A study in jeremiah chapter 2

In A Study in Jeremiah Chapter 2, God gave Jeremiah a specific message to take to the people of Jerusalem.  God reminded them how passionate they were in their love for God in the beginning, only to forget Him later.

1 ¶  Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

2  Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.

1. Again, Jeremiah makes it clear that this is the clear word of Jehovah. If it was not the word of the LORD, Jeremiah would be a false prophet.
2. God declared that he hadn’t forgotten that they used to love him.
   1. Cry in their ear – speak to those in Jerusalem with passion. God wanted Jerusalem to remember the way they loved Him in the wilderness, albeit imperfectly, but also zealously.
      1. Their time in the wilderness was early in the history of Israel. They were a young nation, formed by the promise of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
      2. As they came out of Egypt, the land of their captivity, God began to form them into a nation as they travelled through the wilderness under the leadership of Moses.
   2. Moses loved the LORD and was faithful and zealous to obey Him in all matters. Hebrews 3:2 tells us that Moses was faithful in all his house.  He loved God and therefore greatly desired to obey Him in all things.
      1. Under the leadership of Moses, the people also loved God and promised to obey God’s laws (Exodus 19:7,8) and they built the Tabernacle (Exodus 36:1-7). They judged the rebels righteously (Numbers 25:7-13).  They repented and submitted to God when he required them to remain in the wilderness for 40 years, they kept the sabbath and feasts, followed the pillar of fire, accepted God’s choice of Joshua as their leader after Moses died, and followed Joshua in to battle to conquer the Canaanites at God’s command.

3  Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.

1. Israel was holiness unto the LORD – they weren’t holy on their own, but they were holy, or chosen by God, set apart from the other nations as God’s special people.
2. Israel was the firstfruits of God’s increase, the firstfruits in God’s eternal plan to redeem mankind.
   1. God brought the scriptures through Israel (Romans 3:1,2) and the Messiah, our Saviour, Jesus Christ (Romans 9:5).
3. God sees Israel through His plan of redemption, even in their rebellious state, which continues to this day.
   1. All who stand against Israel, who try to steal the land or destroy them will themselves suffer evil. This has always been so.  This is why Balaam could not curse Israel (Numbers 23:8,20)
      1. God has given a great warning to the world regarding Israel, beginning with the patriarch, Abraham: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 12:3
      2. And again in Jeremiah 30:16 “Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey.”

4  Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel:

5  Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

1. Now God speaks to Israel, first called Jacob. Israel is the house of Jacob.  Jacob, whom God later named Israel, and his twelve sons, inherited the covenant God made with Abraham.  Isaac, Jacob’s father, first inherited the covenant from Abraham, his father.  Jacob inherited the covenant from Isaac, and later God called him Israel. Thus the “house of Jacob” is Jacob, aka Israel, and his twelve sons.
   1. David affirmed that the Abrahamic covenant had passed to Jacob and his sons: “Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; Even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance; When ye were but few, even a few, and strangers in it.” 1 Chronicles 16:15-19
      1. Those who try to say, today, that the land of Israel does not belong to them are contradicting the word of God.
   2. God directed his word to all of Israel, then asked the question, “What iniquity (sin) have your fathers found in me, that they have rejected me, chased after nothing, and now are themselves completely empty?”
      1. What a question! There is no iniquity in God, at all, only holiness, righteousness and goodness.  Yet men continue, even today, to find fault with God.  But is man’s own sin that has brought all the sorrow and corruption into this world.  People reject God and if they are pressed, will often, rather than outright denying his existence, rail against him for all the evil that is in this world.  But all the evil that is in this world is the result of sin, which began with the first man and has never stopped.
      2. “They are gone far from me” God did not abandon Israel.  They abandoned him!
         1. Instead of worshiping God, they chased after false gods, vanity.
         2. They became vain; they actually thought they were in the land by their own might and minds, which is exactly the state modern Israel is in, today.

