discourse we have the firstfruits of the heavenly impulse. It is a retrospect of Israel’s entire past and an examination of the state of things growing out of it. The prophet’s attention is not yet confined to Judah; he deplores the rupture of the ideal relations between Iahvah and His people as a whole ( Jeremiah 2:4 ; Jeremiah 3:6 ). As Hitzig has remarked, this opening address, in its finished elaboration, leaves the impression of a first outpouring of the heart, which sets forth at once without reserve the long score of the Divine grievances against Israel. At the same time, in its closing judgment, { Jeremiah 3:5 } in its irony, { Jeremiah 2:28 } in its appeals, { Jeremiah 2:21 ; Jeremiah 2:31 } and its exclamations, { Jeremiah 2:12 } it breathes an indignation stern and deep to a degree hardly characteristic of the prophet in his other discourses, but which was natural enough, as Hitzig observes, in a first essay at moral criticism, a first outburst of inspired zeal. In the Hebrew text the chapter begins with the same formula as chapter 1 ( Jeremiah 2:4 ): "And there fell a word of Iahvah unto me, saying." But the LXX reads: "And he said, Thus saith the Lord," a difference which is not immaterial, as it may be a trace of an older Hebrew recension of the prophet’s work, in which this second chapter immediately followed the original superscription of the book, as given in Jeremiah 1:1-2 , from which it was afterwards separated by the insertion of the narrative of Jeremiah’s call and visions. {cf. Amos 1:2 } Perhaps we may see another trace of the same thing in the fact that whereas chapter 1 sends the prophet to the rulers and people of Judah, this chapter is in part addressed to collective Israel ( Jeremiah 2:4 ); which constitutes a formal disagreement. If the reference to Israel is not merely retrospective and rhetorical, -if it implies, as seems to be assumed, that the prophet really meant his words to affect the remnant of the northern kingdom as well as Judah, -we have here a valuable contemporary corroboration of the much disputed assertion of the author of Chronicles, that king Josiah abolished idolatry "in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon even unto Naphtali, to wit, in their ruins round about," { 2 Chronicles 34:6 } as well as in Judah and Jerusalem; and that Manasseh and Ephraim and "the remnant of Israel" ( 2 Chronicles 34:9 ; 2 Chronicles 34:21 ) contributed to his restoration of the temple. These statements of the Chronicler imply that Josiah exercised authority in the ruined northern kingdom, as well as in the more fortunate south; and so far as this first discourse of Jeremiah was actually addressed to Israel as well as to Judah, those disputed statements find in it an undesigned confirmation. However this may be, as a part of the first collection of the author’s prophecies, there is little doubt that the chapter was read by Baruch to the people of Jerusalem in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. { Jeremiah 36:6 } "Go thou and cry in the ears of Jerusalem: Thus hath Iahvah said" (or "thought": This is the Divine thought concerning thee!) "I have remembered for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals; thy following Me" (as a bride follows her husband to his tent) "in the wilderness, in a land unsown. A dedicated thing" (like the high priest, on whose mitre was graven) "was Israel to Iahvah, His first fruits of increase; all who did eat him were held guilty, ill would come to them, saith Iahvah" ( Jeremiah 2:2-3 ). "I have remembered for thee," i.e., in thy favour, to thy benefit-as when Nehemiah prays, "Remember in my favour, O my God, for good, all that I have done upon this people," { Nehemiah 5:19 } -"the kindness"-the warm affection of thy youth, "the love of thine espousals," or the charm of thy bridal state; { Hosea 2:15 ; Hosea 11:1 } the tender attachment of thine early days, of thy new born national consciousness, when Iahvah had chosen thee as His bride, and called thee to follow Him out of Egypt. It is the figure which we find so elaborately developed in the pages of Hosea. The "bridal state" is the time from the Exodus to the taking of the covenant at Sinai, { Ezekiel 16:8 } which was, as it were, the formal instrument of the marriage; and Israel’s young love is explained as consisting in turning her back upon "the