Jeremiah 2
PATGod expostulates with his people, for their ungrateful returns to his former benefits: and upbraids theiri with their fondness for the idolatries of the neighbouring countries. (Compare ver. 26. of which had overspread the nation this chapter.) The prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things ihat do not profit.’] Sec xxii; 13. and the notes upon ver. 5. of this chapter, and vii. 31. many of the ancients understood Gihon to be the Nile, par-, ticularly the author of Ecclus. xxiv. 27. And Ludolphns. observes, that the Nile is now called by that name in the. Ethiopie language. (See the Commentary upon his Ethiopic Hist. lib. i. n.56.)..’ *. Tlie waters of Sihor.] Some suppose Sihor to be the same with. the river of Egypt. (See the note upon Ezek. xlvii. 19. and upon Amos vi. 14.)
Jeremiah 2:2
CtO and cry in the ears of Jerusalem. In the most public parts of the city, that every one may hear. I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals.] I remember my first kindness to thee, when I delivered thee out of Egypt: (compare Hos. ii. 15.) and espoused thee to myself to be my own peculiar people. The covenant which God made with the Jews at Mount Sinai, is commonly represented under the metaphor of a marriage-contract. (See iii. 15. Ezek. xvi. 8. GO.) Upon this account, idolatry is called going a ivhoring after other gods; because it is the same degree of unfaithfulness to God, which an adulteress is guilty of in respect of her husband. Wlien thou wentest after me in a land that was not sown.] When I conducted thee through the wilderness, and there fed thee miraculously. (Sec ver. G.)
Jeremiah 2:3
Israel ivas holiness unto the Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase. The Jews were then consecrated to me as a holy nation: (see Exod. xix. 5, 6.) as a people particularly dedicated to mc, as the first-fruits of the increase of the ground are, by their law, consecrated to God, (Exod. xxiii. 19.) All that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord.] The words were better rendered in the preter-perfect tense, as the future is often taken: all they that devour him were trespassers, evil came upon them; i. e. they that went about to destroy God’s people were reputed by hira as sacrilegious persons, as if they had devoured holy things, and accordingly met with remarkable punishments. Such were the Egyptians, Amalekites, &c. From the verb here rendered to offend comes asham, a trespass-offering, which was particularly appointed to be offered by those, who had ignorantly taken of the holy things set apart to God’s service. (See Lev. v. 15. xxii. 14. 1G.)
Jeremiah 2:4
Hear ije the ivord of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Compare xxxi. 1. The prophet directs his discourse to the. twelve tribes, as he does afterward, iii. 34, &c. Nor was the captivity of the ten tribes so total, but that there were some Israelites still remaining among the Assyrian colonies. • (See 2 Chron. xxxi v. 9.33. xxxv. 18.)
Jeremiah 2:5
What iniquity have your fathers found in me. The same expostulation God makes by his prophet Micah, vi. 3. That they are gone far. from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?] That they have forsaken me, and followed the idolatrous worship of the heathens. (Compare 2 Kings xvii. 15.) Idols are commonly styled vanities (see particularly in this prophecy, x. 15. xiv. 22. xvi. 19.) and things of nought, (xiv. 14.) because an idol is nothing in the world, as St. Paul speaks, 1 Cor. viii. 4. Not being what it pretends to.be, nor can it bring any profit to them that worship it. (See below, ver. 8.)'
Jeremiah 2:6
Neither said they, Where is the Lord — that led us through the wilderness, &c. God’s sustaining such a vast multitude in a barren desert, was an amazing instance of his almighty power, and his goodness and care over his people. (See Deut. viii. 15, 1G. xxxii. 10.) Through a’ land of deserts and of pits.] The Hebrew word shacha, apit, sometimes is put for destruction, as Psal. xxx. 3. and is near akin to the word shachath, which signifies death and corruption. The Chaldee paraphrase upon Job xxx. 14. explains shoah, desolation, by shaka. Thus we may expound it here, a place where there were no comforts or conveniences of life: to the same sense it is called in the following words, a land of the shadow of death.
