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Commentary on Jeremiah 2 verses 1–8
Here is, I. A command given to Jeremiah to go and carry a message from God to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He was charged in general (Jer 1:17) to go and speak to them; here he is particularly charged to go and speak this to them. Note, It is good for ministers by faith and prayer to take out a fresh commission when they address themselves solemnly to any part of their work. Let a minister carefully compare what he has to deliver with the word of God, and see that it agrees with it, that he may be able to say, not only, The Lord sent me, but, He sent me to speak this. He must go from Anathoth, where he lived in a pleasant retirement, spending his time (it is likely) among a few friends and in the study of the law, and must make his appearance at Jerusalem, that noisy tumultuous city, and cry in their ears, as a man in earnest and that would be heard: "Cry aloud, that all may hear, and none may plead ignorance. Go close to them, and cry in the ears of those that have stopped their ears."
II. The message he was commanded to deliver. He must upbraid them with their horrid ingratitude in forsaking a God who had been of old so kind to them, that this might either make them ashamed and bring them to repentance, or might justify God in turning his hand against them.
1.God here puts them in mind of the favours he had of old bestowed upon them, when they were first formed into a people (Jer 2:2): "I remember for thy sake, and I would have thee to remember it, and improve the remembrance of it for thy good; I cannot forget the kindness of thy youth and the love of thy espousals."
(1.)This may be understood of the kindness they had for God; it was not such indeed as they had any reason to boast of, or to plead with God for favour to be shown them (for many of them were very unkind and provoking, and, when they did return and enquire early after God, they did but flatter him), yet God is pleased to mention it, and plead it with them; for, though it was but little love that they showed him, he took it kindly. When they believed the Lord and his servant Moses, when they sang God's praise at the Red Sea, when at the foot of Mount Sinai they promised, All that the Lord shall say unto us we will do and will be obedient, then was the kindness of their youth and the love of their espousals. When they seemed so forward for God he said, Surely they are my people, and will be faithful to me, children that will not lie. Note, Those that begin well and promise fair, but do not perform and persevere, will justly be upbraided with their hopeful and promising beginnings. God remembers the kindness of our youth and the love of our espousals, the zeal we then seemed to have for him and the affection wherewith we made our covenants with him, the buds and blossoms that never came to perfection; and it is good for us to remember them, that we may remember whence we have fallen, and return to our first love, Rev 2:4, Rev 2:5; Gal 4:15. In two things appeared the kindness of their youth: - [1.] That they followed the direction of the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness; and though sometimes they spoke of returning into Egypt, or pushing forward into Canaan, yet they did neither, but for forty years together went after God in the wilderness, and trusted him to provide for them, though it was a land that was not sown. This God took kindly, and took notice of it to their praise long after, that, though much was amiss among them, yet they never forsook the guidance they were under. Thus, though Christ often chid his disciples, yet he commended them, at parting, for continuing with him, Luk 22:28. It must be the strong affection of the youth, and the espousals, that will carry us on to follow God in a wilderness, with an implicit faith and an entire resignation; and it is a pity that those who have so followed him should ever leave him. [2.] That they entertained divine institutions, set up the tabernacle among them, and attended the service of it. Israel was then holiness to the Lord; they joined themselves to him in covenant as a peculiar people. Thus they began in the spirit, and God puts them in mind of it, that they might be ashamed of ending in the flesh.
