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Commentary on Jeremiah 3 verses 1–5
These verses some make to belong to the sermon in the foregoing chapter, and they open a door of hope to those who receive the conviction of the reproofs we had there; God wounds that he may heal. Now observe here,
I. How basely this people had forsaken God and gone a whoring from him. The charge runs very high here. 1. They had multiplied their idols and their idolatries. To have admitted one strange God among them would have been bad enough, but they were insatiable in their lustings after false worships: Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, Jer 3:1. She had become a common prostitute to idols; not a foolish deity was set up in all the neighbourhood but the Jews would have it quickly. Where was a high place in the country but they had had an idol in it? Jer 3:2. Note, In repentance it is good to make sorrowful reflections upon the particular acts of sin we have been guilty of, and the several places and companies where it has been committed, that we may give glory to God and take shame to ourselves by a particular confession of it. 2. They had sought opportunity for their idolatries, and had sent about to enquire for new gods: In the high - ways hast thou sat for them, as Tamar when she put on the disguise of a harlot (Gen 38:14), and as the foolish woman, that sits to call passengers, who go right on their way, Pro 9:14, Pro 9:15. As the Arabian in the wilderness - the Arabian huckster (so some), that courts customers, or waits for the merchants to get a good bargain and forestal the market - or the Arabian thief (so others), that watches for his prey; so had they waited either to court new gods to come among them (the newer the better, and the more fond they were of them) or to court others to join with them in their idolatries. They were not only sinners, but Satans, not only traitors themselves, but tempters to others. 3. They had grown very impudent in sin. They not only polluted themselves, but their land, with their whoredoms and with their wickedness (Jer 3:2); for it was universal and unpunished, and so became a national sin. And yet (Jer 3:3), "Thou hadst a whore's forehead, a brazen face of thy own. Thou refusedst to be ashamed; thou didst enough to shame thee for ever, and yet wouldst not take shame to thyself." Blushing is the colour of virtue, or at least a relic of it; but those that are past shame (we say) are past hope. Those that have an adulterer's heart, if they indulge that, will come at length to have a whore's forehead, void of all shame and modesty. 4. They abounded in all manner of sin. They polluted the land not only with their whoredoms (that is, their idolatries), but with their wickedness, or malice (Jer 3:2), sins against the second table: for how can we think that those will be true to their neighbour that are false to their God? "Nay (Jer 3:5), thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldst, and wouldst have spoken and done worse if thou hadst known how; thy will was to do it, but thou lackedst opportunity." Note, Those are wicked indeed that sin to the utmost of their power, that never refuse to comply with a temptation because they should not, but because they cannot.
II. How gently God had corrected them for their sins. Instead of raining fire and brimstone upon them, because, like Sodom, they had avowed their sin and had gone after strange gods as Sodom after strange flesh, he only withheld the showers from them, and that only one part of the year: There has been no latter rain, which might serve as an intimation to them of their continual dependence upon God; when they had the former rain, that was no security to them for the latter, but they must still look up to God. But it had not this effect.
III. How justly God might have abandoned them utterly, and refused ever to receive them again, though they should return; this would have been but according to the known rule of divorces, Jer 3:1. They say (it is an adjudged case, nay, it is a case in which the law is very express, and it is what every body knows and speaks of, Deu 24:4), that if a woman be once put away for whoredom, and be joined to another man, her first husband shall never, upon any pretence whatsoever, take her again to be his wife; such playing fast and loose with the marriage-bond would be a horrid profanation of that ordinance and would greatly pollute that land. Observe, What the law says in this case - They say, that is, every one will say, and subscribe to the equity of the law in it; for every man finds something in himself that forbids him to entertain one that is another man's. And in like manner they had reason to expect that God would refuse ever to take them to be his people again, who had not only been joined to one strange god, but had played the harlot with many lovers. If we had to do with a man like ourselves, after such provocations as we have been guilty of, he would be implacable, and we might have despaired of his being reconciled to us.
IV. How graciously he not only invites them, but directs them, to return to him.
1.He encourages them to hope that they shall find favour with him, upon their repentance: "Thou thou hast been bad, yet return again to me," Jer 3:1. This implies a promise that he will receive them: "Return, and thou shalt be welcome." God has not tied himself by the laws which he made for us, nor has he the peevish resentment that men have; he will be more kind to Israel, for the sake of his covenant with them, than ever any injured husband was to an adulterous wife; for in receiving penitents, as much as in any thing, he is God and not man.