flesh pots of Egypt," { Ezekiel 16:3 } at the call of Iahvah, and following her Divine Lord into the barren steppes. This forsaking of all worldly comfort for the hard life of the desert was proof of the sincerity of Israel’s early love. [The evidently original words "in the wilderness, a land unsown," are omitted by the LXX, which renders: "I remembered the mercy of thy youth, and the love of thy nuptials, (consummation), so that thou followedst the Holy One of Israel, saith Iahvah."] Iahvah’s "remembrance" of this devotion, that is to say, the return He made for it, is described in the next verse. Israel became not "holiness," but a holy or hallowed thing; a dedicated object, belonging wholly and solely to Iahvah, a thing which it was sacrilege to touch; Iahvah’s "firstfruits of increase." This last phrase is to be explained by reference to the well known law of the firstfruits, { Exodus 23:19 ; Deuteronomy 18:4 , Deuteronomy 26:10 } according to which the first specimens of all agricultural produce were given to God. Israel, like the firstlings of cattle and the firstfruits of corn and wine and oil, was consecrated to Iahvah; and therefore none might eat of him without offending. "To eat" or devour is a term naturally used of vexing and destroying a nation ( Jeremiah 10:25 ; Jeremiah 1:7 ; Deuteronomy 7:16 , "And thou shalt eat up all the peoples, which Jehovah thy God is about to give thee"; Isaiah 1:7 ; Psalm 14:4 , "Who eat up My people as they eat bread"). The literal translation is, "All his eaters become guilty (or are treated as guilty, punished); evil cometh to them"; and the verbs, being in the imperfect, denote what happened again and again in Israel’s history; Iahvah suffered no man to do His people wrong with impunity. This, then, is the first count in the indictment against Israel, that Iahvah had not been unmindful of her early devotion, but had recognised it by throwing the shield of sanctity around her, and making her inviolable against all external enemies ( Jeremiah 2:1-3 ). The prophet’s complaint, as developed in the following section ( Jeremiah 2:4-8 ), is that, in spite of the goodness of Iahvah, Israel has forsaken Him for idols. "Hear ye the word of Iahvah, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel." All Israel is addressed, and not merely the surviving kingdom of Judah, because the apostasy had been universal. A special reference apparently made in Jeremiah 2:8 to the prophets of Baal, who flourished only in the northern kingdom. We may compare the word of Amos "against the whole clan, " which Iahvah "brought up from the land of Egypt," { Amos 3:1 } spoken at a time when Ephraim was yet in the heyday of his power. "Thus hath Iahvah said, What found your fathers in Me, that was unjust, a single act of injustice, Psalm 7:4 ; not to be found in Iahvah, { Deuteronomy 32:4 } that they went far from Me and followed the Folly and were befooled (or ‘the Delusion and were deluded’)" ( Jeremiah 2:5 ). The phrase is used 2 Kings 17:15 in the same sense; "the (mere) breath," "the nothingness" or "vanity," being a designation of the idols which Israel went after; {cf. also Jeremiah 23:16 ; Psalm 62:11 ; Job 27:12 } much as St. Paul has written that an "idol is nothing in the world," { 1 Corinthians 8:4 } and that, with all this boasted culture, the nations of classical antiquity "became vain," or were befooled "in their imaginations," "and their foolish heart was darkened". { Romans 1:21 } Both the prophet and the apostle refer to that judicial blindness which is a consequence of persistently closing the eyes to truth, and deliberately putting darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter, in compliance with the urgency of the flesh. For ancient Israel, the result of yielding to the seductions of foreign worship was, that "They were stultified in their best endeavours. They became false in thinking and believing, in doing and forbearing, because the fundamental error pervaded the whole life of the nation and of the individual. They supposed that they knew and honoured God, hut they were entirely mistaken; they supposed they were doing His will, and securing their own welfare, while they were doing and securing the exact contrary" (Hitzig). And similar consequences will always flow from attempts to serve two masters; to gratify the lower nature, while not breaking