Jeremiah 2:20

The passage opens with what God has done. “For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands” looks back to Egypt and to the deliverance the chapter has already recalled (Jeremiah 2:6). “Of old time” is ʻôwlâm, the distant past. A yoke, ʻôl, is the bar or frame that joins draft animals at the neck, and Scripture uses it for oppression and bondage. The bands, môwçêr, are bonds, and together the two words picture the slavery Israel endured under Pharaoh. God broke (shâbar) the yoke and burst (nâthaq) the bonds, and his people walked out free. The law uses the same picture of the LORD breaking the yoke of Israel’s bondage (Leviticus 26:13).

That freedom was freedom to serve the LORD alone. At Sinai Israel promised to do all that the LORD had spoken (Exodus 24:7), and here God quotes his people back to themselves: “I will not transgress.” The verb ʻâbar means to cross over, and the promise was to stay inside the bounds of the covenant he had given them. They made it after seeing his power with their own eyes, and they made it in public, so breaking it left them without excuse.

“When upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.” Hilltops and shady trees were the usual places of worship for the Canaanite fertility gods, Baal and Asherah, with their sacred poles, their immoral rites and, at the worst, the sacrifice of children. The law told Israel to destroy every such place when they came into the land (Deuteronomy 12:2–4), and Israel took them up. “Every” hill and “every” tree means shrines across the whole land, and Israel went to them all. The KJV renders tsâʻâh as “wanderest”, which pictures her going from one shrine to the next.

“Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed.” The “I” is emphatic in the Hebrew, so God stresses that he did the planting himself. The verb nâṭaʻ means to plant, and Strong’s gives its root sense as to strike in or fix, as a vine is set in the ground. The noble vine, sôrêq, is a choice vine stock, properly one that yields purple grapes, the richest kind, known for the finest wine. “Wholly a right seed” is zera ‘emeth. zera is seed, and ‘emeth is the word for stability, certainty and truth, so the seed was true all the way through. Israel’s beginning came whole and sound from God’s hand when he brought her out of Egypt and settled her in the land.

“How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” The verb hâphak means to turn about or overturn, to change or pervert, and it describes a complete reversal. “Degenerate plant” renders çûwr, something turned aside and gone bad. “Strange vine” is gephen nokrîy. gephen is the ordinary word for a vine, and nokrîy means strange or foreign. It is used of a foreigner, and of a woman it means an adulteress, which fits the harlot of the verse before. A vine like that gives sour and worthless fruit. “Unto me” brings it home: God planted the vine, and this is what grew up before him.

The question “how then” is grief. God speaks as a vinedresser standing over his best vine gone wild and asking how it came to this. He feels the betrayal of his people, and he says so.

“For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.” Nitre, nether in Hebrew, was sodium carbonate, a natural alkaline salt taken from deposits in places such as Egypt. Soap, bôrîyth, was an alkali made from the ashes of certain plants. These were the strongest cleansers anyone had, used for laundry and for washing the body. The verb for washing, kâbaç, is the word for washing clothes, which was done by treading them. So the verse imagines the most thorough washing a person could give, with “much soap” heaped on.

And the stain is still there. Iniquity, ʻâvôn, is perversity or moral evil, sin as something twisted and crooked. The verb behind “marked”, kâtham, has the root sense of carving or engraving, and here it means to be stained. Judah’s iniquity stands before God as a stain that all her washing leaves where it was. “Before me” means in his sight, where everything is seen, and “saith the Lord GOD” seals the verdict as the word of the LORD himself.

The washing stands for every outward effort to be clean: rituals, a good appearance, moral improvement made in our own strength. Judah was cleaning the outside while her heart stayed polluted, and she was trying to justify or hide what she had done. Isaiah calls our own righteousness “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). The cleansing sin needs has to come from God, and Scripture says it comes by blood. Forgiveness requires the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22), and the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). A people who had forsaken “the fountain of living waters” (Jeremiah 2:13) were trying to wash with soap of their own.

Told that her stain stays before God, Judah claims to have none: “How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim?” The verb ṭâmêʼ means to be or become unclean, to be defiled, and it covers uncleanness that comes by contact and by unlawful acts alike. Her worship of other gods had made Judah unclean before God, and she says she is clean.

Baalim is the plural of Baʻal, a common word meaning lord or master, and the name of the Canaanite god of storm and fertility. The plural takes in all his local forms, with their many altars across the land. Going after them broke the first commandment, which forbids any other god before the LORD and any carved image (Exodus 20:3–5). King Josiah, in whose reign (640–609 BC) Jeremiah began to prophesy, led a great reform to tear these things down (2 Kings 23). The prophet’s words show that many hearts stayed unchanged and that pagan worship carried on in secret.

