Jeremiah 3:2
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“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The foregoing chapter was wholly taken up with reproofs and threatenings against the people of God, for their apostasies from him; but in this chapter gracious invitations and encouragements are given them to return and repent, notwithstanding the multitude and greatness of their provocations, which are here specified, to magnify the mercy of God, and to show that as sin abounded grace did much more abound. Here, I. It is further shown how bad they had been and how well they deserved to be quite abandoned, and yet how ready God was to receive them into his favour upon their repentance (Jer 3:1-5) II. The impenitence of Judah, and their persisting in sin, are aggravated from the judgments of God upon Israel, which they should have taken warning by (Jer 3:6-11). III. Great encouragements are given to these backsliders to return and repent, and promises made of great mercy which God had in store for them, and which he would prepare them for by bringing them home to himself (Jer 3:12-19). IV. The charge renewed against them for their apostasy from God, and the invitation repeated to return and repent, to which are here added the words that are put in their mouth, which they should make use of in their return to God (Jer 3:20-25).
Open source ↗3:2 As the Lord’s bride (see 2:2), Israel was not supposed to commit adultery with other gods.
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
she removed her widow’s garments, covered her face with a veil to disguise herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that although Shelah had grown up, she had not been given to him as a wife.
“For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute.
I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land, and made My inheritance detestable.
Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers— and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD.
“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,
Like a robber she lies in wait and multiplies the faithless among men.
He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines—and his wives turned his heart away.
You took some of your garments and made colorful high places for yourself, and on them you prostituted yourself. Such things should not have happened; never should they have occurred!
Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’