wholly with the higher. Once the soul has accepted a lower standard than the perfect law of truth, it does not stop there. The subtle corruption goes on extending its ravages farther and farther; while the consciousness that anything is wrong becomes fainter and fainter as the deadly mischief increases, until at last the ruined spirit believes itself in perfect health, When it is, in truth, in the last stage of mortal disease. Perversion of the will and the affections leads to the perversion of the intellect. There is a profound meaning in the old saying that, Men make their gods in their own likeness. As a man is, so will God appear to him to be. "With the loving Thou wilt shew Thyself loving; With the perfect, Thou wilt shew Thyself perfect; With the pure, Thou wilt shew Thyself pure; And with the perverse, Thou wilt shew Thyself froward". { Psalm 18:25 sq.} Only hearts pure of all worldly taint see God in His purity. The rest worship some more or less imperfect semblance of Him, according to the varying degrees of their selfishness and sin. "And they said not, Where is Iahvah, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that guided us in the wilderness, in a land of wastes and hollows (or desert and defile), in a land of drought and darkness (dreariness), in a land that no man passed through, and where no mortal dwelt" ( Jeremiah 2:6 ). "They said not, Where is Iahvah, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt." It is the old complaint of the prophets against Israel’s black ingratitude. So, for instance, Amos { Amos 2:10 } had written: "Whereas I-I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and guided you in the wilderness forty years"; and Micah: { Micah 6:3 sq.} "My people, what have I done unto thee, and how have I wearied thee? Answer against Me. For I brought thee up from the land of Egypt, and from a house of bondmen redeemed I thee." In common gratitude, they were bound to be true to this mighty Saviour; to enquire after Iahvah, to call upon Him only, to do His will, and to seek His grace. {cf. Jeremiah 29:12 sq.} Yet, with characteristic fickleness, they soon forgot the fatherly guidance, which had never deserted them in the period of their nomadic wanderings in the wilds of Arabia Petraea; a land which the prophet poetically describes as "a land of waste and hollows"-alluding probably to the rocky defiles through which they had to pass-and "a land of drought and darkness"; the latter an epithet of the Grave or Hades, { Job 10:21 } fittingly applied to that great lone wilderness of the south, which Israel had called "a fearsome," { Jeremiah 21:1 } and "a land of trouble and anguish," { Jeremiah 30:6 } whither, according to the poet of Job, "The caravans go up and are lost". { Jeremiah 6:18 } "And I brought you into the garden land, to eat its fruits and its choicest things; { Isaiah 1:19 ; Genesis 45:18 ; Genesis 45:20 ; Genesis 45:23 } and ye entered and defiled My land, and My. domain ye made a loathsome thing!" ( Jeremiah 2:7 ). With the wilderness of the wanderings is contrasted the "land of the carmel, " the land of fruitful orchards and gardens, as in Jeremiah 4:26 ; Isaiah 10:18 ; Isaiah 16:10 ; Isaiah 29:17 . This was Canaan, Iahvah’s own land, which He had chosen out of all countries to be His special dwelling place and earthly sanctuary; but which Israel no sooner possessed, than they began to pollute this holy land by their sins, like the guilty peoples whom they had displaced, making it thereby an abomination to Iahvah ( Leviticus 18:24 sq., cf. Jeremiah 3:2 ). "The priests they said not, Where is Iahvah? and they that handle the law, they knew ( i.e., regarded, heeded) Me not; and as for the shepherds ( i.e., the king and princes, Jeremiah 2:26 ), they rebelled against Me, and the prophets, they prophesied by (through) the Baal, and them that help not ( i.e., the false gods) they followed" ( Jeremiah 2:8 ). In the form of a climax, this verse justifies the accusation contained in the last, by giving particulars. The three ruling classes are successively indicted. {cf. Jeremiah 2:26 , Jeremiah 18:18 } The priests, part of whose duty was to "handle the law," i.e., explain the Torah, to instruct the people in the requirements of Iahvah, by oral tradition and out of the sacred law books, gave no sign of spiritual aspiration (cf. Jeremiah 2:6 ); like the