6  Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?

1. Where is the LORD? Israel turned away from God. They didn’t wonder where God was, because they were simply ignoring him.
   1. They were not considering how they came from being slaves in Egypt to being a thriving nation in the Land of Canaan.
   2. They were not considering who brought them through all the dangers of that arid wilderness as God brought them through.

7  And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.

1. God brought them into a “land flowing with milk and honey,” but they rejected him and defiled the land with hideous idolatry. Anything that does not put God first is idolatry.

8  The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.

1. What an astonishing fact! The priests were the men whose office was to stand before God for the people.  They were to  “handle the law.”  They were to study the law, safeguard the law (Deuteronomy 17:18), teach the law (Leviticus 10:11), and judge the people according to the law  (Deuteronomy 17:9; 21:5). Yet even in the midst of such a holy profession, they forgot God.
   1. Yet this is going on in many churches, today. Many modern pastors have done the same thing. They are supposed to be preaching the pure word of God, but instead, they are preaching for their own purpose and for their own gain.
2. The pastors referred to here are not pastors in the sense of a church pastor, but civil leaders, or shepherds (pastors), of the people. They disobeyed God by cheating and otherwise mistreating people (Leviticus 19:35; Deuteronomy 25:14,15; Proverbs 11:1; 20:10,23).
   1. They did not fear God, but instead, sinned against God by using their positions of leadership and power to steal from those whom they were charged with protecting.
3. The prophets were supposed to be proclaiming the word of God. Instead, they prophesied by Baal, the false god of the Phoenicians.  The power of Baal came from the devil: evil spirits, or demons, just as the power of modern psychics is from demons.
4. They walked after things that do not profit. Everything that is not of God is vanity.  It may appear to have value for a time in this world, but it has no eternal value.  Even worse, the things that are chosen for gain instead of God are not only not profitable, but they are cursed.

9 ¶  Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children’s children will I plead.

1. God again showed his mercy. To plead, as the word is intended here, is from a Hebrew word meaning to enter into controversy. It is to plead your cause (1Samuel 24:15). It is to debate (Proverbs 25:9). It is to plead as a judge (Isaiah 3:13).
   1. God was about to plead his case against Israel, to expose their errors, to reprove them, to review the charges against them. He would speak as a righteous judge, to justify the judgments coming against them.  God is righteous in the way he deals with sinners.
   2. But God also showed mercy by showing Israel their grievous error and calling them to repentance. God pleaded with Israel by the prophets, through Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, but also with the prophets after the 70 year captivity, and again by his own Son Jesus Christ.  He pleaded with Israel by the Apostles of the early church, and will again plead with them during Daniel’s 70^th week, the Tribulation Period, by the evangelists and prophets he will send them then.
      1. God is very merciful.

10  For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.

11  Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.

1. God told Israel to go to Chittim, the island of Cyprus, and to Kedar, the tribes of northern Arabia, to see if any of them changed their false gods for other false gods.
   1. God told them to consider diligently, to very carefully go throughout all these lands and see if any of those pagan nations had ever changed their false gods.
   2. He asked them, “Has a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?” This was clearly a rhetorical question.  None of the pagan nations had ever changed any of their false gods for other false Gods.  Yet Israel God’s own people, had traded their glory, the glory of the one and only true and almighty God, for idols made with hands.
      1. What an indictment! Yet how many, today, who claim Christ as their Saviour, are putting something else ahead of God?  That is the same as putting something in place of God.  When we are faced with a choice between putting God first and putting something else first, we must choose God, or we are putting an idol in his place.

12  Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.

1. For the people whose God led them out of slavery through a wilderness and into a land of their own with many mighty works and signs, this was inexcusable.

