Jeremiah 2:13

Committed two evils, viz. remarkable ones, and with a witness. Living waters; a metaphor taken from springs, called living here, and Genesis 26:19, and elsewhere, because they never cease or intermit; such had God's care and kindness been over and to them; see on Isaiah 58:11; his Spirit continually proceeding from the Father and the Son to refresh their consciences. Compare 1 Thessalonians 4:10, 1 Thessalonians 7:38,39. Cisterns: it is doubled, to show the multitude of their shifts; and broken is added, to show the helplessness of them, as being able to hold no water; but when a man hath made many hard shifts to get water, he cannot keep it, but it dries away; or if it abide, proves unwholesome: by which understand either their idols, which are empty, vain things, that never answer expectation; or the Assyrians and Egyptians, as Jeremiah 2:18, which proved but broken reeds, and as all other supports or props, friends, traditions, merits, &c. are that are trusted to besides God; they are but cisterns at the best, whose water will putrify, or broken, riven vessels, through which they will soak, and leave nothing but mud and dirt behind them.