Jeremiah 2:9-19

C. Penetrating Analysis Jeremiah 2:9-19

TRANSLATION

(9) So yet I present My case against you (oracle of the LORD), and with your children I must contend. (10) For pass over to the isles of Kittim and look! To Kedar send and make serious investigation! See if there was ever the like. (11) Has a nation changed gods (and they are non-gods)? But My people have exchanged their Glory for the useless one. (12) Be appalled, O heavens, at this! Bristle and be exceedingly amazed (oracle of the LORD). (13) For two evils My people have done: Me they have forsaken, a fountain of living water, to hew for themselves cisterns, cracked cisterns which can not contain water. (14) Is Israel a bondman? Is he a house-born slave? Why does he become a prey? (15) Against him the lions roar, they let their voice resound; they have made his land a desolation, his cities are laid waste without inhabitant. (16) Also the children of Noph and Tahpanhes have cracked your skull. (17) Did you not bring this upon yourself in that you forsook the LORD your God when He was leading you in the way? (18) And now, what advantage is it to you to go to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile or what advantage is it to you to go to Assyria to drink of the waters of the River? (19) Your wickedness shall chastise you and your backsliding shall rebuke you. Know and see that bad and bitter is your forsaking the LORD your God, and My fear you do not possess (oracle of the LORD, GOD of host).

COMMENTS

In Jeremiah 2:9-19 the prophet analyzes the present apostasy pointing out (1) the deplorable condition of apostasy (Jeremiah 2:9-13) and (2) the terrible consequences of their backsliding (Jeremiah 2:14-19).

1. The deplorable condition of apostasy (Jeremiah 2:9-13)

As a prosecutor arguing his case before a jury the Lord presents His case against Israel. A technical legal word is actually used in Jeremiah 2:9 which means to plead in a legal sense or present one's case. The you of Jeremiah 2:9 probably refers to the past generation of apostates about whom the prophet has been speaking in Jeremiah 2:4-8. The children's children would be the present generation to which Jeremiah was preaching. Repeated acts of rebellion through the years have called forth repeated reproach and punishment on the part of God.

The prophet argues that the apostasy of Judah is unprecedented in all the history of the world. He challenges his hearers to go westward to Kittim and eastward to Kedar to see if they could uncover another example of a nation which had changed deities (Jeremiah 2:10). Kittim refers to the isles of the Mediterranean (cf. Numbers 24:24; Daniel 11:30) and perhaps also the coastlands of Italy and Greece (cf. Genesis 10:4). Kedar was the name of one of the sons of Ishmael (Genesis 25:13) and is here used of Arabia in general. A pagan nation will not voluntarily change gods even though they have the best reason in the world to do so viz., their gods are nonentities (Jeremiah 2:11). Yet Israel has changed their Glory (God)[134] for the useless one (Baal). When a nation ceases to trust in God that nation has lost its true glory.

[134] The use of Glory for God occurs in Psalms 106:20 and Psalms 3:3. A similar title for God is the Pride of Israel (Amos 8:7; Hosea 5:5).

It is characteristic of the divine lawsuit that God or the prophet calls upon the heavens to bear testimony in the case (e.g., Micah 6:1 f.; Isaiah 1:2). Thus in Jeremiah 2:12 the prophet calls upon the heavens to be appalled, to bristle (lit., make your hair stand on end) and be exceedingly amazed (lit., become stiff with horror) over the sin of Judah. The heavens had looked down upon the original prophetic admonition and warning to Israel (Deuteronomy 32:1). Now they look down upon the willful and reckless transgression of the divine will. Nature which functions in perfect obedience to the will of the Creator is, as it were, horrified at the thought of God's highest creatures rebelling against His will.