(2.)Or it may be understood of God's kindness to them; of that he afterwards speaks largely. When Israel was a child, then I loved him, Hos 11:1. He then espoused that people to himself with all the affection with which a young man marries a virgin (Isa 62:5), for the time was a time of love, Eze 16:8. [1.] God appropriated them to himself. Though they were a sinful people, yet, by virtue of the covenant made with them and the church set up among them, they were holiness to the Lord, dedicated to his honour and taken under his special tuition; they were the first fruits of his increase, the first constituted church he had in the world; they were the first-fruits, but the full harvest was to be gathered from among the Gentiles. The first-fruits of the increase were God's part of it, were offered to him, and he was honoured with them; so were the people of the Jews; what little tribute, rent, and homage, God had from the world, he had it chiefly from them; and it was their honour to be thus set apart for God. This honour have all the saints; they are the first-fruits of his creatures, Jam 1:18. [2.] Having espoused them, he espoused their cause, and became an enemy to their enemies, Exo 23:22. Being the first-fruits of his increase, all that devoured him (so it should be read) did offend; they trespassed, they contracted guilt, and evil befel them, as those were reckoned offenders that devoured the first-fruits, or any thing else that was holy to the Lord, that embezzled them, or converted them to their own use, Lev 5:15. Whoever offered any injury to the people of God did so at their peril; their God was ready to avenge their quarrel, and said to the proudest of kings, Touch not my anointed, Psa 105:14, Psa 105:15; Exo 17:14. He had in a special manner a controversy with those that attempted to debauch them and draw them off from being holiness to the Lord; witness his quarrel with the Midianites about the matter of Peor, Num 25:17, Num 25:18. [3.] He brought them out of Egypt with a high hand and great terror (Deu 4:34), and yet with a kind hand and great tenderness led them through a vast howling wilderness (Jer 2:6), a land of deserts and pits, or of graves, terram sepulchralem - a sepulchral land, where there was ground, not to feed them, but to bury them, where there was no good to be expected, for it was a land of drought, but all manner of evil to be feared, for it was the shadow of death. In that darksome valley they walked forty years; but God was with them; his rod, in Moses's hand, and his staff, comforted them, and even there God prepared a table for them (Psa 23:4, Psa 23:5), gave them bread out of the clouds and drink out of the rocks. It was a land abandoned by all mankind, as yielding neither road nor rest. It was no thoroughfare, for no man passed through it - no settlement, for no man dwelt there. For God will teach his people to tread untrodden paths, to dwell alone, and to be singular. The difficulties of the journey are thus insisted on, to magnify the power and goodness of God in bringing them, through all, safely to their journey's end at last. All God's spiritual Israel must own their obligations to him for a safe conduct through the wilderness of this world, no less dangerous to the soul than that was to the body. [4.] At length he settled them in Canaan (Jer 2:7): I brought you into a plentiful country, which would be the more acceptable after they had been for so many years in a land of drought. They did eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof, and were allowed so to do. I brought you into a land of Carmel (so the word is); Carmel was a place of extraordinary fruitfulness, and Canaan was as one great fruitful field, Deu 8:7. [5.] God gave them the means of knowledge and grace, and communion with him; this is implied, Jer 2:8. They had priests that handled the law, read it, and expounded it to them; that was part of their business, Deu 33:8. They had pastors, to guide them and take care of their affairs, magistrates and judges; they had prophets to consult God for them and to make known his mind to them.
2.He upbraids them with their horrid ingratitude, and the ill returns they had made him for these favours; let them all come and answer to this charge (Jer 2:4); it is exhibited in the name of God against all the families of the house of Israel, for they can none of them plead, Not guilty. (1.) He challenges them to produce any instance of his being unjust and unkind to them. Though he had conferred favours upon them in some things, yet, if in other things he had dealt hardly with them, they would not have been altogether without excuse. He therefore puts it fairly to them to show cause for their deserting him (Jer 2:5): "What iniquity have your fathers found in me, or you either? Have you, upon trial, found God a hard master? Have his commands put any hardship upon you or obliged you to any thing unfit, unfair, or unbecoming you? Have his promises put any cheats upon you, or raised your expectations of things which you were afterwards disappointed of? You that have renounced your covenant with God, can you say that it was a hard bargain and that which you could not live upon? You that have forsaken the ordinances of God, can you say that it was because they were a wearisome service, or work that there was nothing to be got by? No; the disappointments you have met with were owing to yourselves, not to God. The yoke of his commandments if easy, and in the keeping of them there is great reward." Note, Those that forsake God cannot say that he has ever given them any provocation to do so: for this we may safely appeal to the consciences of sinners; the slothful servant that offered such a plea as this had it overruled out of his own mouth, Luk 19:22. Though he afflicts us, we cannot say that there is iniquity in him; he does us no wrong. The ways of the Lord are undoubtedly equal; all the iniquity is in our ways. (2.) He charges them with being very unjust and unkind to him notwithstanding. [1.] They had quitted his service: "They have gone from me, nay, they have gone far from me." They studied how to estrange themselves from God and their duty, and got as far as they could out of the reach of his commandments and their own convictions. Those that have deserted religion commonly set themselves at a greater distance from it, and in a greater opposition to it, than those that never knew it. [2.] They had quitted it for the service of idols, which was so much the greater reproach to God and his service; they went from him, not to better themselves, but to cheat themselves: They have walked after vanity, that is, idolatry; for an idol is a vain thing; it is nothing in the world, Co1 8:4; Deu 32:21; Jer 14:22. Idolatrous worships are vanities, Act 14:15. Idolaters are vain, for those that make idols are like unto them (Psa 115:8), as much stocks and stones as the images they worship, and good for as little. [3.] They had with idolatry introduced all manner of wickedness. When they entered into the good land which God gave them they defiled it (Jer 2:7), by defiling themselves and disfitting themselves for the service of God. It was God's land; they were but tenants to him, sojourners in it, Lev 25:23. It was his heritage, for it was a holy land, Immanuel's land; but they made it an abomination, even to God himself, who was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel. [4.] Having forsaken God, though they soon found that they had changed for the worse, yet they had no thoughts of returning to him again, nor took any steps towards it. Neither the people nor the priests made any enquiry after him, took any thought about their duty to him, nor expressed any desire to recover his favour. First, The people said not, Where is the Lord? Jer 2:6. Though they were trained up in an observance of him as their God, and had been often told that he brought them out of the land of Egypt, to be a people peculiar to himself, yet they never asked after him nor desired the knowledge of his ways. Secondly, The priests said not, Where is the Lord? Jer 2:8. Those whose office it was to attend immediately upon him were in no concern to acquaint themselves with him, or approve themselves to him. Those who should have instructed the people in the knowledge of God took no care to get the knowledge of him themselves. The scribes, who handled the law, did not know God nor his will, could not expound the scriptures at all, or not aright. The pastors, who should have kept the flock from transgressing, were themselves ringleaders in transgression: They have transgressed against me. The pretenders to prophecy prophesied by Baal, in his name, to his honour, being backed and supported by the wicked kings to confront the Lord's prophets. Baal's prophets joined with Baal's priests, and walked after the things which do not profit, that is, after the idols which can be no way helpful to their worshippers. See how the best characters are usurped, and the best offices liable to corruption; and wonder not at the sin and ruin of a people when the blind are leaders of the blind.