“See thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done.” A valley, gayʼ, was often a hidden place for forbidden worship, and the worst of them was the Valley of Hinnom, where children were sacrificed to Molech (Jeremiah 7:31). God tells Judah to look at her own tracks. He knows what was done there, and the evidence is plain to anyone willing to look honestly.

“A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure.” The wild ass, pereʼ, is the onager, a wild donkey, and Strong’s links the word to a root meaning to run wild. It was a familiar animal of the dry wilderness, fast, fiercely independent and impossible to tame. “Used to the wilderness” means at home there, living by her own will with no master.

“Snuffeth up” is shâʼaph, to draw in the air eagerly, to pant. In her desire she sniffs the wind “at her pleasure”, led only by what she wants, and what she pants after is wind. The picture fits idols well, since they stir up great craving and give nothing to satisfy it.

“In her occasion who can turn her away?” Her occasion, taʼănâh, is her time or opportunity, here her season of heat, when her instinct is too strong for anyone to turn her. “All they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.” The males who want her can save their strength, because in her month she comes to them. Judah goes to her idols of her own accord, and she does it again and again, as surely as the season comes round.

Hosea uses the wild ass for Ephraim as well (Hosea 8:9). Moses foresaw Israel growing fat and kicking against God (Deuteronomy 32:15), Isaiah calls Judah a sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity (Isaiah 1:4), and Jeremiah later speaks of a people with a stubborn and rebellious heart (Jeremiah 5:23).

“Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst.” In the middle of the charges God pleads with his people. Going barefoot was a sign of humiliation, mourning and captivity, the state of prisoners led away from their land, as Isaiah pictures captives led away barefoot (Isaiah 20:4). Thirst stood for hard want, the kind that comes with judgment and exile in a dry land. God is warning Judah off the road that ends there, and calling her back to himself, the fountain of living waters.

“But thou saidst, There is no hope: no.” The verb yâʼash means to give up, to lose heart, to despair. The words could come from a sense of being too far gone to be forgiven, but here they serve as Judah’s excuse, since a hopeless case has no reason to turn back. The second “no” shuts the door hard.

“For I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.” ʼâhab is to love, to feel affection for a person, an object or a practice, and Judah has set her affection on foreign gods. “Strangers” is zûwr, from a root meaning to turn aside, and so to be foreign, strange or profane, a word that can also be used of adultery. The strangers are the foreign gods and their worship, and “after them will I go” is a settled resolve.

God offers a way back, and Judah answers that there is none. That is the irony of the verse, and the prophets answer her despair again and again. Sins as scarlet can be made white (Isaiah 1:18), Israel is called to return to the LORD (Hosea 14:1), the wicked who forsake their way find abundant pardon (Isaiah 55:7), and where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (Romans 5:20).

“As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed.” A thief, gannâb (from gānab, to steal), works by stealth and hopes to stay unseen. When he is found, mâtsâʼ, caught in the act, his plans collapse and his disgrace is public at once. Israel’s secret worship will be exposed in the same way.

The English “ashamed” stands twice in this verse for two Hebrew words. bôsheth is shame, disgrace or confusion, the shame of hopes that come to nothing, and it describes the thief. yâbêsh means to dry up or wither, and also to become weak or to be ashamed, and it describes Israel. In Israel shame meant public disgrace and the loss of honour, and for a nation proud of its covenant with the LORD that was bitter. Their idols would fail them, and the failure would be seen by all.

“They, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets.” Everyone is named. The kings were to uphold justice and God’s law, the princes were the high officials and advisers, the priests were to teach the law and stand between God and the people, and the prophets claimed to speak for God, though many of them were false. Every rank that should have guided the nation shares the shame, and Jeremiah later searches Jerusalem for a righteous man and comes back empty-handed (Jeremiah 5:1–5).

Hidden sin comes to light in the end. All things lie open before the eyes of him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:13), and Paul asks what fruit came from the things we are now ashamed of (Romans 6:21).

“Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth.” The stock, ‘ēṣ, is wood, here a carved wooden image and often an Asherah pole, the sign of the Canaanite mother goddess. The stone, ‘eben, may be a standing pillar, an altar or a carved idol in the worship of Baal. The law forbade them all.

ʼâb, father, is the one a family comes from, its source and head, who protects and provides. yâlad means to bear young, to beget or to give birth. So Judah thanks a piece of wood for her life and calls a stone the one who gave her birth. These titles belong to the living God, who brought Israel into being as a nation and kept her, and Moses warned of a people who would forget the Rock that begat them (Deuteronomy 32:18).

“For they have turned their back unto me, and not their face.” To turn the back is to reject, to show contempt, to walk away. To turn the face to God is to seek him, honour him and walk with him, and the psalmist calls us to seek his face continually (Psalm 105:4). Judah has shown God her back.

