Jer 3:1-5 | KD | STEP | As a divorced woman who has become another man’s wife cannot return to her first husband, so Judah, after it has turned away to other gods, will not be received again by Jahveh; especially since, in spite of all chastisement, it adheres to its evil ways. Jer 3:1. " He saith, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, can he return to her again? would not such a land be polluted? and thou hast whored with many partners; and wouldst thou return to me? saith Jahveh. Jer 3:2. Lift up thine eyes unto the bare-topped hills and look, where hast thou not been lien with; on the ways thou sattest for them, like an Arab in the desert, and pollutedst the land by thy whoredoms and by thy wickedness . Jer 3:3. And the showers were withheld, and the latter rain came not; but thou hadst the forehead of an harlot woman, wouldst not be ashamed . Jer 3:4. Ay, and from this time forward thou criest to me, My father, the friend of my youth art thou . Jer 3:5. Will he always bear a grudge and keep it up for ever? Behold, thou speakest thus and dost wickedness and carriest it out ." This section is a continuation of the preceding discourse in Jer 2, and forms the conclusion of it. That this is so may be seen from the fact that a new discourse, introduced by a heading of its own, begins with Jer 3:6. The substance of the fifth verse is further evidence in the same direction; for the rejection of Judah by God declared in that verse furnishes the suitable conclusion to the discourse in Jer 2, and briefly shows how the Lord will plead with the people that holds itself blameless ( ). But it is somewhat singular to find the connection made by means of לאמר, which is not translated by the lxx or Syr., and is expressed by Jerome by vulgo dicitur . Ros. would make it, after Rashi, possem dicere , Rashi’s opinion being that it stands for ישׁ לי לימר. In this shape the assumption can hardly be justified. It might be more readily supposed that the infinitive stood in the sense: it is to be said, one may say, it must be affirmed; but there is against this the objection that this use of the infinitive is never found at the beginning of a new train of thought. The only alternative is with Maur. and Hitz. to join לאמר with what precedes, and to make it dependent on the verb מאס in : Jahveh hath rejected those in whom thou trustest, so that thou shalt not prosper with them; for He says: As a wife, after she has been put away from her husband and has been joined to another, cannot be taken back again by her first husband, so art thou thrust away for thy whoredom. The rejection of Judah by God is not, indeed, declared expressis verbis in , but is clearly enough contained there in substance. Besides, "the rejection of the people’s sureties ( ) involves that of the people too" (Hitz.). לאמר, indeed, is not universally used after verbis dicendi alone, but frequently stands after very various antecedent verbs, in which case it must be very variously expressed in English; e.g., in it comes after ישׁמעוּ, they heard: as follows, or these words; in we have it twice, once after the words, he sent messengers to David to say, i.e., and cause them say to him, a second time in the sense of namely; in with the force of: for he said or thought. It is used here in a manner analogous to this: he announces to thee, makes known to thee. - The comparison with the divorced wife is suggested by the law in -4. Here it is forbidden that a man shall take in marriage again his divorced wife after she has been married to another, even although she has been separated from her second husband, or even in the case of the death of the latter; and re-marriage of this kind is called an abomination before the Lord, a thing that makes the land sinful. The question, May he yet return to her? corresponds to the words of the law: her husband may not again (לשׁוּב) take her to be his wife. The making of the land sinful is put by Jer. in stronger words: this land is polluted; making in this an allusion to , , where it is said of similar sins of the flesh that they pollute the land. With "and thou hast whored" comes the application of this law to the people that had by its idolatry broken its marriage vows to its God. זנה is construed with the accus . as in Eze 16:28. רעים, comrades in the sense of paramours; cf. Hos 3:1. רבּים, inasmuch as Israel or Judah had intrigued with the gods of many nations. ושׁוב אלי .snoi is infin. abs ., and the clause is to be taken as a question: and is it to be supposed that thou mayest return to me? The question is marked only by the accent; cf. Ew. §328, a , and Gesen. §131, 4, b . Syr., Targ., Jerome, etc. have taken ושׁוב as imperative: return again to me; but wrongly, since the continuity is destroyed. This argument is not answered by taking ו copul . adversatively with the sig. yet: it is on the contrary strengthened by this arbitrary interpretation. The call to return to God is incompatible with the reference in to the idolatry which is set before the eyes of the people to show it that God has cause to be wroth. "Look but to the bare-topped hills." שׁפים, bald hills and mountains (cf. ), were favoured spots for idolatrous worship; cf. Hos 4:13. When hast not thou let thyself be ravished? i.e., on all sides. For שׁגּלתּ the Masoretes have here and everywhere substituted שׁכּבתּ, see ; Zec 14:2, etc. The word is here used for spiritual ravishment by idolatry; here represented as spiritual fornication. Upon the roads thou sattest, like a prostitute, to entice the passers-by; cf. ; Pro 7:12. This figure corresponds in actual fact to the erection of idolatrous altars at the corners of the streets and at the gates: 2Ki 23:8; Eze 16:25. Like an Arab in the desert, i.e., a Bedouin, who lies in wait for travellers, to plunder them. The Bedouins were known to the ancients, cf. Diod. Sic. 2:48, Plin. Hist. Nat . vi. 28, precisely as they are represented to this day by travellers. - By this idolatrous course Israel desecrated the land. The plural form of the suffix with the singular זנוּת is to be explained by the resemblance borne both in sound and meaning (an abstract) by the termination וּת to the plural ות; cf. , Zep 3:20, and Ew. §259, b . רעתך refers to the moral enormities bound up with idolatry, e.g., the shedding of innocent blood, , Jer 2:35. The shedding of blood is represented as defilement of the land in Num 35:33.