The prophets say, “And the Word of the Lord came to me.” … All these messages proscribe in every light the Arian heresy and signify the eternity of the Word, and that he is not foreign but proper to the Father’s essence.
Consider by how many testimonies the Word of the Lord urges us to recite the Holy Scriptures in order that we may possess through faith what we have repeated with our mouth.… And elsewhere it is written, I remembered the mercy of your youth.
(Vers. 2.) Thus says the Lord: I have remembered your youth, the kindness of your betrothal, when you followed me in the desert, in a land that is not sown. LXX: Thus says the Lord: I have remembered the mercy of your youth, and the love of your betrothal. This is said more fully in Ezekiel (Ezek. I), when the Lord joins Jerusalem to himself in marriage, and under the persona of a wife, unites her with his embraces: either to show a more ardent affection, he calls her a girl, a young woman, and betrothed. For what we have not yet obtained, we desire to obtain more. 'When,' he said, 'you followed me in solitude; and, like betrothal and dowry, the adornments of the Law were distributed to you as necklaces of words. And all of this does not refer to his merit, but to his mercy, through which he also obtained charity. This also which we have placed, in the desert, in a land which is not sown, is not found in the Septuagint.'
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SUMMARY
Jeremiah 2:2 presents a tender yet poignant divine recollection from the LORD to Jerusalem, recalling the nation of Israel's foundational devotion and covenant faithfulness. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God lovingly reminds His people of their "first love"—the period of their nascent nationhood and sacred "espousals" when they followed Him faithfully through the challenging wilderness, a barren and unsown land. This profound remembrance serves as a stark and compassionate contrast to their present spiritual decline, laying the theological groundwork for the subsequent divine lament, indictment, and persistent call to repentance that permeates the prophetic book.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Jeremiah 2:2 is richly imbued with powerful Imagery and Metaphor, primarily employing the profound image of marriage to describe the covenant relationship between God and Israel. God is portrayed as the faithful, loving husband, and Israel as the devoted bride in her "youth" and "espousals." This central Metaphor is sustained throughout the verse. The use of "I remember thee" and the attribution of human emotions and relational dynamics (remembrance, kindness, love) to God constitute Anthropomorphism, making His relationship with Israel deeply relatable and emotionally resonant. The phrase "wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown" uses potent Symbolism to represent a period of profound dependence, exclusive devotion, and spiritual purity, which stands in stark Contrast to Israel's later apostasy. The entire verse functions as a powerful form of Pathos, a rhetorical appeal to emotion, as God's tender, almost nostalgic, remembrance of past love is strategically designed to evoke shame, sorrow, and ultimately, a heartfelt desire for repentance in His wayward people. The implicit Contrast between Israel's past faithfulness and their present unfaithfulness is masterfully established, setting the somber yet hopeful tone for the subsequent divine lament and judgment.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Jeremiah 2:2 serves as a foundational theological statement regarding God's unwavering faithfulness and His deep, personal, and passionate investment in His covenant people. It masterfully establishes the metaphor of the divine marriage, which is a recurring and central theme throughout the Old Testament prophetic literature, illustrating the intimate, exclusive, and profoundly personal nature of God's relationship with Israel. God's active remembrance of Israel's "first love" is not merely nostalgic, but an enduring declaration of His steadfast commitment, even in the face of their spiritual adultery and rebellion. This divine memory underscores the profound gravity of Israel's sin—they have broken a sacred, loving, and exclusive bond. The verse also highlights the wilderness period as a theological archetype for moments of intense spiritual purity, absolute dependence, and singular focus on God. It powerfully reminds us that true faith and deep intimacy with God often flourish not in times of material abundance or comfort, but frequently in barrenness, scarcity, and challenge, where God alone is recognized as our sole and sufficient source.