13  For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. 

1. For Israel to forsake the source of their prosperity and greatness was inexcusable, a great evil. When God calls something a great evil, it is a great evil.  It is not a matter of what people thing of what God says or what people like or dislike.  Many people claiming Christ as their Saviour, today, are also denying God’s word, because they don’t like it.  But the Bible says, “For what if some did not believe?  Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?  God forbid:  yea, let God be true, but every man a liar;  as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in they sayings, and mightest over come when thou are judged.”  Romans 3:3,4

14 ¶  Is Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave? why is he spoiled?

1. Israel was God’s freeborn child. “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:”  Exodus 4:22
   1. God was warning Judah to consider what had already happened to Israel, the northern part of the kingdom that was divided after Solomon’s son ascended to the throne.

15  The young lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste: his cities are burned without inhabitant.

16  Also the children of Noph and Tahapanes have broken the crown of thy head.

1. The lions of Assyria and Egypt spoiled and enslaved Israel.
   1. Noph and Tahapanes were the chief cities of Egypt. Noph, mentioned in Ezekiel 30:13, is Memphis, now called Cairo, which was the capital of Middle Egypt.  It was the stronghold of idols or “dunghill gods,” as described in the language of Ezekiel.
      18. Tahapanes, or Tehaphnehes was another great city in Egypt, mentioned in Ezekiel 30:18. It was a major royal city, and the one to which many of the Jews fled, after being forbidden by God in Jeremiah 44.

17  Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way?

1. God now asks them if they can see the fact that they have brought this judgment on themselves.
   1. The had forsaken God, even when God was leading them, providing for them and keeping them safe.
      1. To forsake means to abandon or reject. They had rejected God.
      2. God allows human being to make our own choices, but when we choose to do things our way, rather than God’s, we will reap the consequences. They are brought on ourselves.

18  And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?

1. Even though they had the fairly recent history of northern Israel’s bad experience when they trusted Egypt for aid against Assyria.
   1. The Assyrians, under Tiglath-Pileser III and later his son, Shalmaneser, conquered and removed most of the ten northern tribes from the land. Shalmaneser finished what his father had begun, when he found out Hoshea, king of Israel, had broken their treaty and made and alliance with Egypt.
   2. But Judah continued to look to pagan nations such as Egypt and Assyria for help, rather than to God.
      1. Sihor was a branch of the Nile River, while the waters of the river in the north in Assyria were the Tigris and Euphrates. Little, in fact, did Israel realize that Assyria was soon to be overthrown by Nabopolassar, king of Babylon and father of Nebuchadnezzar.  Furthermore, Babylon would also have great success over Egypt, but that would come after Jerusalem was sacked by Nebuchadnezzar.
         1. Note: After most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem were taken captive to Babylon, most of those who remained would to flee to Egypt for safety, taking Jeremiah with them, even though they would be told not to.  Nebuchadnezzar attacked and subdued Egypt not long after that.

19  Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee:

1. “…the way of transgressors is” Proverbs 13:15  “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways…”  Proverbs 14:14
   • God says that their own wickedness would correct them. Backsliders and rule breakers are constantly corrected.  This is the long history of Israel, from the very time that God called them by his prophet, Moses.
     1. Israel has suffered terribly throughout the centuries, more than any other nation, yet even today, they still have not repented. The evil they suffered at the hands of the Babylonians and later the Nazis will pale in comparison to the suffering that is yet to come, but the remnant will finally repent at the end of the Tribulation Period.  “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob”  Romans 11:26
     2. God has used the consequences of backsliding Israel as an example to show the folly of rebelling against God. He is using their backsliding to save a remnant the rest of the world, the Gentiles, during the church age.

1. know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
   • It is an evil and bitter thing to reject God. Sin is evil and separates all men from God, naturally.  But it is very evil and bitter to reject and forsake God when you have the very oracles of God, as the Jews did, or if you have rejected God after hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is evil and bitter, absolutely deadly poison, to reject God.  “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.”  Hebrews 2:1

20 ¶  For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.