Jeremiah 2:7
And I brought you into a plentiful country, &c. The Hebrew reads, into the land of Carmel: which was so plentiful a part of Judea, that the word from thence came to signify a fruitful place, in general. (See Isa. x. 18. xxix. 17. xxxii. 15.) Judea is commonly called by Moses, a land thatfloivs ivith milk and honey. But when ye entered, ye defiled my land.] By your sins, (Lev. xviii. 25. Numb. xxxv. 34.) chiefly by your idolatries; (Psal. cvi. 38.) that sin receiving great aggravation from hence, that the people should thereby renounce God’s authority in that very land, whose propriety he had reserved to himself, (Lev. xxv. 23.) though he had graciously bestowed upon them the use of it.
Jeremiah 2:8
The priests said not, Wltere is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew me not. The priests, whose office it was to instruct others in their duty, (see Mai. ii. 6, 7.) were ignorant or regardless of it themselves: and this was the principal reason of that degeneracy of manners which prevailed among the people. (See Hos. iv. 6.) The pastors also transgressed against me.] A pastor or shepherd is taken in the prophets for a civil magistrate, as well as an ecclesiastical governor, as has been observed upon Isa. lvi. 11. In the former sense it is used in several places of this prophecy. (See vi. 3. xxv. 34. xlix. 19.) Which sense agrees best with the scope of the text here, which is to shew, that all orders and degrees of men in authority had contributed to that corruption of manners 4G
Jeremiah 2:9
Where/ore I will plead with you, saith the Lord. The expression is taken from the pleas of plaintiff and defendant used in the courts of judicature. (See Isa. xliii. 26.) It imports God’s laying before them their demerits, how defective they have been in their duty, and what ungrateful returns they have made to him for all his favours. (See ver. 35. of this chapter.) And this he doth sometimes by word of mouth, and by the messages of his prophets. (See Hos. ii. 2. Micah vi. 2.) And sometimes he does it* by his judgments, the manifest tokens of God’s vengeance due to men’s sins. (See Isa. Ixvi. 16. Jer. xxv. 31. Ezek. xx. 36. xxxviii. 22.) And with your children’s children will I plead.] According to the tenor of the law, whereby God threatens to visit the sins, particularly the idolatry, of the fathers upon the children anto the third and fourth generation.
Jeremiah 2:10
For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and \ se?id nnto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. The isles of Chittim are the countries lying.upon the Mediterranean Sea, (see the notes on Isa. xxiii. 1.) which lay west of Judea. Kedar, being part of Arabia, was eastward from thence: for Arabia is commonly called the east country in Scripture; (see Gen. x. 30. xxv. 6. Job A. 3.) and particularly the inhabitants of Kedar are called’the men of the east, xlix. 28. of this prophecy. So the sense “of the verse is, If you search from east to west, from one end of the world to the other, you will find no instance like this of the Jews’ apostacy, mentioned in the following verse. Ver. il. Hath a nation changed their gods, which yet are no gods? but my people hath changed their glory, &c] Men are very tenacious of the religion of their forefathers,‘and hardly prevailed upon to part’ with it, though the change be never so reasonable: whereas the Jews have changed the worship of the true God, who was their’ strength and their glory, for idols and vanities that cannot save nor protect them, (ver. 5.) God is called the glory of the Jews, because he chose the ark for the place where his glory should reside; for the same reason the temple is called the throne of his glory, xiv. 21. and they are said to * have changed their gloi’y into the similitude of an ox, Psal. cvi.20. (a text exactly parallel with this place) when they made the golden calf; and instead of the Divine Sehechinah, which should go before them, they chose that senseless idol to be their conductor. God may be called their glory for another reason, viz. because he chose them to be his peculiar people, and took them into his immediate care and protection: a privilege which no other nation could boast of. (See Dcut. iv. 7.)
Jeremiah 2:12
Be astonished, Oye heavens, at this, &c. This is such a horrible wickedness, that the heavens themselves should be affrighted to behold it, and the celestial bodies withdraw their light and influences from that part of the World where such enormities are practised. Such rhetorical apostrophes to’heaven and earth, import the unusualncss, and likewise the indignity, of the things spoken of; implying them to lie such, that if men take no notice of them, the elements themselves will testify against such (Compare Isa. i. 1. Micah [chap. \. i. 2. vi. 2. Job practices. xx. 27.)