‏ Jeremiah 3:1-5

As a divorced woman who has become another man’s wife cannot return to her first husband, so Judah, after it has turned away to other gods, will not be received again by Jahveh; especially since, in spite of all chastisement, it adheres to its evil ways. Jer 3:1. "He saith, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, can he return to her again? would not such a land be polluted? and thou hast whored with many partners; and wouldst thou return to me? saith Jahveh. Jer 3:2. Lift up thine eyes unto the bare-topped hills and look, where hast thou not been lien with; on the ways thou sattest for them, like an Arab in the desert, and pollutedst the land by thy whoredoms and by thy wickedness. Jer 3:3. And the showers were withheld, and the latter rain came not; but thou hadst the forehead of an harlot woman, wouldst not be ashamed. Jer 3:4. Ay, and from this time forward thou criest to me, My father, the friend of my youth art thou. Jer 3:5. Will he always bear a grudge and keep it up for ever? Behold, thou speakest thus and dost wickedness and carriest it out." This section is a continuation of the preceding discourse in Jer 2, and forms the conclusion of it. That this is so may be seen from the fact that a new discourse, introduced by a heading of its own, begins with Jer 3:6. The substance of the fifth verse is further evidence in the same direction; for the rejection of Judah by God declared in that verse furnishes the suitable conclusion to the discourse in Jer 2, and briefly shows how the Lord will plead with the people that holds itself blameless (Jer 2:35). ^{▼▼The contrary assertion of Ew. and Nägelsb. that these verses do not belong to what precedes, but constitute the beginning of the next discourse (Jer 3-6), rests upon an erroneous view of the train of thought in this discourse. And such meagre support as it obtains involves a violation of usage in interpreting ושׁוב as: yet turn again to me, and needs further the arbitrary critical assertion that the heading in Jer 3:6 : and Jahveh said to me in the days of Josiah, has been put by a copyist in the wrong place, and that it ought to stand before Jer 3:1. - Nor is there any reason for the assumption of J. D. Mich. and Graf, that at Jer 3:1 the text has been mutilated, and that by an oversight ויהי has dropped out; and this assumption also contradicts the fact that Jer 3:1-5 can neither contain nor begin any new prophetic utterance.}