1. God freed them from slavery in Egypt. Then he offered them something he has offered no other people – the opportunity to enter into a covenant with him in which he would bless them beyond anything any other people have ever or will ever experience here on earth.
   • The Benefits:
     1. They would never go hungry, but would have great abundance.
     2. Their enemies would not harm them or even attack them – they would live in peace.
     3. They would all be healthy, their animals would all be healthy; no sickness would be found in their land in animal, human, or even the plant life.
   • The Conditions:
     1. In order to receive all the benefits, God required them to obey him.
     2. God warned them of very serious consequences if they broke the agreement by sinning. If they accepted his terms and entered voluntarily into this agreement, then broke it, they would suffer more than any other nation on earth.
   • The people quickly accepted God’s terms and entered into the agreement.
     1. The majority, as quickly became apparent, were guided by the flesh and only paid attention to the benefits. Their only thought was about how fat, lazy and fun-filled their lives would be.
        13. The people quickly transgressed (sinned, broke their word), by sinning in even the worst imaginable ways. They joined with the pagan nations around them in idolatry and the abominable religious practices of those people. After entering the land God promised them, the land of Canaan,  Israel set up idols upon every high hill and under every green tree.  See 1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10; Jeremiah 3:2; Ezekiel 6:1-6, 13. Idolaters have always set up idols in beautiful places.

• God declared that they played the harlot, because they were his people. They had entered into an agreement with him, promising to love and obey him, and were breaking it in every imaginable way.
  1. God often compared them to a wife who continuously committed adultery.

21  Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?

1. A noble vine is referring to the vine that produces the highest quality grapes.
   • God created Israel to be a “noble vine,” God’s chosen people.
     1. Israel was given God’s pure law and eternal covenants. From that, Israel (which includes Judah) should have produced the good fruit of righteousness and truth.  Instead, they produced unrighteousness and error.  Throughout the Bible, God often compares Israel to a vine or a tree.

22  For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.

1. Nitre was the strongest soap known to man. Nitre was a mineral potash made from mineral soap, “nether”  (natron, nitre, carbonate of soda ) and soap “boriyth” (lye, soap, potash, alkali)
   • God said that so great was their sin that not even the strongest soap could clean them. There was nothing they could do to make themselves clean before God.
   • Only God can clean away the sins of man. Only the Messiah, Jesus Christ, can cleanse us. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”  Isaiah 1:18  “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.  Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.”  Malachi 3:2-4  (A fuller thoroughly washed garments by treading on them in the wash water, before the invention of the washing machine with its internal agitator.)

23  How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways;

1. Although their sins were piled up before them, the people of Israel continued to protest their innocence

24  A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.

1. God declared that Israel behaved like a swift dromedary and a wild female donkey.
   • The one-humped wild dromedary of Arabia with its long legs is swift, self-willed and foolish. It needs to be tamed and controlled by its master.
   • The wild female donkey is driven by sexual desire and is uncontrollable.
   • These characteristics certainly described Israel. She had broken away from her Master and lived a vain and useless life. She was driven by sinful passions and made herself a slave to all the idols of the pagans in the whole region.

25  Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.

1. Israel chased after every idol she came across. God told them not to wear out their footwear, becoming parched with thirst from running after worthless idols. They committed spiritual and often physical fornication in the worship of every idol they found.
   • Note the gentle words that God has used. In spite of their gross sin, he gave them room to repent!
   • But Israel contradicted God, declaring that it was too late, that there was no hope, for they had committed fornication already, and therefore would just continue to do the same.

26  As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets,

1. Israel would not be sorry for their sins, but like the thief, sorry they were caught.

27  Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.

1. Israel called wood and stone idols their creator, turning their backs on the one true Creator.
2. Israel then and still today calls on God when they are in trouble, but they are hypocrites. They do not believe in God.  They are just “hedging their bets,” calling on everyone and everything they can think of, in case one or more of them will help them.

