Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13
Chapter 2
GOD PLEADS WITH ISRAEL TO REPENT
I Am Returning To Confront You
The word of the Lord came to me, saying:“Go and shout this in the hearing of Jerusalem. This is the Lord’s word: I remember your kindness as a youth, the love of your bridal days, when you followed me in the wilderness, through a land not sown.
Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his harvest. All who ate of it had to pay and misfortune fell on them— it is the Lord who speaks.
I brought you to a fertile land to eat of the choicest fruit. As soon as you came, you defiled my land and dishonored my heritage!
The priests did not ask: ‘Where is the Lord?’ The masters of my teaching did not know me; the pastors of my people betrayed me; the prophets followed worthless idols and spoke in the name of Baal.
Be aghast at that, O heavens! Shudder, be utterly appalled— it is the Lord who speaks—
for my people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, to dig for themselves leaking cisterns that hold no water!
Commentaries
I Am Returning To Confront You.
Chapters 2-6 comprise Jeremiah’s first public messages, in which he clearly states the core of his message: the people’s unfaithfulness, the need for purification through punishment, and the call for forgiveness. Jeremiah employs the marriage metaphor (cf. Hos 1-3) to emphasize God’s intimate relationship and love for His people from the very beginning.
The sins of Israel in the desert when they had just left Egypt (Ex 17:1-7; 32; Nm 20:1-13) are not mentioned, unlike in Ezekiel 16. God addresses His people who are already settled in Canaan and calls them to account for having forgotten Him, their Spouse.
The primary temptation for the people in Canaan was to worship the deities and cults of the surrounding peoples, who responded to every aspect of life, including rain, harvests, storms, and fertility. Only later do they realize that the same God who saved them from Egypt is the one who provides everything they need to live, starting with rain (cf. Lv 26:4; Dt 11:14; Job 5:10; Ps 68:9, etc.). Irony highlights the situation of people who abandon the Lord, the “source of living water,” and instead dig “broken cisterns” that cannot hold water… (cf. v. 13).