2.He therefore kindly expects that they will repent and return to him, and he directs them what to say to him (Jer 3:4): "Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me? Wilt not thou, who hast been in such relation to me, and on whom I have laid such obligations, wilt not thou cry to me? Though thou hast gone a whoring from me, yet, when thou findest the folly of it, surely thou wilt think of returning to me, now at least, now at last, in this thy day. Wilt thou not at this time, nay, wilt thou not from this time and forward, cry unto me? Whatever thou hast said or done hitherto, wilt thou not from this time apply to me? From this time of conviction and correction, now that thou hast been made to see thy sins (Jer 3:2) and to smart for them (Jer 3:3), wilt thou not now forsake them and return to me, saying, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now?" Hos 2:7. Or "from this time that thou hast had so kind an invitation to return, and assurance that thou shalt be well received: will not this grace of God overcome thee? Now that pardon is proclaimed wilt thou not come in and take the benefit of it? Surely thou wilt."
(1.)He expects that they will claim relation to God, as theirs: Wilt thou not cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth? [1.] They will surely come towards him as a father, to beg his pardon for their undutiful behaviour to him (Father, I have sinned) and will hope to find in him the tender compassions of a father towards a returning prodigal. They will come to him as a father, to whom they will make their complaints, and in whom they will put their confidence for relief and succour. They will now own him as their father, and themselves fatherless without him; and therefore, hoping to find mercy with him (as those penitents, Hos 14:3), [2.] They will come to him as the guide of their youth, that is, as their husband, for so that relation is described, Mal 2:14. "Though thou hast gone after many lovers, surely thou wilt at length remember the love of thy espousals, and return to the husband of thy youth." Or it may be taken more generally: "As my Father, thou art the guide of my youth." Youth needs a guide. In our return to God we must thankfully remember that he was the guide of our youth in the way of comfort; and we must faithfully covenant that he shall be our guide henceforward in the way of duty, and that we will follow his guidance, and give up ourselves entirely to it, that in all doubtful cases we will be determined by our religion.
(2.)He expects that they will appeal to the mercy of God and crave the benefit of that mercy (Jer 3:5), that they will reason thus with themselves for their encouragement to return to him: "Will he reserve his anger for ever? Surely he will not, for he has proclaimed his name gracious and merciful." Repenting sinners may encourage themselves with this, that, though God chide, he will not always chide, though he be angry, he will not keep his anger to the end, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion, and may thus plead for reconciliation. Some understand this as describing their hypocrisy, and the impudence of it: "Though thou hast a whore's forehead (Jer 3:3) and art still doing evil as thou canst (Jer 3:5), yet art thou not ever and anon crying to me, My Father?" Even when they were most addicted to idols they pretended a regard to God and his service and kept up the forms of godliness and devotion. It is a shameful thing for men thus to call God father, and yet to do the works of the devil (as the Jews, Joh 8:44), to call him the guide of their youth, and yet give up themselves to walk after the flesh, and to flatter themselves with the expectation that his anger shall have an end, while they are continually treasuring up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath.
Scripture designates the children of adulterers as imperfect. Such a soul, to be sure, that prostrates itself totally to the tendencies of the flesh and bodily desires, has forsaken union with the spirit, and as if turned away from God will shamelessly hear, “You have the face of a harlot. You have made yourself shameless to all.” She will be punished, therefore, like a harlot, and her children will be ordered to be prepared for slaughter.
He has come as a physician, not as a judge. Therefore, in like manner, as those of old took harlots for wives, even so God too married to himself the nature that had played the harlot. This also prophets from the beginning declare to have taken place with respect to the synagogue. But that spouse was ungrateful toward him who had been a husband to her, while on the contrary, the church, when once delivered from the evils received from our ancestors, continued to embrace the Bridegroom.
“You did sit waiting for them like a deserted bird.” Now if God did not exclude from repentance her who had many times committed fornication, much more will he embrace your soul, which has now fallen for the first time. For certainly there is no lover of bodily beauty, even if he be very frantic, who is so inflamed with the love of his mistress as God longs after the salvation of our souls.… See at least, both in the introduction of Jeremiah and many other places of the prophets, when he is despised and scorned, how he again hastens forward and pursues the friendship of those who turn away from him. He also himself made clear in the Gospels saying, “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! The city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”
(Verse 2, 3.) And you have polluted (or killed) the land with your fornications, and in your evils (Alternative: in malice): therefore the drops of rain have been withheld, and the late rain has not come (or you have had many shepherds to stumble). The land has been killed (or polluted), because of the killing of those who perished in idolatrous fornication. Hence the blessing of all things has been taken away, so that they would suffer the drought of the word of God. Whether they had shepherds through whom they offended God, so that those who should have been teachers, to prevent others from error, became authors of impiety.