28  But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.

1. God asked them where these “gods” were that they claimed had made them. He challenged them to wait for their false gods to arise and save them in their time of trouble, if it was possible.  They had a god for every city!
2. Secular modern man is no different. Modern man believes he came forth from nature.  The ancient pagans whom modern man says were “primitive” believed in idols of wood and stone; modern man believes he came from nothing, that order arose from chaos, that complexity developed from simplicity, and that it all happened without any higher power or intelligence.

29 ¶  Wherefore will ye plead with me? ye all have transgressed against me, saith the LORD.

1. Now God asks them, what argument have you with me for afflicting you? You have all sinned against me.

30  In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

1. God continued to reprove Israel for all her sin against him.
   • He had enumerated his blessings to Israel six times, already, showing them there was no excuse for their ongoing sin. He had shown himself merciful so many times, and had blessed them in spite of their disobedience.
   • He had already chastised the children of Israel, yet he says it was in vain. They would not turn.  They would not receive correction.
     1. In fact, though he sent many prophets to warn them, they had responded by killing the prophets. At one time, Elijah thought he was the only one left.  “And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” 1Kings 19:10
     2. The killed Zechariah in the days of King Joash. “And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.”  2Chronicles 24:20,21
     3. They even killed Urijah not long after God spoke these words to Jeremiah. “And there was also a man that prophesied in the name of the LORD, Urijah the son of Shemaiah of Kirjathjearim, who prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah: And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death: but when Urijah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt; And Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely, Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him into Egypt. And they fetched forth Urijah out of Egypt, and brought him unto Jehoiakim the king; who slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people.”  Jeremiah 26:20 – 23

31  O generation, see ye the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto thee?

1. God further challenged them, asking if he had been a wilderness or a land of darkness to them.
   • The answer was the complete opposite. God had been a great garden of blessing to them, giving them great light, yet they chose to ignore him and trust in their own power.
     1. How incredibly presumptuous and even wildly vain for a man to declare himself the master of his own destiny! “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:  I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.”  Revelation 3:17,18
        1. Such were the people of Judah, who not only declared that they were rich and needed nothing, but that they had no need of God and they would therefore entirely reject him.

32  Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

1. God compared Israel to a bride who has forgotten her wedding attire on her wedding day, forgetting her husband, and turning her affection away from him.
   • Israel, whom God had chosen and separated from the other nations and married to God. Her wedding attire and ornaments were the covenants, the oracles of God and the land that God gave to them.

33  Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.

1. So skilled and wicked was Israel’s spiritual adultery that God said she could teach lessons to prostitutes!

34  Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these.

1. God said the blood of the souls of the poor innocents was found in her skirts, and worse, it was all over them, a matter of public record.
   • They killed innocent prophets (Nehemiah 9:26)
   • They killed innocent children (Psalm 106:37,38; Ezekiel 16:20,21)
   • They killed innocents like Naboth for their property (1Kings 21)
   • Manasseh was guilty of shedding much innocent blood (2Kings 21:16)

35  Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.

1. In spite of their overwhelming guilt, Israel declared that since they were innocent, God work turn his anger away from them.
   • Then God declared that he was again going to plead his case with them until they finally admitted their guilt, because they continued to protest their innocence.
   • The people of Israel, even today, continue to protest their innocence. Even today, with all the trouble in that land, Jews still ask, “Why have we had to suffer so?” 
   • God will continue to plead with them until the great day of repentance still in the future. “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.  In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;  All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.” Zehariah 12:10 – 14

36  Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.

37  Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, and thine hands upon thine head: for the LORD hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them.

1. God reproved them for their trust in pagan nations to help them, rather than trusting in him.
   • Not only did they break their covenants with God, they were fickle and untrustworthy in their alliances with pagan nations, often breaking agreements and changing sides.
   • God says their alliances would not save them, but that the would go forth as captives with their hands on their heads, because God would make sure their misplaced confidences would not prosper.