1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Go and call out in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, Thus said the LORD:
I recalled for you the kindness of your youth,
your coming after Me in the wilderness,
in an unsown land.
3Israel is holy to the LORD,
the first fruits of His harvest.
All who eat it bear guilt,
evil shall come upon them,
said the LORD.
4Listen to the word of the LORD, House of Jacob,
and all the clans of the House of Israel.
5Thus said the LORD:
What wrong did your fathers find in Me
that they grew distant from Me
went after mere breath and turned into mere breath?
6And they did not say, “Where is the LORD,
Who brought us up from the land of Egypt
and led us through the wilderness
in a land of desert and pits,
in a land of parched earth and death’s shadow,
in a land where no man had gone,
and where no human dwelled?”
7And I brought you to a country of farmland
to eat its fruit and its bounty,
and you came and defiled My land
and My estate you made abhorrent.
8The priests did not say, “Where is the LORD?”
And those skilled in the Teaching did not know Me,
and the shepherds rebelled against Me,
and the prophets prophesied for Baal,
and after what cannot avail they went.
9Therefore will I yet dispute with you—
said the LORD—and with the sons of your sons will I dispute.
10For pass through the isles of the Kittites and see,
send out to Kedar and look carefully
and see, has there been the like of this?
11Has a nation given up its gods
though they are ungods?
But My people exchange its Glory
for what cannot avail.
12Be appalled, O heavens, for this,
be shocked, altogether, desolate—
said the LORD.
13For two evils My people has done:
Me they forsook, the source of living waters,
to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns,
that cannot hold the water.
14Is Israel a slave, is he home-born chattel?
Why has he become plunder?
15Lions roar over him,
lift up their cry,
and they have made his land a desolation,
his towns are ravaged with no dweller there.
16The men, too, of Noph and Tahpanes
shall smash your pate.
17Is not this how you fare
for forsaking the LORD your God
when He led you on the way?
18And now, why go in the way of Egypt
to drink the waters of the Nile,
and why go in the way of Assyria
to drink the Euphrates’ waters?
19Let your evil chastise you
and your rebellion reprove you,
and mark and see that it is evil and bitter,
your forsaking the LORD your God.
The fear of Me is not upon you
said the Master, LORD of Armies.
20For of old you broke your yoke,
you tore apart your bands,
and you said, “I will not serve.”
and under every lush tree
21And I, I planted you as a choice vine,
a wholly true seed,
and how have you turned against Me
into a wayward alien vine?
22Though you scrub with natron
and use abundant lye,
your crime is stained before Me,
said the Master, the LORD.
23How can you say, “I was not defiled,
after the Baalim I have not gone”?
know what you have done.
A swift she-camel threading her way,
24a wild ass at home in the wilderness,
sniffing wind in the lust of her appetite,
her desire cannot be turned back.
All who seek her will not tire,
in her season they will find her.
25Keep your feet from walking bare
and your throat from going dry.
“No, I love strangers,
and after them I will go.”
26Like the shame of a thief when he is caught,
thus the house of Israel acted shamefully,
they, their kings, and their nobles,
and their priests, and their prophets.
27They say to a tree, “You are my father,”
and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.”
For they have turned their backs to Me
and not their faces.
And when disaster befalls them, they say,
“Arise and rescue us.”
28And where are your gods that you made for yourself?
Let them rise and rescue when disaster befalls you.
For as the number of your towns
were your gods, O Judah.
29Why do you dispute with Me?
All of you rebelled against Me, said the LORD.
30In vain did I strike your sons,
they did not accept reproval.
Your sword has consumed your prophets
like a ravaging lion.
31O you generation, see the word of the LORD!
Was I a wilderness to Israel,
a land of deep darkness?
Why did My people say, “We have broken loose,
we will no longer come to you”?
32Does a virgin forget her jewels,
a bride her knotted sash?
Yet My people has forgotten Me,
days without number.
33How you make your way fair
to seek love!
Thus, even to wicked women
you have taught your ways.
34In your skirts, as well, is found
the lifeblood of the innocent poor.
Not in a hideout did I find them,
35And you said, “I am innocent.
Why, His wrath has turned back from me.”
I am about to exact judgment from you,
for your saying, “I did not offend.”
36Why do you cheapen yourself so much
By Egypt, too, you shall be shamed
as you were shamed by Assyria.
37For from this you shall come out
with your hands upon your head.
For the LORD spurns the ones you trust,
and you shall not succeed through them.
CHAPTER 2 NOTES
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2. the kindness of your youth. As elsewhere, the Hebrew ḥesed equally implies loyalty in a relationship.
your bridal love. This image of Israel as bride, God as her spouse, later provided a powerful warrant for the allegorical reading of the Song of Songs.
your coming after Me in the wilderness, / in an unsown land. In the interlinear parallelism between this line and the preceding one, we are now given a concretization of the bride Israel’s loyalty and love: she did not hesitate to follow after her divine husband even in the forbidding landscape of the Sinai desert.
3. Israel is holy to the LORD. The Hebrew also suggests something like “dedicated,” “the special possession of.” Having shown her devotion in the wilderness, she becomes “holy to the LORD.”
4. the house of Israel. It is by no means necessary to conclude, as some scholars have, that those words are addressed to the remnants of the northern kingdom of Israel, destroyed a century earlier. With the northern kingdom gone forever, “Israel” began to be an alternative designation for the people of Judah, at least in literary usage. One sees the term used this way in verse 14.
5. went after mere breath and turned into mere breath. “Mere breath,” hevel, the term reiterated in Qohelet, is here a pejorative epithet for foreign gods, who have no real existence. The cognate verb that is coined in this line expresses the idea that those who worship emptiness turn themselves into emptiness.
