A Study in jeremiah chapter 3

A Study in Jeremiah chapter 3 begins with Israel being compared to a faithless wife.

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? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.

1. According to the Law of Moses, if a man put his wife away for some manner of indecency and she remarried, she could not return to her first husband. “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”  Deuteronomy 24:1 – 4
   
   1. God’s question was rhetorical, as the verses from Deuteronomy prove. He compares the land of Israel to a woman who was divorced from her husband for indecency, and then remarried.
   2. He asks if such a land would not obviously be greatly polluted with sin.
   3. God then points out that Israel had been unfaithful to God with many other pagan religions, yet he still was willing to take them back.
      1. This great mercy of God towards a disobedient and openly rebellious people proves without question that God is not, as some claim, a cold, imperious, uncaring and unmerciful God. He is the opposite, kind, loving and merciful.  2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

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; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.

1. God went on, describing the wanton way Israel committed spiritual adultery.

1. The were literally eager to commit sin!
2. “as the Arabian in the wilderness,” was a parable of someone who lays in wait for an unsuspecting victim, like a prostitute waiting for her next foolish lover.

1. The land of Israel is set aside by God for Israel, forever. Therefore, it truly is the Holy Land.

1. Israel was polluting the land by their spiritual adultery and wickedness.

3  Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.

1. God withheld the rains, bringing hardship and famine to the land, yet still they refused to be ashamed and to repent.

1. In the days of Elijah, God withheld the rain for three years, because of the sin of Israel.
2. God at various times withheld the rain, bringing famine, which was always because of Israel’s sin. Remember that God promised in his covenant, to provide everything they needed in abundance forever, but he also warned them that if they accepted his covenant, they would suffer like no others if they disobeyed him.
   1. When the rain is held back in Israel, it is a judgment against them for their endless sin. God finally drove them out of the land in the first century and brought endless drought to the land, turning it into a dry, desert wasteland for almost 2000 years.

1. Israel’s sin was marked on her forehead like a whore.  Like sin wears out and ages the habitual sinner, so it wore out Israel and brought ruin.  Samuel Clemens, whose famous pen name was Mark Twain, described Israel as a “ …desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse….A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action….We never saw a human being on the whole route….There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

1. Indeed, the face of Israel was a sorry one, and it was all on account of their wanton idolatry and wickedness.

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? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest.

1. In utter hypocrisy, Israel called on God.  It is a terrible sin to try to use flattery on God. Flattery can come in the form of true words from a heart that does not believe them. God was Israel’s guide from the beginning, but they had completely turned away and rejected God.  As God said earlier, they had turned their backs to him.

1. It is a terrible thing when a man thinks he can manipulate God with feigned love and many words. God knows the heart.
   1. How much worse it is when an entire nation behaves in such a manner!

6 ¶  The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? 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. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

1. Again, this is still in the days of Josiah, the last good king of Judah. This would have been a short time before he was killed by the Egyptians.  Josiah followed the LORD, but Judah, as a whole, did not.  They were ever more rebellious as time went on, and always very quick to restore all the pagan places of worship the moment a godly king died.
2. God asked a rhetorical question of Judah.  He asked if they had somehow missed seeing what backsliding Israel had done.

1. When Israel broke away from Judah when Solomon’s vain son, Rehoboam, came to power, their king, Jeroboam, was worried that if any of the people of the northern kingdom of Israel went to Jerusalem to sacrifice, the kingdom would be quickly reunited under David’s line.
   1. Because of this Jeroboam made two golden calves and told the people that they were their gods who brought them up out of the land of Egypt (1Kings 12). He put one in Bethel and one in Dan.  Most of the people went to worship before the one in Dan.
   2. But this wasn’t good enough for Jeroboam. He created a house (a priesthood) of high places, and he made priests of the very worst kind of people, but none from the priestly tribe of Levi.

• He sacrificed calves and set priests over all the high places, ordained a feast, made offerings on the altars he built, and burnt incense.

1. It was prophesied that a child would be born of the house of David, named Josiah, who would offer those false priests and burn their bones on that altar. 360 years later, when Josiah, the very king who was reigning when God called Jeremiah, tore down the high places, destroyed their altars, removed the bones of the false priests from their sepulchres, and burnt them on the altars they once burned incense on.

1. But what Jeroboam did was accepted wholeheartedly by the people, and successive kings followed in his footsteps. God repeatedly sent prophets to warn them, who they generally ended up killing, and eventually, he brought judgment on them, just as he had warned them.
   1. Israel was sacked by the Assyrians and the people were removed. It never recovered.

1. This is what God was referring to.  Judah knew what had happened to Israel. They knew what their sins were, because they were their own people.  They knew God had called them to return to him through the prophets, and they knew they had continued in their rebellion.

1. They saw it; God called them “the treacherous sister who saw it.”  They were witnesses of the judgment of God.  They pretended to repent, but they were treacherous, false-hearted, faithless, deceitful.  They were “Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”  2Timothy 3:4,5

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.

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.

10  And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD.

11  And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.

• Judah witnessed everything that happened in Israel. They knew how the prophets had warned them.  They saw how God finally divorced himself from them as a nation, leaving them to be overrun, spoiled and removed by their enemies.
  1. Yet Judah, whom God again called Israel’s treacherous sister, did not fear God, but continued to play the spiritual harlot, making light of her spiritual whoredom, worshipping wood and stone idols, rather than God and defiling the land that God gave to them.
  2. In Jeremiah’s day, King Josiah came to power and he believed and obeyed God. “And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.” 2Kings 22:2
     1. Yet the treacherous sister Judah, over which Josiah was king, did not repent, themselves, but feignedly. They went through the motions, but their hearts were not in it.
        • They saw the judgment of God against Israel, they saw the zealousness of their king, yet they thought they could pretend to serve God while continuing in their extreme idolatry.
        • God said that backsliding Israel, whom he had already judged, were more just than treacherous Judah.