But it is somewhat singular to find the connection made by means of לאמר, which is not translated by the lxx or Syr., and is expressed by Jerome by vulgo dicitur. Ros. would make it, after Rashi, possem dicere, Rashi’s opinion being that it stands for ישׁ לי לימר. In this shape the assumption can hardly be justified. It might be more readily supposed that the infinitive stood in the sense: it is to be said, one may say, it must be affirmed; but there is against this the objection that this use of the infinitive is never found at the beginning of a new train of thought. The only alternative is with Maur. and Hitz. to join לאמר with what precedes, and to make it dependent on the verb מאס in Jer 2:37 : Jahveh hath rejected those in whom thou trustest, so that thou shalt not prosper with them; for He says: As a wife, after she has been put away from her husband and has been joined to another, cannot be taken back again by her first husband, so art thou thrust away for thy whoredom. The rejection of Judah by God is not, indeed, declared expressis verbis in Jer 3:1-5, but is clearly enough contained there in substance. Besides, "the rejection of the people’s sureties (Jer 2:37) involves that of the people too" (Hitz.). לאמר, indeed, is not universally used after verbis dicendi alone, but frequently stands after very various antecedent verbs, in which case it must be very variously expressed in English; e.g., in Jos 22:11 it comes after ישׁמעוּ, they heard: as follows, or these words; in 2Sa 3:12 we have it twice, once after the words, he sent messengers to David to say, i.e., and cause them say to him, a second time in the sense of namely; in 1Sa 27:11 with the force of: for he said or thought. It is used here in a manner analogous to this: he announces to thee, makes known to thee. - The comparison with the divorced wife is suggested by the law in Deu 24:1-4. Here it is forbidden that a man shall take in marriage again his divorced wife after she has been married to another, even although she has been separated from her second husband, or even in the case of the death of the latter; and re-marriage of this kind is called an abomination before the Lord, a thing that makes the land sinful. The question, May he yet return to her? corresponds to the words of the law: her husband may not again (לשׁוּב) take her to be his wife. The making of the land sinful is put by Jer. in stronger words: this land is polluted; making in this an allusion to Lev 18:25, Lev 18:27, where it is said of similar sins of the flesh that they pollute the land.

With "and thou hast whored" comes the application of this law to the people that had by its idolatry broken its marriage vows to its God. זנה is construed with the accus. as in Eze 16:28. רעים, comrades in the sense of paramours; cf. Hos 3:1. רבּים, inasmuch as Israel or Judah had intrigued with the gods of many nations. ושׁוב אלי .snoi is infin. abs., and the clause is to be taken as a question: and is it to be supposed that thou mayest return to me? The question is marked only by the accent; cf. Ew. §328, a, and Gesen. §131, 4, b. Syr., Targ., Jerome, etc. have taken ושׁוב as imperative: return again to me; but wrongly, since the continuity is destroyed. This argument is not answered by taking ו copul. adversatively with the sig. yet: it is on the contrary strengthened by this arbitrary interpretation. The call to return to God is incompatible with the reference in Jer 3:2 to the idolatry which is set before the eyes of the people to show it that God has cause to be wroth. "Look but to the bare-topped hills." שׁפים, bald hills and mountains (cf. Isa 41:18), were favoured spots for idolatrous worship; cf. Hos 4:13. When hast not thou let thyself be ravished? i.e., on all sides. For שׁגּלתּ the Masoretes have here and everywhere substituted שׁכּבתּ, see Deu 28:30; Zec 14:2, etc. The word is here used for spiritual ravishment by idolatry; here represented as spiritual fornication. Upon the roads thou sattest, like a prostitute, to entice the passers-by; cf. Gen 38:14; Pro 7:12. This figure corresponds in actual fact to the erection of idolatrous altars at the corners of the streets and at the gates: 2Ki 23:8; Eze 16:25. Like an Arab in the desert, i.e., a Bedouin, who lies in wait for travellers, to plunder them. The Bedouins were known to the ancients, cf. Diod. Sic. 2:48, Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 28, precisely as they are represented to this day by travellers. - By this idolatrous course Israel desecrated the land. The plural form of the suffix with the singular זנוּת is to be explained by the resemblance borne both in sound and meaning (an abstract) by the termination וּת to the plural ות; cf. Jer 3:8, Zep 3:20, and Ew. §259, b. רעתך refers to the moral enormities bound up with idolatry, e.g., the shedding of innocent blood, Jer 2:30, Jer 2:35. The shedding of blood is represented as defilement of the land in Num 35:33. Jer 3:3

