Israel’s unfaithfulness, God’s continuing love
3
📚“They say, ‘If a man divorces 📖his wife,
and she goes away from him and becomes
another man’s, may he return
to her again?
Would not the land be greatly polluted 📖?
But you have been the prostitute 📖
with many lovers;
yet return to me again”,
says the LORD.
2 📚“Lift up your eyes to the barren
high places and look.
Where have you not been ravished?
By the roads you sat for them,
like an Arabian in the desert,
and you have polluted the land
with your prostitution and
your wickedness.
3 📚Therefore the showers have been
withheld,
and there has been no latter rain,
for you had a prostitute’s forehead,
you refused to be ashamed.
3:3 God punished them by causing drought in the land, but this did not produce the desired result.⚜
4 📚Even at this time did you not cry
out to me,
‘My father, you are the guide
of my youth?
5 📚Will he remain angry forever?
Will he maintain it to the end?’
See, you have said this,
3:4-5 Their prayers were mere empty words. Their hearts were set on evil. They called God “Father” but lived as if Satan were their father. So their prayers went unanswered (Isa 1:15-17; Prov 28:9; Jam 4:3-4).⚜
and done what evil you could”.
6 📚The LORD also said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there has behaved like a prostitute. 7 📚And after she had done all these things, I said, Return to me. But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 📚And when, for all the causes backsliding Israel committed adultery, I had put her away, and given her a certificate of divorce, I saw that her treacherous sister Judah had no fear, but also went and behaved like a prostitute. 9 📚And it happened through her thoughtless prostitution, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and wood.
3:6-9 About 930 BC, long before the days of King Josiah, the people of Israel had divided into two kingdoms (1 Kings 12). From the beginning the northern kingdom (called Israel) went into spiritual adultery and apostasy and refused to repent. Jehovah God “divorced” Israel and sent her into captivity in 721 BC. The history of all this is recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles. The southern kingdom (Judah) saw all this but did not learn its lesson. “Stones and wood” (v 9) – idols made of these.⚜
10 📚And in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the LORD”.
3:10 There was a revival of religion in King Josiah’s day, but it evidently did not go very deep into the lives of the people. There was much pretense and hypocrisy.⚜
11 📚And the LORD said to me, “Backsliding Israel is less unrighteous than treacherous Judah.
3:11 Judah had the example of God’s dealings with Israel to learn a lesson. It also had more teaching of the truth, God’s temple, and better kings on the whole than Israel. So by comparison they were worse than Israel. Greater opportunities to know God’s truth means greater responsibilities to practice it.⚜
12 📚Go and proclaim these words toward the north 📖, and say:
“Return, backsliding Israel,
says the LORD,
and I will not cause my anger
to fall on you;
for I am merciful 📖,
says the LORD,
and I will not remain
angry forever.
13 📚Only acknowledge your guilt,
that you have transgressed against
the LORD your God,
and have scattered your favours
to foreigners under every green tree,
and have not obeyed my voice,
says the LORD.
3:13 If they desire forgiveness they must understand, confess, and forsake their sin (Prov 28:13).⚜
14 📚“Return, O backsliding children,
says the LORD, for I am married to you 📖.
And I will take you, one from a city,
and two 📖 of a family,
and I will bring you to Zion.
15 📚And I will give you shepherds
after my heart,
who will feed you with knowledge
and understanding.
3:15 Shepherds after God’s heart instead of the kind they had before (compare Jer 2:8).⚜
16 📚And it will come about in those days, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, says the LORD, they will no longer say 📖, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD’, nor will it come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they visit it, nor will it be made again.
3:16 This is the last mention in the Old Testament of the ark of the covenant (note at Ex 25:10-16).⚜
17 📚At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The Throne of the LORD’, and all the nations 📖 will be gathered to it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem; neither will they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart.
3:17 Does this not still await fulfillment? See note at Isa 2:2-4. Certainly Israel to this day follows the stubbornness of their evil hearts.⚜
18 📚In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given as an inheritance to your fathers.
3:16-18 Jehovah God speaks here of a time far in the future. A time not yet come, for some of the predictions here remain unfulfilled.⚜
19 📚“But I said, How can I put you
among the children,
and give you a pleasant land,
the most beautiful inheritance of nations?
and I said, You will call me,
‘My father’ and will not turn
away from me.
20 📚Surely as a wife treacherously
departs from her husband,
so have you dealt treacherously with me,
O house of Israel, says the LORD”.
3:19-20 As “sons” Israel had been disobedient; as a “wife” she had been unfaithful to God.⚜
21 📚A voice was heard on the high places,
the weeping and pleading
of the children of Israel;
for they have perverted their way,
and they have forgotten
the LORD their God.
3:21 Suggests the beginning of repentance.⚜
22 📚“Return, you backsliding children,
and I will heal your backslidings”.
See, we come to you, for you are
the LORD our God.
3:22 Here is a wonderful promise for backsliders. God promised not merely to receive them but to heal them – Deut 32:19; Ps 41:4; Isa 57:18; Jer 30:17; 33:6; Hos 6:1; 14:1, 4. Healing of the sickness of sin is the greatest of all healing. From the middle of this verse to the end of v 25 we have words that express the future confession and repentance of Israel. Neither Israel nor Judah spoke such words in Jeremiah’s day. Words like these spoken sincerely are the beginning of the healing God promises.⚜
23 📚Truly in vain is salvation hoped for
from the hills,
and from the many mountains.
Truly in the LORD our God is
the salvation of Israel.
24 📚For the thing of shame 📖 has devoured
the labour of our fathers
from our youth,
their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.
25 📚We lie down in our shame,
and our disgrace covers us,
for we have sinned against the LORD
our God,
we and our fathers,
from our youth up to this day,
and have not obeyed the voice
of the LORD our God.
3:25 True enlightenment and the work of God in our hearts will bring us also to this sort of confession. And this is the way to peace with God (see Psalms 32 and 51).⚜