The forehead of a prostitute has become yours, and you were not ashamed. LXX: The appearance of a prostitute has become yours: you have become without shame towards everyone. Because above (To chapter II, 35) he had said: I have not sinned, and yet he had sinned more by denying his own crimes: therefore now he accuses [you] as if [you were] a shameless and excessively impudent woman: so that [you] do not carry [yourself] with a shameless expression only towards one or two, but [you] are not ashamed before anyone. Let us use this language against the assembly of heretics, who boast in their errors.
(Version 2.) Lift up your eyes and see where you have not fallen. On the roads you were sitting, waiting for them like a robber in the wilderness (or like a deserted raven). For it is written in Hebrew, Arabic, and can also mean Arabs, that this people, devoted to robbery, still raids the borders of Palestine today, and they besiege the roads for those descending from Jerusalem to Jericho: of which the Lord also mentions in the Gospel (Luke 10). So lift up your eyes, O Jerusalem, and look around, and see where you are not laid low by fornication. For just as thieves are accustomed to lay traps for travelers in the evening and in deserted places, so you, sitting by the brothel of Proverbs, were sitting in the streets in the evening, in order to destroy the souls of those who commit fornication. Therefore, the whole land is polluted with your fornications. And significantly, next to these who promise to abandon heretical errors, it is commanded that they lift their eyes straight ahead. For unless they begin to see straight, they cannot condemn their former wickedness.
Those who have experienced the sins of the flesh are to be admonished to observe vigilantly with how great a benevolence God opens the bosom of his pity to us, if after transgressions we return to him. He says through the prophet, “If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him and becomes another man’s, shall he return to her again? Shall not that woman be polluted and contaminated? But you have played the harlot with many lovers. Yet return again to me, says the Lord.” So, concerning the wife who has played the harlot and has deserted, the argument of justice is put forward. Yet to us, returning after the fall, not justice but pity is displayed. Where we are surely meant to gather, how great is our wickedness if we return not, even after transgression, seeing that, when transgressing, we are spared with so great pity. Or what pardon for the wicked will there be from him who, after our sin, ceases not to call us.
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SUMMARY
Jeremiah 3:2 delivers a scathing indictment of Judah's profound and public spiritual infidelity, portraying the nation's widespread idolatry as the brazen promiscuity of an unfaithful wife. The prophet, speaking for God, challenges Judah to observe the ubiquitous nature of their sin, openly practiced on every elevated shrine and along every public thoroughfare, pursued with the eager and shameless abandon of an Arabian bandit or prostitute in the desert. This rampant spiritual "whoredom" and moral "wickedness" had dire consequences, profoundly defiling the very land that Yahweh had graciously entrusted to them.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Jeremiah 3:2 is rich with powerful Imagery and Metaphor. The central Metaphor is that of Judah as an unfaithful wife, committing spiritual "whoredoms" against her divine husband, Yahweh. This extended metaphor runs throughout Jeremiah and other prophetic books, vividly illustrating the covenant relationship as a marriage. The phrase "where thou hast not been lien with" uses a strong sexual Euphemism to underscore the depth and pervasiveness of Judah's spiritual promiscuity. The Simile "as the Arabian in the wilderness" is particularly striking, comparing Judah's eager and public pursuit of idolatry to the shameless and predatory behavior of a desert bandit or a prostitute. This Vivid Language serves to shock the audience and highlight the brazenness of their sin. Furthermore, the concept of "polluting the land" employs Personification, treating the land as something that can be defiled by human actions, emphasizing the tangible and far-reaching consequences of Judah's spiritual infidelity.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Jeremiah 3:2 profoundly illustrates the gravity of spiritual infidelity and the devastating consequences of covenant breach. Theologically, it underscores God's absolute claim on His people's exclusive worship and devotion, a foundational principle of the Mosaic covenant, encapsulated in the First Commandment. Judah's "whoredoms" are not merely ritualistic errors but a deep, personal betrayal of the God who redeemed them. This verse highlights the pervasive nature of sin, demonstrating how idolatry can permeate every aspect of society, from public spaces ("high places," "ways") to the very fabric of the land. It reveals God's righteous anger at such blatant rebellion, yet it also implicitly sets the stage for His persistent call to repentance, demonstrating His long-suffering love even in the face of profound betrayal. The defilement of the land signifies that sin has cosmic implications, impacting not just the individual but the entire created order, foreshadowing the need for a radical spiritual cleansing.