reprobate sons of Eli, "they knew not" { 1 Samuel 2:12 } "Iahvah," that is to say, paid no heed to Him and His will as revealed in the book of the law; the secular authorities, the king and his counsellors, {"wise men," Jeremiah 18:18 } not only sinned thus negatively, but positively revolted against the King of kings, and resisted His will; while the prophets went further yet in the path of guilt, apostatising altogether from the God of Israel, and seeking inspiration from the Phoenician Baal, and following worthless idols that could give no help. There seems to be a play on the words Baal and Belial, as if Baal meant the same as Belial, "profitless," "worthless" (cf. 1 Samuel 2:12 : "Now Eli’s sons were sons of Belial; they knew not Iahvah." The phrase "they that help not," or "cannot help," suggests the term Belial; which, however, may be derived from "not," and "supreme," "God," and so mean "not-God," "idol," rather than "worthlessness," "unprofitableness," as it is usually explained). The reference may be to the Baal worship of Samaria, the northern capital, which was organised by Ahab, and his Tyrian queen. { Jeremiah 23:13 } "Therefore"-on account of this amazing ingratitude of your forefathers, -"I will again plead (reason, argue forensically) with you (the present generation in whom their guilt repeats itself) saith Iahvah, and with your sons’ sons (who will inherit your sins) will I plead." The nation is conceived as a moral unity, the characteristics of which are exemplified in each successive generation. To all Israel, past, present, and future, Iahvah will vindicate his own righteousness. "For cross" (the sea) "to the coasts of the Citeans" (the people of Citium in Cyprus) "and see; and to Kedar" (the rude tribes of the Syrian desert) "send ye, and mark well, and see whether there hath arisen a case like this. Hath a nation changed gods-albeit they are no gods? Yet My people hath changed his" (true) "glory for that which helpeth not" (or is worthless). "Upheave, ye heavens" (a fine paronomasia ), "at this, and shudder (and) be petrified," "be sore amazed" but Hitzig "be dry" stiff and motionless, { 1 Kings 13:4 } "saith Iahvah; for two evil things hath My people done: Me they have forsaken-a Fountain of living water-to hew them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot" (imperf. potential) "hold water" (Hebrews the waters: generic article) ( Jeremiah 2:9-13 ). In these five verses, the apostasy of Israel from his own God is held up as a fact unique in history-unexampled and inexplicable by comparison with the doings of other nations. Whether you look westward or eastward, across the sea to Cyprus, or beyond Gilead to the barbarous tribes of the Cedrei, { Psalm 120:5 } nowhere will you find a heathen people that has changed its native worship for another; and if you did find such, it would be no precedent or palliation of Israel’s behaviour. The heathen in adopting a new worship simply exchanges one superstition for another; the objects of his devotion are "non-gods" ( Jeremiah 2:11 ). The heinousness and the eccentricity of Israel’s conduct lies in the fact that he has bartered truth for falsehood; he has exchanged "his Glory"-whom Amos { Amos 8:7 } calls the Pride (A.V., Excellency) of Jacob-for a useless idol; an object which the prophet elsewhere calls "The Shame" ( Jeremiah 3:24 , Jeremiah 11:13 ), because it can only bring shame and confusion upon those whose hopes depend upon it. The wonder of the thing might well be supposed to strike the pure heavens, the silent witnesses of it, with blank astonishment (cf. a similar appeal in Deuteronomy 4:26 ; Deuteronomy 31:28 ; Deuteronomy 32:1 , where the earth is added). For the evil is not single but twofold. With the rejection of truth goes the adoption of error; and both are evils. Not only has Israel turned his back upon "a fountain of living waters"; he has also "hewn him out cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot hold water." The "broken cisterns" are, of course, the idols which Israel made to himself. As a cistern full of cracks and fissures disappoints the wayfarer, who has reckoned on finding water in it; so the idols, having only the semblance and not the reality of life, avail their worshippers nothing ( Jeremiah 2:8-11 ). In Hebrew the waters of a spring are called "living," { Genesis 21:19 } because