6. led us through the wilderness. This clause plays back on Israel’s going after God in the wilderness in verse 2.
7. you came and defiled My land. The formulation reflects an understanding that the land belongs to God, Who has bestowed it on the people as a bounty.
8. those skilled in the Teaching. The literal sense is “those who hold on to the Teaching,” but that verb is used for anyone adept at a particular profession or skill.
the shepherds. This is a fixed epithet for “rulers.”
what cannot avail. This is still another epithet for the nonentity of pagan gods.
9. dispute. The verb implies contestation in a court of law.
10. the isles of the Kittites. Many scholars think the reference is to Cyprus, though this may well be a more general invocation of the Greek islands far to the west of the Land of Israel.
send out to Kedar. “Kedar” refers to Arab tribes, and so the line swings broadly from west to east and from sea to land.
11. Has a nation given up its gods / though they are ungods? The prophet here frames an a fortiori argument: in new lands that are known, from west to east, has a people switched gods, even though the gods they worship are not real? Yet Israel has exchanged its own glorious God for a set of illusions.
12. Be appalled, O heavens. The Hebrew strengthens the emphasis through sound-play, shomu shamayim.
13. cisterns, broken cisterns. A cistern hewn in rock is a receptacle for the storage of water (perhaps rainwater) and not a water source or spring that continually flows. Its sides might be plastered but would be subject to cracks and breaks through which the water could leak out.
14. Is Israel a slave. Given the people’s subjugation to foreign powers (“become plunder”), the prophet asks why such a fate should have befallen a freeborn people.
15. Lions. The Hebrew kefirim is the “young lions” of the King James Version, but that is merely part of the translators’ desperate attempt to coin different terms for the five biblical synonyms for “lion.” Presumably, the lions are a metaphor here for the invading foreign armies.
16. Noph and Tahpanes. These are prominent Egyptian cities. Jeremiah follows his predecessor Isaiah in thinking that any alliance with Egypt will in the end prove disastrous.
18. why go in the way of Assyria. We can infer that this prophecy was proclaimed before the final destruction of Assyria in 612 B.C.E. or shortly thereafter, at a moment when some circles in Judah imagined that an alliance with Assyria could save them from the onslaught of the Babylonians.
19. Let your evil chastise you. Some translators understand the noun raʿah here as “misfortune,” but the parallelism with meshuvotayikh, which can only mean “rebellion” or “backsliding,” argues against that construction. What the line rather says is: you have committed yourself to your wayward path, and that will eventually bring upon you dire consequences that may compel you to reflect on what you have done.
it is evil. This phrase picks up on “evil” at the beginning of the verse.
20. on every high hill / and under every lush tree. These are places for worshipping nature gods, often in fertility rites, as the third verset suggests.
you lean back, a whore. Jack R. Lundbom is probably right in proposing that the verb suggests a sexual position. The verset blends literal statement with metaphor: whoring is a recurrent metaphorical representation of idol worship (Israel’s betrayal of her divine spouse), but literal sexual acts were performed in pagan rites in those bucolic settings.
22. natron. This is an English cognate, by way of the Greek, of the Hebrew neter, a sodium carbonate compound used in laundering.
your crime is stained before Me. The image of the stain reverses Isaiah 1:18, “If your offenses be like scarlet, like snow shall they turn white.”
23. after the Baalim I have not gone. This is a pointed antithesis to “your going after Me in the wilderness” in verse 2.
See your way in the valley. Since Antiquity, many interpreters have seen here a reference to the Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem, where child sacrifice was practiced.
23–24. A swift she-camel . . . / a wild ass. The image of idolatrous Israel as a whore is made more extreme now by likening the wayward people to animals in heat.
24. sniffing wind in the lust of her appetite. The female wild ass in heat sniffs for the scent of the male.
All who seek her will not tire. In heat, she is easily accessible to any male that wants to couple with her.
in her season. The literal sense is “in her month.” The Septuagint shows “season,” but that may be merely a translator’s interpretation of “month.”
25. Keep your feet from walking bare / and your throat from going dry. The probable reference is to lubricious Israel (throughout personified as a woman, with feminine grammatical forms used here), who runs barefoot after her lovers and cries out in lust until she is hoarse.
you give up hope. Literally, “you say ‘despair.’”
27. to a tree, “You are my father,” / and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.” Although trees were part of the cult of Asherah, the fertility goddess, and stones were often used for making the images of sundry male gods, the line is guided by grammatical gender—in Hebrew, “tree” is masculine and “stone” feminine.
turned their backs. Literally, “turned their nape.”
30. Your sword has consumed your prophets. One may recall the slaughter of the prophets of YHWH by Ahab, and the murder of prophets by paganizing monarchs probably occurred in later reigns as well.
33. How you make your way fair. Literally, this could be “make your way good” or “do well in your way.” This translation follows Rashi, who understands this as the woman primping and adorning herself in order to attract lovers.
34. the lifeblood of the innocent poor. Remarkably, this is the very first reference in the book to a sin of perpetrating injustice rather than a cultic trespass.
a hideout. This is actually a tunnel dug in order to break into a house.
but upon all of these. The reference is a little obscure. Perhaps the meaning is “all of these skirts,” which would be splattered with the blood of the innocent.
36. to change your way. That is, to change your way from following the God of Israel to going after strange gods.
37. For from this you shall come out. In light of the immediately preceding line, “this” would have to be Egypt.
with your hands upon your head. This is a gesture of despair or mourning.