12 ¶  Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever.

13  Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.

• God has not given up on Israel. Even here, in the days of Jeremiah, after the northern kingdom of Israel had been crushed and removed by Assyria, God was still offering his mercy to them.
  1. God is merciful. There are consequences for rebelling against God.  Israel is still in rebellion against God, but God is still calling on them to return.
  2. God is going to restore Israel. These words touch on the great prophecy of the New Covenant in Jeremiah, chapters 31 to 33.
  3. God declared that like a husband displeased with a faithless wife, he had given Israel a bill of divorcement, yet unlike that husband, God continued to call her back. The day is still coming when they will repent.
• The proclamation is to the north, because that is the way they were carried away by the Assyrians, Babylonians and the Romans. The Assyrians and Babylonians took them north before they took them east to avoid the Arabian desert.
• True repentance required an acknowledgement of sin. It is to acknowledge that “I am the sinner God says I am.  I have rebelled against God, wickedly broken his laws and deserve to be punished for my sins.”  It is to acknowledge that there is no good in me that is acceptable to God, that “…we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”  Isaiah 64:6

14  Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

• God says he is still married to Israel. They have been backsliding for thousands of years, but he has not forgotten them.  Those who declare that God has finished working with the nation of Israel because of her sin and replaced her with the church are in error.
  1. So-called “replacement theology” is an invention based in allegory and invented by heretics, such as Origen of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo, a Catholic. The Catholic Church has always hated Israel.
  2. Notice that it is clearly backsliding Israel that will return. It will not be a replacement by another group, such as the church, but it will be the same group that rebelled whom God restores in the land.
     1. This will happen during Daniel’s 70^th week, during the Great Tribulation, when the 144,000 Jewish evangelists of Revelation 7 and the two witnesses of Revelation 11 preach the gospel in Israel and call on them to repent. Again, this call is an act of grace.  No one deserves God’s mercy, but God continues to offer it to all who will repent.

• Not everyone in Israel will repent. God is going to save a remnant, just as he has always promised, one from one city, two from a family, and he will bring them back to Zion.  All who repent will be saved.
  1. According to Zechariah, two parts will be cut off and one part will call on God’s name and be converted (Zechariah 13:8-9).
  2. In Ezekiel, it says that God will bring the people under the rod and purge out the rebels (Ezekiel 20:35-38). A time of great tribulation is still coming for Israel.

15  And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.

• When the remnant turns back to God, he will give them pastors of his own choosing, who will feed them with knowledge and understanding.
  1. Jesus was moved with compassion when he saw the people of Israel. “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” Matthew 9:36
  2. But when Israel finally repents and believes in Jesus Christ, the Messiah, God, himself, will give them shepherds, pastors of his choosing who will teach them with sound and inerrant doctrine. Jesus, himself, will personally oversee their teaching!

16  And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.

17  At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.

18  In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.

• When Israel finally repents and puts their faith in the Messiah, Jesus Christ, they will no longer even think about the ark of the covenant, nor will they go looking for it, because as one united nation, all Israel will trust God, calling Jerusalem the throne of the LORD, and all nations will look to Jerusalem from which their Messiah, Jesus Christ, will rule and reign.
• Just as they were taken away captive toward the north, so they would return. Indeed, the Jews who returned when Israel first declared itself a nation, again, in 1948, came mainly from western Europe.  Then, when the USSR collapsed, they returned in very large numbers from Eastern Europe, still to the north.
  1. Many have come from the United States, but they were first carried away to the north, again, by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Romans. Many, today, are “making aliyah,” a Hebrew word meaning “ascent.”  It is the act of going up towards Jerusalem.  This is how they refer to moving to the Land of Israel.  More and more Jews, today, even from the United States, are making aliyah, and as anti-semitism increases more and more, as is what is happening today, that movement is going to increase.
     1. Yet these are still mainly a very secular people, very far from God.

19  But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me.

1. God asks Israel to consider how he could put such a rebellious nation back among his own children and give them their inheritance of a good land, the most beautiful and productive of all the nations.

1. This is for Israel, and specifically Judah in Jeremiah’s day, to consider. In order for the salvation of any soul to occur, there must first come humble repentance, the recognition of personal sin.  God’s question to them was a call to consider how great their own sin was, and wonder at how it could be possible for God to restore such a sinful nation as they were.

1. The God told them that they would call him “My father,” and they would never again turn away from him.  They would be his children, but only those who repented.  Once again, in calling them to consider how it was possible, God was giving them another opportunity to repent.

20 ¶  Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.

21  A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God.

22  Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.

23  Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.

24  For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

25  We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.

1. This is an incredible conversation between God and Israel, as an aggrieved husband for his wayward wife.

1. They were treacherous in their behaviour, breaking their covenant with God, like a wife betraying her marriage vows.

1. This time (in the Tribulation Period), they will respond with weeping and supplications and a clear acknowledgement of their sins.  They will repent, admitting that they have grievously rebelled against God. (verse 21,23 – 25)
2. God will again call them to return to him and be healed.

1. They respond by declaring their faith in God, coming to him for healing.
2. They will confess that salvation from any power other than the LORD is a vain hope.
3. They will confess that the LORD God IS the salvation of Israel. Right now, they are still trusting in their own brilliance.  But that day is coming when they repent of all their vain boasting and trust in God alone.

1. The prophecy of Jeremiah 3:14 is soon to come to pass.  All signs are pointing to the Daniel’s 70^th week soon beginning.