The opening charge of the prophet to the people occupies these five chapters.
Chap. 2. Nothing can be more affecting than the Lord's appeal as He reminds them, as it were, of plighted troth and consecration to Jehovah at the beginning of their history. (Ver. 1-3.) Was it iniquity in the Lord that their fathers walked after vanity? Were they not willingly ignorant, who felt not His goodness in bringing them out of the furnace of Egypt, through the dreary desert, and into His good land, which they had made defiled and an abomination? (Ver. 4-7.) Nor were the priests, the pastors, or the prophets one whit better, but rather worse, or at least more conspicuous in their sin against Him. (Ver. 8.)
Next, how slow is the Lord to abandon His people, pleading with those before Him then, to their children's children! Go where they pleased—north-west or south-east, to Greeks or to Arabians: they would hear of none so false to their false gods as Israel to the true God. Well might the heavens be amazed and afraid and greatly wasted, at the sight of God's people guilty of two such evils: forsaking Him, the fountain of living waters, to hew them out cisterns, broken cisterns that hold not the waters! (Ver. 9-13.)
And why such exposure to enemies? Was Israel a slave from without or one born at home, that he should suffer the grossest wrong and indignity even from those they most trusted—the sons of Noph and Tahapanes—feeble as they were? Jehovah forsaken was Israel's punishment and shame. What had they to do with drinking of the Egyptian river or of the Assyrian? They must yet learn the bitterness of abandoning the Lord their God. (Ver. 14-19.) Of old they had been set free, and promised obedience, but turned to all licentiousness. God had failed in no case: the fault was their own, their stain indelible. (Ver. 20-22.) Self-righteous were they, yet swift to do evil and irreclaimable, given up to others hopelessly (ver. 23-25), and as palpably as a thief caught in the very act; and this, not the masses only, but their kings, their heads, and their priests, and their prophets, saying to a stock, My father art thou, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth. In their trouble they might turn to God with Arise and save us; but God challenges their gods to arise if they can save them. It was from no lack of number alas! for Judah's gods were as many as their cities. In vain did they excuse themselves. They were all guilty, and far from accepting Jehovah's correction, their own sword had devoured their prophets. (Ver. 26-30.) The prophet closes this appeal on the Lord's part by asking if He had been a desert or land of darkness to Israel that they came no more to Him, forgetting Him unnaturally and continually, and teaching the wicked their ways, and with the most evident blood-guiltiness yet pretending to innocence. And truly it was but a shift of sin. It had been Assyria, it was now Egypt: but shame and sorrow would be the lot of their depraved affections.
Chap. 3 God, however, is nowhere more Himself than in His pitiful mercy to His fallen people. A man could not take back the wife who had deserted him for another. “Israel had committed fornication with many lovers: yet return again to me, saith the Lord.” He points out their frequent and shameless unfaithfulness, calling Him withal the father and guide of their youth. But whatever they said, they persevered in evil-doing. (Ver. 1-5.) Israel's uncleanness was notorious, and God had called her back in vain; but Judah was yet more treacherous, despised the warning with better knowledge, and sinned yet more audaciously. (Ver. 6-11.)
In the face of all the prophet is bid say, “Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: and I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more. At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.” (Ver. 12-18.) It is in vain to refer such language as this to the past. Such interpretations not only mislead as to the drift of the passage itself, but do the far greater damage of enfeebling all scripture in the eyes of those who accept them. For if God can exaggerate or fail as to one point, how can His word be trusted absolutely anywhere else? Apply such a prediction to the future, when, beginning with ever so small a gathering from this or that place, God will bring back His people to Zion, and the new order will far outshine the past, and Jerusalem be His throne, a center for all nations, and the long-divided houses of Judah and Israel be re-united once more and forever, not in another world, or after a mystical sort, but in the land given for an inheritance to their fathers. But it will be no mere external resuscitation of Israel. They will truly repent and cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart. (Ver. 12-19.)
The rest of this chapter (ver. 20-25) resumes the appeal to the conscience of the people; and the prophet replies in their name with a confession of their sins.
Chapter 4 summons the people to return to the Lord, and this in truth of heart, lest His fury break forth and burn like fire. Let the trumpet assemble to the defensed cities; for destruction comes from the north. It is Nebuchadnezzar. “The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant. For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us. And it shall come to pass at that day, saith the Lord, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.” (Ver. 7-9.) Again: “Behold he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.” (Ver. 13.) The prophet next tells Jerusalem plainly that these bitter things befall her for her sins; and then pours out the lamentation of his own anguished heart at the horrors impending over the guilty but beloved city and land. (Ver. 19- 31.)
Chap. 5. Yet was it most just. Righteousness was sought in vain throughout the streets and broadways; profanity was everywhere. And what would be the result under the righteous government of God? “Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.” (Ver. 6.)
How should the Lord pardon Jerusalem for this? Could He reward His own dishonor? Could He sanction the grossest depravity? Nevertheless, the judgment was to be measured, even though they belied the Lord and His chastenings. (Ver. 7-18.)
Nor would it be only desolation and death in the land, but the people should serve strangers in a foreign land, even as they had forsaken Jehovah and served strange gods in their own land. They were revolted and gone in heart already. “Shall I not visit for these things? [recounting their iniquities] saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” is the twofold witness of the prophet. (Ver. 9-29.) People, prophets, priests, loved falsehood together.
Chap. 6. This concluding portion of the charge adds to the terrors of the scene, first, by the call to the Benjamites to quit the doomed city. Zion was but a comely and delicate woman, incapable of defending her neighbors. Next, the prophet commissions the besiegers to come against Jerusalem; and this for universal covetousness and deceit. Such should be the eagerness of her wasters, that neither the heat of noon would delay them, nor the darkness of night, to the deep discouragement of those beleaguered. No: Jerusalem would not be instructed. The word of Jehovah is to them a reproach. Wounds were slightly healed with a “Peace, peace,” where there was none. They would neither go the good old way, nor attend to the warning of new woes. (Ver. 1-17.) “Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.” (Ver. 18, 19.) Their offerings were not acceptable. The northern foe is coming. Let Jerusalem gird herself with sackcloth. But if the Lord makes Jeremiah a fortress, the people are no better than reprobate silver, rejected of Him.
In Rev. 1 John is told to write the things he saw; the things that are—the church-state; and the things which should be after these (i.e., when this church-history closed). The whole Church, therefore, is thus to the Spirit present time—the things that are. The future was what came after—God's dealing with the world.