Comments on Jeremiah 3 Chapter 3 is composed of four polemical arguments, as follows: Land polluted by idolatry (v. 1-5) Backsliding Israel (v. 6-10) Return, O backsliding Israel! (v. 11-18) The past and future of Israel, she returns (v. 19-25) v1-5 These verses can be arranged chiastically as follows: A - 1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? B - but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD. C - 2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; D - and thou hast polluted the land D - with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness. C - 3 Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; B - and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed. 4 Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth? 5 Will he reserve his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? A - Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. The chiasm focuses on the pollution of the land by whoredom, apparently both literal whoredom and spiritual-figurative whoredom as well. v1 The subject here is the Lord refusing to take back an adulterous ex-wife. Just as it would, as a matter of principle, defile the land for people to engage in such behavior, so would it defile the Lord to take back an adulterous wife. The background is Deut. 24:1-4. The land becomes polluted in that the people defile it with their wickedness, the blood of the innocent shed on the ground, cp. Hosea 4:1-4. The land will also be covenant cursed by the Lord so that it becomes unproductive, cf. Lev. 26:20. v2 "been lien with", i.e., laid with, as in "violated". v3 Despite being cursed with drought (a classical covenant curse, cf. Lev. 26:19), the people refuse to repent and even take pride in their sin. v4-5 has the same subject as 2:35. The people say with their lips the Lord is their God, but their walk says otherwise. v6-10 Israel is characterized as backsliding, or rebelling. The text can be arranged in a synonymous parallelism, as follows: A - 6 The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? B - she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. 7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. C - But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. A - 8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. B - 9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. C - 10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD. Again, the subject is idolatry and whoredom. Idolatry is akin to whoredom because when Israel abandons the Lord it is like a wife cheating on her husband, cp. Hosea 1-3. v7, 10 Despite what happened to the Northern Ten Tribes when they were sacked by Assyria, Judah fails to learn from their bad example. v8 "a bill of divorce", here the Northern Ten tribes are presented as being divorced when Isaiah states they are not in Isa. 50:1. The application of such imagery is context specific, and therefore one cannot make broad generalizations about the precise meaning of these metaphors. In this case the divorce indicates Israel went into captivity, but even in v. 11 to 18 is the Lord encouraging them to repent. Then in v. 20-25 Israel's return is predicted. So, the divorce symbolism cannot apply to the covenant relationship between the Lord and Israel as it is used by Isaiah. In this case, it is used in a sense of physical punishment. v9 "lightness", i.e., casualness. "adultery with stones and with stocks", cp. 2:27. v11-18 The Lord reflects on the history of Israel and then compares it with Judah. He judges Judah to be worse than Israel and then summons Israel to return to Him as He will not be angry with them forever (v. 11-12). The Lord asks only that Israel confess her sins (v. 13) and then He will gather them in safely to Zion, one by one if needs be (v. 14). The Lord then predicts the gathering of Israel and the blessed condition of those who do gather in (v. 15-18). v12 "towards the north", this is where the Northern Tribes were scattered to, cp. 1:13-14. v15-18 contains the typical gathering of Israel themes, and is couched in an eschatological setting, cp. Isa. 2:3, Isa. 11:13, Micah 5:4. V19-25 The Lord then recounts the past and future of Israel, and He predicts she will return and confess her sin. This section parallels the theme of v. 11-18. Verses 19-20 recount Israel's past: The Lord gave her the promised land and considered her family (v. 19), but she rebelled (v. 20). However, Israel ultimately heeds the Lord's call to repentance because their perversions have made them miserable (v. 21). The Lord calls out to them to repent and they tell Him they are on their back (v. 22). Israel confesses the Lord is their Salvation and the idolatries of the past are nothing but self-deception (v. 23). They confess idolatry has consumed them and left them destitute (v. 24). And the final confession is the one the Lord wants to hear as requested in v. 13, they are humiliated because of their sins and admit they have ever been so. They confess they have not obeyed the voice of their God (v. 25). v21 "upon the high places", these are the same high places referred top in v. 2. v22 "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backsliding", this is the Lord speaking as in v. 11-14. "Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.", this and v. 23-25 is repentant Israel calling out in reply to the Lord's summons. v24 "shame", the JPS translation footnote states the "Hebrew [is] 'bosheth', a contemptuous substitute for Baal". Copyright © 2002 by S. Kurt Neumiller . All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form or by any means for commercial gain without the express written consent of the author. 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