Jeremiah 2:13
They have forsaken vie, the fountain of living waters, &c. God is the author and giver of all blessings, both spiritual and temporal, from whom all good gifts are derived, as from an inexhaustible spring or fountain. (See Psal. xxxvi. 9.) And wherever else men place their happiness, whether in false religions, or in the uncertain comforts of worldly blessings, they will find themselves disappointed, just as they that expect to find water at broken cisterns or conduits. This particularly reflects upon the Jews renouncing the worship of the true God, and their dependance upon him, and betaking themselves to the alliance and protection of idolaters. (See ver. 18. 25. 36.)
Jeremiah 2:14
Is Israel a servant? is he a home-born slave? why is he spoiled?. God redeemed Israel from the bondage of Egypt, and adopted him to be his son, (Exod. iv. 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 consequent. (Compare Isa. 1.1. lii. 3.)
Jeremiah 2:15
The young liotis roared upon him, &c. t. e. The kings of Syria, Assyria, and other neighbouring countries. (See Isa. i. 7.) Tyrants and oppressors are commonly compared to lions. (See below, li. 17. Job iv. 10, 11. Psal. xxxiv. 10. lviii. 6. Ezek. xix. 3. 6. Nahum ii. 11, 12.)
Jeremiah 2:16
Also the children ofNoph and Tahapanes have broken the crown of thy head. Or, feed upon thy crown: so the margin reads; i. e. destroy and devour the principal, or best parts of the country. So the best spices are called the head of spices, Exod. xxx. 23. Cant. iv. 14. If we follow the reading of the text, the prophet pursues the metaphor of the lions, mentioned ver. 15. whose custom it is to tear the arm with the crown of the head, Deut. xxxiii. 20. Concerning Noph and Tahapanes, see xliii. 7. xliv. 1. By their children or inhabitants are meant the Egyptians in general. The verse may relate to the conquest that Pharaoh-Nechoh made of Judea, (2 Kings xxiii. 33.) which,’though it happened after the time that this prophecy was uttered, may be spoken of here as already past; a way of speaking usual in the prophets. (See the note upon Isa. xxi. 9.)
Jeremiah 2:17
Wlten he led thee by the ivay. Who would have been thy guide and conductor, thy strength and support, (see Deut. xxxii. 10.) if thou hadst hearkened to his voice.
Jeremiah 2:18
And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the ivaters ofSihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?. The kings of Egypt and Assyria were the two most potent monarchs in the neighbourhood of Judea; and, according as either of those prevailed over the other, the Jews made their court to him who was the stronger, and desired his assistance. This is expressed by drinking the water of Sihor, or Nile, called so for its blackness or mnddiness; (see Isa. xxiii. 3.) and of Euphrates, called here the river by “way of eminence. (Compare Isa. xxvii. 12.) The expressions allude to ver. 13. where human assistances are called broken ciste7its, and opposed to God, who, by reason of his all-sufficiency, is styled the fountain of living waters. The Septiiagint render Sihor, Tn&v, as if it were the same with the river Gihon, mentioned Gen. ii. 13. It is certain
Jeremiah 2:19
Thy own ivickedness shall correct thee, &c. The miseries that your own sins have brought upon you, are a sufficient instruction to you to break off your evil courses, and to return to God by a sincere repentance.,
Jeremiah 2:20
For ®f old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bonds; and thou saidst, I will not transgress.) Upon several deliverances I gave thee, that out of Egypt, and in the times of the judges, thou didst promise to serve me faithfully. (See Exod. xix. 8. Josh. xxiv. 18.. Judg. x. 16. ISam. xii. 10.),.. When upon every high hill, and under every green tree, thou wander est, playing the harlot.’] The sense would run easier, if we read, Yet upon every high hill, &e. and so the particle hi is translated, xxii. 24. of this prophecy. God upbraids them with the breach of promise, that after all their resolutions of amendment, they still relapsed to the former sin of worshipping idols upon high places, and in shady groves, which the law expressly forbade, (Deut. xii. 2. Ezek. xvi. 24.) The idolatrous kings built temples for their idols upon high mountains and high places. (See 1 Kings xii. 31. xiii. 32.) These were still frequented after the religious kings had destroyed all other monuments of idolatry..(See IKings xv. 24. xxii. 43.)