“But in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.” When trouble comes, the same people turn round and cry to the LORD. yâshaʻ, to save, has the root sense of being wide or free, and so of being safe, delivered or rescued. Even in their idolatry they know that only the LORD can save. Hosea describes the same pattern, with God waiting until in their affliction they seek him (Hosea 5:15).

God answers their cry with a question: “But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble.” The word for gods, ʼĕlôhîym, is the word used for the true God, plural in form, and read of him as a plural of majesty. Here it names the idols, and the next words say where they came from. ʻâsâh is the broad verb to do or make. Judah made these gods herself, and the God who made Judah asks how they are to save her.

“Let them arise” takes up the people’s own cry. They said “Arise” to the LORD, and he tells them to say it to their idols. The verb is qûwm, to rise up, and gods of wood and stone stay where they are put, so the challenge mocks their stillness. “Save” is yâshaʻ, the same verb as in the cry of verse 27. Saving is the one thing the people want from their gods, and it is the one thing these gods are powerless to do.

“The time of thy trouble” is ʻêth raʻ, a time of evil in the broad sense of raʻ: bad, adversity, affliction, calamity and distress. For Judah it came with the Babylonian invasions of 605, 597 and 586 BC, when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed and the people were taken into exile. These were the curses the law had set before Israel for breaking the covenant (Deuteronomy 28).

“For according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.” Each town had its own god and shrine, so the gods were as many as the towns, and the command to have one God had been set aside across the whole land. Israel’s own confession was that the LORD is one and is to be loved with all the heart (Deuteronomy 6:4–5). Jeremiah comes back to the folly of idols at length (Jeremiah 10:1–16), a psalm says that idols are the work of men’s hands and that those who make them become like them (Psalm 115:3–8), and Isaiah mocks the craftsman who makes a god for himself and ends in shame (Isaiah 44:9–20).

The God who broke Israel’s yoke in Egypt has done a greater work in Christ. He breaks the yoke of sin, so that our old self is crucified with Christ and we are freed from serving sin (Romans 6:6), and Paul tells believers to stand fast in the freedom Christ has won (Galatians 5:1). Jesus offers a yoke of his own, and he calls it easy and its burden light (Matthew 11:28–30). Israel’s promise, “I will not transgress”, failed, and Christ kept the law perfectly. He came to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17), and he was tempted in every way as we are and stayed sinless (Hebrews 4:15). The new covenant Jeremiah himself promised rests on God’s grace, with the law written on the heart and sins remembered no more (Jeremiah 31:31–34, Hebrews 8:8–12), and God gives a new heart and a new spirit so that his people walk in his ways (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

Jesus calls himself “the true vine” (John 15:1). He is the noble vine Israel was planted to be, and those who believe are branches who bear fruit by abiding in him (John 15:5), grafted in by grace (Romans 11:17–24). Their fruit is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), and it comes from union with him.

Where nitre and soap left Judah’s stain in God’s sight, Christ takes sin away. John calls him “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). We are redeemed with his precious blood (1 Peter 1:18–19), God shows himself both just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:25–26), and he saves us by his mercy, through “the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5). Every one of us needs this, for all have sinned (Romans 3:23).

Judah ran like a wild ass and called her case hopeless. Christ came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). He invites the thirsty to come to him and drink (John 7:37), he gives living water that satisfies (John 4:10–14), and on the cross he thirsted himself (John 19:28). Anyone who is in him is a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Christ bore the shame that Israel earned. He redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13), believers are found in his righteousness (Philippians 3:9), and the hope he gives “maketh not ashamed” (Romans 5:5).

Judah called wood her father. Whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father (John 14:9). All things were made by him and hold together in him (Colossians 1:16–17), he is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), the Word made flesh (John 1:14), and the way to the Father (John 14:6). God reconciles us to himself through him (2 Corinthians 5:18–19), so people who turned their backs can turn their faces to God again. Judah’s idols stayed where they were set, and Jesus rose from the dead for our justification (Romans 4:25). He saves his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21), salvation is found in his name alone (Acts 4:12), he has delivered us from the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13–14), and he is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25).

The marriage Israel broke is made whole in him. Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, to present her to himself without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:25–27), and Scripture looks ahead to the marriage of the Lamb and a bride made ready (Revelation 19:7–8).

These verses are a charge against God’s people, and every line of them shows who he is. He remembers what he has done for them, the yoke he broke and the vine he planted. He grieves when they turn, and he asks “how then” as one who loves them. He sees what washing covers and what the valley hides, and he names sin plainly. In the middle of the charge he still pleads with Judah to spare her feet and her throat, and when she says there is no hope, he is the one still holding it out.

The passage also shows what idols are worth. The gods people make for themselves today are usually wealth, success, comfort, pleasure, reputation or their own strength, and the question of verse 28 stands over all of them: when trouble comes, can they arise and save? The LORD alone can, and in Christ he has. He is the Father who gave his people life and the Savior who rose from the dead, and he receives everyone who turns their face back to him.