Jeremiah 2:36

Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria. GADDEST - runnest to and fro, now seeking help from Assyria (as Ahaz did, ), now from Egypt ()....

The Prophet goes on with the same subject. He had said before that the people were like an unfaithful wife, who having left her husband rambles here and there to gratify her lusts. For this view he now gives the reason; for he might have appeared to treat the people too severely, had not the fact been pointed out as it were by the finger; and this he does now. He says, that they ran here and there, not in a common manner, but in a way to render evident their shameful levity, such as is seen in strumpets, who without any shame seek either adulterers or fornicators. But I have already briefly shewn what the Prophet means: When any danger was nigh, the Jews sought aid, now in Egypt, then in Assyria. Yet they knew that this was forbidden them; not that it was in itself an evil or a bad thing to seek help from neighbors; but because it was God’s will that the safety and security of that peopl...

29-37 The nation had not been wrought upon by the judgements of God, but sought to justify themselves. The world is, to those who make it their home and their portion, a wilderness and a land of darkness; but those who dwell in God, have the lines fallen to them in pleasant places. Here is the language of presumptuous sinners. The Jews had long thrown off serious thoughts of God. How many days of our lives pass without suitable remembrance of him! The Lord was displeased with their confidences, and would not prosper them therein. Men employ all their ingenuity, but cannot find happiness in the way of sin, or excuse for it. They may shift from one sin to another, but none ever hardened himself against God, or turned from him, and prospered....

Verse Jeremiah 2:36. _WHY GADDEST THOU ABOUT_] When they had departed from the Lord, they sought foreign alliances for support. 1. The _Assyrians_, 2 Chronicles 28:13; but they injured instead of helping them. 2. The _Egyptians_: but in this they were utterly disappointed, and were ashamed of their confidence. See Jeremiah 37:7, for the fulfilment of this prediction....

TO CHANGE THY WAY - The rival parties at Jerusalem looked one to Assyria, the other to Egypt, for safety. As one or other for the time prevailed, the nation “changed its way,” sending its embassies now eastward to Nineveh, now westward to Memphis. THOU ALSO ... - literally, also of Egypt “shalt thou be ashamed.” This was literally fulfilled by the failure of the attempt to raise the siege of Jerusalem Jeremiah 37:5....

EXPOSITION The second chapter forms the introduction of a group of discourses (Jeremiah 2-6), which should be read together. It is called By Ewald (and the position of the prophecy favors this view) the first oracle which Jeremiah delivered in public ("oracle" is, in fact, the nearest English equivalent to those two remarkable Hebrew synonyms, _massa_ and _neum_—especially for the latter). This would bring it into the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (see Jeremiah 1:3), though of course we cannot be sure that references to a later period may not have been inserted afterwards. It is, obviously, only a summary of the prophet's spoken words which we have in this most impressive discourse. In order to appreciate it, we must bear in mind the external political relations and the internal religions condition of the kingdom of Judah. These have Been already touched

WHY GADDEST THOU ABOUT SO MUCH TO CHANGE THY WAY?.... Or, "by changing thy way" t; sometimes going one way, and sometimes another; sometimes to Egypt, and then to Assyria; seeking sometimes to the one for help, and sometimes to the other; at one time serving the gods of the one, in order to curry favour with them, and then the gods of the other, like a lascivious woman that gads about from place to place to increase her lovers, and satisfy her lust. The Vulgate Latin version is, "how exceeding vile art thou become, changing thy ways"; and so Jarchi says, the word תזלי signifies "contempt", or "vileness": deriving it from זול, or זלל, to be "vile" or "contemptible"; and to this sense are the Septuagint and Arabic versions; but Kimchi derives it from אזל, to go; to which our version and others agree: THOU ALSO SHALT BE ASHAMED OF EGYPT; as they were in the times of Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim,...

Jeremiah 2:20. For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot. Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD. How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways; A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her. Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst:...

CHAPTER S 2:1-3:5 Expostulation and Impeachment _ 1. His love and kindness to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 2:1) _ 2. The unfaithful people (Jeremiah 2:4) 3. The two evils and the results (Jeremiah 2:12) 4. Impeachment (Jeremiah 2:19) 5. Expostulation (Jeremiah 2:31) 6. Jehovah waiting to show mercy (Jeremiah 3:1) Jeremiah 2

THE DESERVED PUNISHMENT. Israel's sorrows are well deserved, for Yahweh's love has been forgotten. In spite of wrong-doing, there is no penitence for sin. The help of Egypt will be as futile as that of Assyria. Jeremiah 2:29. plead: complain. Jeremiah 2:30. For YOUR OWN read the with LXX. Jeremiah 2:32. attire: properly sash (Isaiah 3:20, RV). Jeremiah 2:33. trimmest: lit. makest good, _i.e._ pickest. WICKED WOMEN: better, evil things, same word as in...