Two specific charges are leveled against the people of God in Jeremiah 2:13. They have forsaken the Lord, a fountain of living water,[135] in order to hew out for themselves cisterns. A cistern in antiquity had three fundamental deficiencies: (1) The best cisterns in Palestine, even those cut in solid rock, were prone to crack thus causing the precious water to be lost. (2) Even if by constant care the cistern was made to hold, yet the water collected from clay roofs has the color of weak soapsuds, tastes like the earth and is full of worms.[136] (3) A cistern at its best is limited in the amount of water it can hold. In the hour of greatest need, during the long dry spells, it fails to supply the life-giving water. Who in their right mind would prefer this unwholesome and inadequate water supply to the sweet and wholesome water of a bubbling fountain? Why do men prefer man-made systems of salvation to the over-flowing, ever-fresh and invigorating fountain of divine grace? God satisfies the needs of the whole man both for time and eternity. One who truly drinks at this fountain shall never thirst again (John 4:13).

[135] Jeremiah uses the figure again in Jeremiah 17:13. Many years earlier David had said of the Lord: With you M the fountain of life (Psalms 36:9).

[136] W. M. Thompson, The Land and the Book (London: Nelson, 1873), p. 287.

2. The terrible consequences of apostasy (Jeremiah 2:14-19)

In making the transition from considering the condition of apostasy to pointing out the consequences of apostasy, Jeremiah points to the example of the northern kingdom of Israel. Israel had been dragged away into slavery by the Assyrians. By means of two rhetorical questions the prophet drives home the point that Israel had not been born to be a slave to nations. Israel was in fact a member of the Lord's family, the firstborn son of the Lord (Exodus 4:22). That Israel should be captive in another land is an unnatural state of affairs and demands a reasonable explanation. Why then has Israel become a prey to the nations, helpless to resist the advances of neighboring states? (Jeremiah 2:13). Israel's enemies like lions have roared against God's people, have made the land a desolation and laid waste the cities (Jeremiah 2:14). Why?

From Israel in the north Jeremiah turns his attention to Judah in Jeremiah 2:16. The verse is best regarded as a prediction written as though it has already been fulfilled.[137] The translation cracked your skull is based on a slight alternation in the Hebrew vowel points which, in effect, the American Standard Version has also followed. Noph and Tahpanhes are important Egyptian cities, the latter being a fortress commanding the road to Palestine (Jeremiah 44:1; Jeremiah 46:15). The prophecy then is that Judah will receive a mortal blow at the hands of Egypt. The fulfillment is to be found in the defeat of Josiah at Megiddo and the consequent subjugation of Judah (2 Kings 23:29).[138] Unable to learn from the fate of the northern kingdom, Judah was doomed to repeat that fate.

[137] The Hebrew language has no past, present and future tenses as does English. Hebrew is concerned only with whether a certain action is complete or incomplete. In English translations predictive prophecy has often been obscured by past tense.
[138] Some would date these verses after 609 B.C. and since the passage is not dated, this possibility cannot be ruled out.

Now why had Israel suffered? Why was Judah yet to suffer? You have brought it upon yourself, says the prophet. From the time of the wilderness wanderings to the present they had refused to follow the leading of the Lord (Jeremiah 2:17). Having turned from the Fountain of Living Water Judah was drinking desperately from the waters of the Nile and from the River, i.e., the Euphrates[139] in Assyria (Jeremiah 2:18). These broken cisterns could not provide the life-giving water the nation needed. In the view of Jeremiah there was no advantage whatsoever for Judah to become entangled in international politics.[140] The historical books of the Old Testament bear witness to the fact that Israel's vacillation between Egypt and Assyria proved disastrous. Since they had forsaken the Lord and no longer feared Him they were doomed to chastisement and punishment at the hands of their enemies (Jeremiah 2:19). Through the depths of their suffering they would come to realize how heinous was their crime against God. They had sowed the wind and they were about to reap the whirlwind.

[139] The Euphrates river was regarded as the boundary between Syria-Palestine and Assyria. Genesis 15:18 points to the fact that the River is the Euphrates.

[140] Isaiah (Isaiah 30:2-5; Jeremiah 31:1) and Hosea (Hosea 7:11; Hosea 7:16) had already in veighed against an Egyptian alliance.