But the idolatrous race was not to be brought to reflection or turned from its evil ways, even when judgment fell upon it. God chastised it by withholding the rain, by drought; cf. Jer 14:1., Amo 4:7. רביבים, rain-showers (Deu 32:2), does not stand for the early rain (יורה), but denotes any fall of rain; and the late rain (shortly before harvest) is mentioned along with it, as in Hos 6:3; Zec 10:1. But affliction made no impression. The people persisted in its sinful courses with unabashed effrontery; cf. Jer 5:3; Eze 3:7. Jer 3:4-5

Henceforward, forsooth, it calls upon its God, and expects that His wrath will abate; but this calling on Him is but lip-service, for it goes on in its sins, amends not its life. הלוא, nonne, has usually the force of a confident assurance, introducing in the form of a question that which is held not to be in the least doubtful. מעתּה, henceforward, the antithesis to מעולם, Jer 2:20, Jer 2:27, is rightly referred by Chr. B. Mich. to the time of the reformation in public worship, begun by Josiah in the twelfth year of his reign, and finally completed in the eighteenth year, 2 Chron 34:3-33. Clearly we cannot suppose a reference to distress and anxiety excited by the drought; since, in Jer 3:3, it is expressly said that this had made no impression on the people. On אבי, cf. Jer 2:27. אלּוּף נערי (cf. Pro 2:17), the familiar friend of my youth, is the dear beloved God, i.e., Jahveh, who has espoused Israel when it was a young nation (Jer 2:2). Of Him it expects that He will not bear a grudge for ever. נטר, guard, then like τηρεῖν, cherish ill-will, keep up, used of anger; see on Lev 19:18; Psa 103:9, etc. A like meaning has ישׁמר, to which אף, iram, is to be supplied from the context; cf. Amo 1:11. - Thus the people speaks, but it does evil. דּבּרתּי, like קראתי in Jer 3:4, is 2nd pers. fem.; see in Jer 2:20. Hitz. connects דּבּרתּי so closely with ותּעשׂי as to make הרעות the object to the former verb also: thou hast spoken and done the evil; but this is plainly contrary to the context. "Thou speakest" refers to the people’s saying quoted in the first half of the verse: Will God be angry for ever? What they do is the contradiction of what they thus say. If the people wishes that God be angry no more, it must give over its evil life. הרעות, not calamity, but misdeeds, as in Jer 2:33. תּוּכל, thou hast managed it, properly mastered, i.e., carried it through; cf. 1Sa 26:25; 1Ki 22:22. The form is 2nd pers. fem., with the fem. ending dropped on account of the Vav consec. at the end of the discourse, cf. Ew. §191, b. So long as this is the behaviour of the people, God cannot withdraw His anger.

CHAP. III. 6-VI. 30. — THE REJECTION OP IMPENITENT ISRAEL.