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Jeremiah 2:2 offers a profound and tender mirror for both personal and corporate spiritual reflection. Just as God lovingly remembered Israel's "first love," we are called to regularly and honestly examine the state of our own hearts and the vibrancy of our relationship with Him. Do we recall the initial fervor, the deep dependence, the singular devotion, and the unreserved pursuit we experienced when we first encountered Christ or committed our lives to Him? The comforts of life, the relentless distractions of the world, and the subtle temptations of self-reliance can gradually erode that initial passion, subtly leading us away from a wholehearted and exclusive pursuit of God. This verse serves as a tender, yet urgent, invitation to return to our "first love," to remember the overwhelming grace that first drew us, and to actively rekindle our commitment to follow Him wherever He leads, even into the "wilderness" of life's challenges where our dependence on Him is most acutely felt and our faith is most profoundly refined. It reminds us that God's faithful memory of our past devotion, however imperfect or fleeting, is a powerful testament to His enduring love and His persistent desire for our full, unreserved return. His grace is always sufficient, and His arms are always open to restore us to that place of intimacy, devoted pursuit, and unwavering trust.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
What does "the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals" mean in this verse?
Answer: This phrase uses powerful and intimate marital imagery to describe the early, formative relationship between God and the nation of Israel. "The kindness of thy youth" refers to Israel's initial loyalty, steadfast love, and faithful adherence to God during its nascent period as a nation, particularly after the Exodus from Egypt. "The love of thine espousals" further emphasizes this by portraying the covenant relationship as a sacred betrothal or engagement, where Israel, as a young, pure bride, displayed fervent and passionate love for God, her divine groom. It highlights a period of exclusive devotion, unreserved trust, and a singular focus on God, before the nation became entangled with idolatry, syncretism, and foreign alliances. This metaphor is a common and profound way in prophetic literature to describe God's intimate and exclusive covenant with His people, as seen prominently in Ezekiel 16.
What is the significance of "when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown"?
Answer: This refers to the pivotal forty years Israel spent wandering in the barren desert after their miraculous liberation from Egypt. The "wilderness" (Hebrew: midbâr) was a desolate, unsown land, meaning it yielded no crops, offered no natural sustenance, and provided no inherent security. Its profound significance lies in the fact that during this extended period, Israel was entirely and absolutely dependent on God for daily provision (such as manna and water) and constant guidance (through the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night). "Wentest after me" signifies their active obedience, their following of God's direct lead, and their reliance on His presence. This time, despite its occasional challenges and murmuring, is tenderly remembered by God as a period of unique intimacy and singular devotion, where Israel, having nothing else to cling to, clung solely to Him. It serves as a stark and poignant contrast to their later apostasy when they settled in the fertile Promised Land and, in their prosperity, began to forget the Lord who had so faithfully provided for them, as powerfully recounted in Deuteronomy 8.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
While Jeremiah 2:2 speaks directly to ancient Israel and their covenant relationship with Yahweh, its profound themes find their ultimate and perfect Christ-centered fulfillment in the New Covenant. Israel's tragic failure to maintain their "first love" ultimately led to divine judgment and exile, but God's enduring memory, His unwavering faithfulness, and His passionate desire for a pure and exclusive relationship are perfectly realized and eternally secured in Jesus Christ. Jesus, the true and faithful Bridegroom, enters into an unbreakable New Covenant with His church, a relationship founded not on human fidelity (which is prone to failure), but on His perfect sacrifice, His unfailing grace, and His eternal love (Ephesians 5:25-27). The church, as the New Testament Bride of Christ, is likewise called to maintain her "first love," a love that is not merely nostalgic but is continually sustained and empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit, remembering the immeasurable cost of her redemption and the boundless, self-giving love of her Savior (Revelation 2:4-5). Furthermore, the wilderness experience, where Israel was utterly dependent on God for every need, powerfully points to Christ's own forty days in the wilderness, where He perfectly trusted and obeyed the Father, inaugurating a new and perfect way of following God in complete reliance and spiritual victory (Matthew 4:1-11). Through Christ, believers are empowered to follow God faithfully, even in the "unsown lands" or barren seasons of life, knowing that He is the ultimate provision, the perfect guide, and the one who perfectly fulfills the covenant of love, drawing His people into an eternal espousal that will culminate in the glorious marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7-9).