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Jeremiah 3:2 serves as a stark mirror for believers today, prompting us to examine the "high places" and "ways" in our own lives where we might be subtly or overtly prioritizing anything over our singular devotion to God. Just as ancient Judah's "whoredoms" were not merely external acts but symptoms of a heart turned away from Yahweh, our spiritual "idolatry" can manifest in misplaced affections, whether for wealth, career, relationships, comfort, or even self-righteousness. This verse challenges us to consider the pervasive nature of sin, reminding us that compromise in one area can quickly spread, polluting our entire spiritual landscape and impacting those around us. It calls for radical self-examination and repentance, urging us to dismantle any "high places" in our hearts where we seek fulfillment apart from God. The call to "lift up thine eyes and see" becomes an invitation to honest introspection, recognizing that our spiritual choices have profound consequences, not only for our personal walk with God but also for the purity and witness of the church and the world we inhabit.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
What are "high places" in the biblical context?
Answer: "High places" (Hebrew: bamah) were elevated sites, often natural hills or constructed platforms, that were frequently used for pagan worship and sacrifices in ancient Near Eastern religions. While some were initially used for legitimate worship of Yahweh, they often became syncretistic sites where the worship of God was mixed with the worship of foreign deities like Baal and Asherah, or exclusively used for idolatrous practices, as condemned in 1 Kings 14:23 and throughout the prophetic books. In Jeremiah 3:2, they symbolize the widespread and public nature of Judah's idolatry and spiritual infidelity.
What does it mean that Judah "hast not been lien with"?
Answer: The phrase "where thou hast not been lien with" uses a strong euphemism for sexual intercourse, implying that Judah had engaged in spiritual infidelity with virtually every pagan deity or cult imaginable. It emphasizes the indiscriminate and pervasive nature of their idolatry, suggesting that there was hardly a "high place" or "way" where they had not committed spiritual "whoredom" against God. This imagery highlights the profound betrayal of their covenant relationship with Yahweh, who was meant to be their exclusive "husband," as seen in Jeremiah 3:1.
Why is Judah compared to "the Arabian in the wilderness"?
Answer: This vivid simile (Hebrew: ʻĂrâbîy in the midbâr) paints a picture of someone eagerly waiting to ambush or solicit. In ancient times, Arabians in the wilderness were often associated with nomadic raiders or bandits who would lie in wait for travelers, or with prostitutes who would openly seek clients. By comparing Judah to "the Arabian in the wilderness," Jeremiah emphasizes the nation's eager, uninhibited, and public pursuit of idolatry. It suggests that Judah was not merely passively drawn into sin but actively and shamelessly sought out illicit spiritual relationships with false gods, much like a predator or a harlot seeks its prey or clients.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Jeremiah 3:2, with its stark portrayal of Judah's spiritual adultery and the resulting defilement, finds its ultimate fulfillment and resolution in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Humanity, like Judah, has consistently played the harlot, turning away from the one true God to worship idols of our own making, whether they be material possessions, self-glory, or false ideologies. This pervasive sin has indeed "polluted the land" and the human heart, creating an insurmountable barrier between God and humanity. However, Christ comes as the faithful Bridegroom, as depicted in Ephesians 5:25-27 and Revelation 19:7, who, unlike unfaithful Israel, perfectly fulfilled the covenant. He did not seek out "other lovers" but remained perfectly devoted to the Father, even to the point of death on the cross. Through His atoning sacrifice, Jesus takes upon Himself the defilement of our "whoredoms" and "wickedness," cleansing us and making us pure, a spotless bride for Himself (2 Corinthians 11:2). The New Covenant, established in His blood, is not based on human faithfulness, which inevitably fails, but on God's unwavering grace and Christ's perfect obedience, offering a true and lasting return to God, where our hearts are transformed from stone to flesh, enabling genuine devotion and purity (Hebrews 8:6-13). Thus, the desperate indictment of Jeremiah 3:2 ultimately points to the glorious redemption offered in Christ, who restores the broken covenant relationship and purifies those who come to Him.