These four chapters form a lengthy prophetic discourse of the time of Josiah, in which two great truths are developed : that Israel can become a partaker of promised blessing only through conversion to the Lord, and that by perseverance in apostasy it is drawing on itself the judgment of expulsion amongst the heathen. In the first section, Jer 3:6-4:2, we have the fate of the ten tribes displayed to the faithless Judah, and the future reception again and conversion of Israel announced. In the second section, Jer 4:3-31, the call to Judah to repent is brought home to the people by the portrayal of the judgment about to fall upon the kingdom, the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastation of the land. In the third section, chap, 5, a further description is given of the people's persistence in unrighteousness and apostasy. And in the fourth section, chap, 4, the impending judgment and its horrors are yet more fully exhibited to a generation blinded by its self-righteous confidence in the external performance of the sacrificial worship. Eichhorn and Hitz. have separated Jer 3:6-4:2 from what follows as being a separate oracle, on the ground that at Jer 4:3 a new series of oracles begins, extending to Jer 10:25. These oracles, they say, “are composed under the impressions created by an invasion of a northern nation, looked for with dread and come at last in reality;” while they find no trace of this invasion in Jer 3:6-4:2 . This latter section they hold rather to be the completion to Jer 2:1-3:5, seeing that the severe retort (3:5) upon repentant Judah is justified here (3:10) by the statement that this is no true repentance; that the harsh saying : thou hast thyself wrought out thy misfortunes, cannot be the prophet's last word ; and that the final answer to הֲיִנְטֹ֣ר לְעוֹלָ֔ם in ver. 5 is not found before לֹ֥א אֶטּ֖וֹר לְעוֹלָֽם in ver. 12. By Dahler, Umbreit, Neumann, Jer 3. is taken as an independent discourse ; but they hold it to extend to Jer 4:4, because כִּי in iv. 3 cannot introduce a new discourse. The two views are equally untenable. It is impossible that a new discourse should begin with “for thus saith Jahveh ;” and it is as impossible that the threatening of judgment beginning with iv. 5, “declare ye in Jahveh,” should be torn apart, separated from the call : “plow up a new soil ; circumcise the foreskins of your hearts, that my wrath go not forth like fire and burn,” etc. (4:3, 4). Against the separation and for the unity we have arguments in the absence of any heading and of any trace of a new commencement in chap, iv., and in the connection of the subject-matter of all the sections of these chapters. ^{▼▼' By Eosenm. has been justly urged : “Cum inscriptio hic (3, 6) etc. 7, 1, obvia, qua concionis habitæ tempus notatur, tum manifesta omnium partium inde a c. 3, 6, usque ad finem cap. 6 cohærentia, et orationis tenor sine uho interstitio ac novæ concionis signo decurrens.”} We have no ground for the disjunction of one part of the discourse from the other in the fact that in Jer 3:6-4:2 apostate Israel (of the ten tribes) is summoned to return to the Lord, and invited to repentance by the promise of acceptance and rich blessing for those who in penitence return again to God ; while in iv. 3-vi. the devastation of the land and dispersion amongst the heathen are held out as punishment of a people (Judah) persisting in apostasy (see comment, on 3:6 ff.). The supposed connection between the discourse, Jer 3:6-4:2 and Jer 2:1-3:5, is not so close as Hitz. would have it. The relation of Jer 3:6 ff, to Jer 2:1 ff. is not that the prophet desires in Jer 3:6-4:2 to explain or mitigate the harsh utterance in Jer 3:5, because his own heart could not acquiesce in the thought of the utter rejection of his people, and because the wrath of the seer was here calming down again. This opinion and the reference of the threatened judgment in chap, 4-6. to the Scythians are based on unscriptural views of the nature of prophecy. But even if, in accordance with what has been said, these four chapters form one continuous prophetic discourse, yet we are not justified by the character of the whole discourse as a unity in assuming that Jeremiah delivered it publicly in this form before the people at some particular time. Against this tells the indefiniteness of the date given : in the days of Josiah ; and of still greater weight is the transition, which we mark repeated more than once, from the call to repentance and the denunciation of sin, to threatening and description of the judgment about to fall on people and kingdom, city and country; cf. Jer 4:3 with v. 1 and Jer 4:1, 16. From this we can see that the prophet continually begins again afresh, in order to bring more forcibly home to the heart what he has already said. The discourse as we have it is evidently the condensation into one uniform whole of a series of oral addresses which had been delivered by Jeremiah in Josiah's times.

Chap. 3:6-4:2. The rejection and restoration of Israel (of the Ten Tribes).

— Hgstb. speaks of this passage as the announcement of redemption in store for Israel. And he so speaks not without good cause ; for although in Jer 3:6-9 the subject is the rejection of Israel for its backsliding from the Lord, yet this introduction to the discourse is but the historical foundation for the declaration of good news (Jer 3:12-4:2), that rejected Israel will yet return to its God, and have a share in the glory of the Messiah. From the clearly drawn parallel between Israel and Judah in Jer 3:8-11 it is certain that the announcement of Israel's redemption can have no other aim than “to wound Judah.” The contents of the whole discourse maybe summed up in two thoughts: 1. Israel is not to remain alway rejected, as pharisaic Judah imagined ; 2. Judah is not to be alway spared. When Jeremiah entered upon his office Israel had been in exile for 94 years, and all hope for the restoration of the banished people seemed to have vanished. But Judah, instead of taking warning by the judgment that had fallen upon the ten tribes, and instead of seeing in the downfall of the sister people the prognostication of its own, was only confirmed by it in its delusion, and held its own continued existence to be a token that against it, as the people of God, no judgment of wrath could come. This delusion must be destroyed by the announcement of Israel's future reinstatement.