Jeremiah 2:21
Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed, &c. 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, though now thou art strangely degenerate. The church is often represented under the metaphor of a vine (see Isa.v.l. and the parallel texts referred to there in the margin), and the.means of grace under the notion of planting. (See Isa. lx. 21. lxi. 3, Matt, xv. 13. ICor.iii. G.)
Jeremiah 2:22
For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take unto thee much soap, &c. Though thou usestever so many methods of washing away thy sins, such as are the rites of expiation prescribed by the law, or practised by idolaters: though thou insistest never so much upon thy own innocence and justification, (see ver. 23.) yet the marks or stains of thy sins will always appear in the sight of God, till they arc done away by a sincere repentance and reformation. Expositors are divided about the sense of the. word niktam, which our translators render marked; and in which sense the word is taken for a spot or mark, in the Chaldee and Syriae tongues. But Bochart thinks the word catham with caph, equivalent to catham with cheth, and expounds it hidden, or laid up; as men’s sins arc said to be, when God, perhaps, bears with them for the present, but intends to callthem to account in due time. (See Deut. xxxii. 34. Job xiv. 17. Hos.xiii.12.)
Jeremiah 2:23
How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim?. The Jews, it seems, have found out distinctions, whereby to reconcile the.worship of the tfue God with those religious.rites, which they paid to the deities of the heathen, called here Baalim. These they pretendedwere only inferior demons. or spirits, or the souls of men departed, and might be worshipped in subordination to the supreme God. The word Baalim answers in the Hebrew to Kvpiot 7roXAoi, (1 Cor. viii.5.) whom St. Paul mentions as the inferior deities of the heathen.. See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done.\ That horrible practice of.the Jewish idolaters in burning their sons and daughters in the fire, in the valley of Hinnom, (see vii. 32.) is an effectual confutation of those pretences whereby they justified their innocence, since this; was a way of worship expressly forbidden by God: (Lev. xx. 2, &c.) and such, an impious one, as none but the devil could invent…,… Ibid, and
Jeremiah 2:24
Thou art a swift dromedary traversing, her ways; a wild ass used to the wilderness, &c. The parti-: ele as, is to be supplied in both these sentences, as it is frequently understood. (See note on Isa. xxi. 8.) The prophet persists, in comparing, their fondness for variety of idols to the rage of lust, (which metaphor is pursued at large by Ezekiel, chap. xvi. xxiii.) and, upon that account he resembles them to these wild beasts, which have their constant seasons of breeding, and are then violently set upon satisfying their lust, and not to be caught or tamed. The comparisons withal set forth the indefatigable pains the Jews took in applying themselves to foreign princes for their succour, and alliance, (compare ver. 36.) instead of relying upon God, and a strict observance of his laws. These practices of theirs are often reproved in the prophets. (See Isa. xxx.l, &e. lvii.9, 10. Hos.y. 13. xii. 1.). All they that seekjier, will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.] The hunters know the seasons of catching these wild creatures, and never try to take them but in a proper time. And it is as much in vain to offer any arguments to this people, to reclaim them from their eager pursuit after idolatry. The time of affliction is.the only season when they will hearken to God’s voice. (See ver. 27. Hos. v. 15.), \;.:.
Jeremiah 2:25
Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst. Do not wear out thy shoes, orsandals, and expose thyself to thirst and weariness, in undertaking long journeys, to make new alliances with idolaters. Some think ia these expressions, their persisting in idolatry is compared to the lewdness of common harlots, and the sottishness of an habitual drunkard. (Compare Ezek. xvi. 25. Deut. xxix. 19.) But thou saidst, There is no hope.] The words of desperate sinners, who are resolved to continue in, their wicked* ness, in spite of all the reason that can be offered to the contrary. (Compare xviii. 12.) For I have loved strangers.] Ox strange gods. (C<?mpare iii. 13. Deut. xxxii. 16.) They were resolved. to be, like the heathen round about them; to gourt their friendship, and to partake of their idolatries. m
Jeremiah 2:26
Asjhe thief is ashamed when he is found, so i$ the house of Israel ashamed, &c. As a thief hath nothing to say for himself, but is perfectly confounded when he is taken in the very act; so the house of Israel have no manner of plea wherewith to excuse their idolatry, but only an impudent denial of the fact itself. (See ver. 23.).
Jeremiah 2:27
Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth. (Jiving the title of father due to God, as the sovereign author and preserver 4G2