Jeremiah 2:4-8

B. Present Apostasy Jeremiah 2:4-8

TRANSLATION

(4) Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel. (5) This is what the LORD has said: What fault did your fathers find in Me that they went far from Me and have walked after vain things and have themselves become vain? (6) They did not say, Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who guided us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and deep darkness, a land which no man traverses and in which no human being dwells. (7) I brought you unto a Carmel-land to eat of her fruit and her goodness. But you came and polluted My land and My inheritance you made an abomination. (8) The priests did not say, Where is the LORD? They that handle the law do not know Me; the shepherds transgressed against Me; the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after the useless ones.

COMMENTS

Hear the word of the Lord is a characteristic introduction to a prophetic oracle, This formula occurs at least twenty-three times in Jeremiah with slight variation. Note that Jeremiah calls upon all families of the house of Israel to hear his message (Jeremiah 2:4). He apparently regarded Judah as the representative of the entire covenant nation. It may be that the prophet is also addressing the exiles of the northern kingdom as well as some Israelite families who were still left in Samaria. In pointing out the present apostasy of the people Jeremiah makes three points: the apostasy is (1) unjustified (Jeremiah 2:5); (2) ungrateful (Jeremiah 2:6-7) and (3) universal (Jeremiah 2:8).

1. Unjustified apostasy (Jeremiah 2:5)

In verse five God asks a question and that question implies an emphatic negative answer: What fault did your fathers find in Me? There is no reason or fault on God's part which can account for the infidelity of the nation. Yet they have forsaken Him and gone after idols, vain things (lit., a breath, a vapor). With all of its pomp and pageantry idolatry in the eyes of Israel's prophets was mere nothingness, utterly futile, useless and vain. Following after these vain deities, the men of Israel became vain.[131] The thought that men become like the object of their worship can be traced back to Hosea. Concerning the initial apostasy of the nation Hosea declares: They came to Baal-peer, and consecrated themselves unto the shameful thing (i.e., the idol) and became abominable like that which they loved (Hosea 9:10). A man is no better than the god that he worships.

[131] 2 Kings 17:15 uses the same wording as the present verse. Bright sees a word play here: They think that they are following habbaal. The Baal, but in reality they are following hahebel the wind, emptiness.

2. Ungrateful apostasy (Jeremiah 2:6-7)

Once the great apostasy set in, Israel seemed to forget about the God who had led them through the barren desert wastes. The word rendered wilderness in this verse may have the connotation pastureland or it may refer to a barren and inhospitable region. Several phrases are added to the word wilderness to paint a picture of the Sinaitic peninsula through which the Israelites had passed so many years before. It was a land of drought, deserts, and darkness. The word darkness in the Old Testament frequently connotes distress or extreme danger (cf. Psalms 23:4). A trackless desert can be every bit as bewildering as Stygian darkness. But God had brought Israel through that hostile land of pits, holes, rents and fissures in the soil to a beautiful land (Jeremiah 2:7). The Hebrew uses the word Carmel to describe this land. A Carmel-land is a land planted with vines and other choice plants.[132] Bright translates the phrase a land like a garden while Freedman renders it a land of fruitful fields. Yet the Israelites were still unappreciative. They took that holy land that God had consecrated to His own purposes and defiled it by their idolatry. With their pagan rites they made the holy land an abomination to God.

[132] Cf. Jeremiah 4:26; Isaiah 29:17; Isaiah 37:24.

3. Universal apostasy (Jeremiah 2:8)

The apostasy extended even to the political and spiritual leaders of the nation. Even the priests and those who handle, i.e., were skillful in, the law were guilty. One can know the Book but not really know the Lord of the Book! The shepherds[133] or rulers of the nation did not restrain the apostasy but in fact they too transgressed against the Lord. Many prophets began to walk after idol gods and prophesy by Baal. The reference is not to the band of the prophets which appears in 1 Samuel 10:19 or to the sons of the prophets which appear in connection to Elijah and Elisha. The Scriptures no where link these early prophets to Baal worship. Rather the reference is to prophets like those in the court of Ahab who actually had gone over to the cult of Baal (1 Kings 18:19). Since Jeremiah himself was both a priest and a prophet it must have particularly grieved his heart to point out that apostasy had infected both orders. The entire nation had ceased to follow the Lord who brought them to Canaan and had begun to follow useless things, gods which had not done nor could do anything for them.

[133] The term shepherds in the Old Testament generally refers to civil, not spiritual, leaders. See Jeremiah 3:15; Jeremiah 10:21; Jeremiah 22:22; Jeremiah 25:34; Zechariah 10:3; Zechariah 11:5; Zechariah 11:8; Zechariah 11:16; Isaiah 44:28.