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Chapter 2:
The Infidelity of Israel and the Indictment for Breach of Covenant in a Covenant Lawsuit
Jeremiah 2:1-3 ~ Jeremiah's First Mission to Jerusalem: Announcing a Covenant Lawsuit
The word of Yahweh came ... is a formula saying that is the last of five such announcements in a sequence (see 1:2, 4, 11, 13 and 2:1). They function in connecting the oracle in Chapter 2 to the oracles in Chapter 1. The words announce that Yahweh's commissioning of Jeremiah is now fulfilled in his preaching and connects back to the original call. Please note that the majority of the oracles reveled to Jeremiah are poetic.
Jeremiah 2:4-13 ~ Recalling Yahweh's Past Works to Benefit Israel and Israel's Ingratitude
God's speech to "Israel/Judah" as the entire covenant people in 2:4-3:5 is in the form of a courtroom statement in which a wronged husband brings charges against an unfaithful wife. Yahweh's prophet, speaking for Yahweh the divine Bridegroom, is calling down a covenant lawsuit (riv) against God's unfaithful bride, Israel. This section begins the list of charges in the form of rhetorical questions.
| Jeremiah | Moses |
| What did your ancestors find wrong in me for them to have deserted me so far as to follow Futility and become futile themselves? Jer 2:5 | He is the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are equitable. A trustworthy God who does no wrong, he is the Honest, the Upright One! Dt 32:4 |
| They never said, 'Where is Yahweh, who brought us out of Egypt and led us through the desert, through a land of plains and ravines, through a land of drought, of shadow dark as death, a land through which no one passes and where no human being lives?' Jer 2:6 | In the desert he finds him [Israel], in the howling expanses of the wastelands. He protects him, rears him, guards him as the pupil of his eye. Dt 32:10 |
| I brought you to a country of plenty, to enjoy its produce and good things ... Jer 2:7a | He gives him the heights of the land to ride, he feeds him on the yield of the mountains, he gives him honey from the rock to taste, and oil from the flinty crag; curds from the cattle, milk from the flock, and the richness of the pasture, rams of Bashan's breed, and goats, the richness of the wheat kernel; the fermented blood of the grape for drink. Dt 32:13-14 |
| ... but when you entered you defiled my country and made my heritage loathsome. Jer 2:7b | ... but Yahweh's portion was his people, Jacob was to be the measure of his inheritance. Dt 32:9 |
| The priests [of Israel] never asked, 'Where is Yahweh?' Those skilled in the Law did not know me, the shepherds too rebelled against me and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed the Useless Ones. Jer 2:8 | ... He [Israel] has disowned the God who made him, and dishonored the Rock, his salvation, whose jealousy they aroused with foreigners—with things detestable they angered him. They sacrificed to demons who are not God, to gods hitherto unknown to them, to newcomers of yesterday whom their ancestors had never respected. Dt 32:15b-17 |
| Does a nation change its gods?—and these are not gods at all! Jer 2:11a | They have roused me to jealousy with a non-god, they have exasperated me with their idols. Dt 32:21a |
| You heavens, stand aghast at this, horrified, utterly appalled, Yahweh declares. Jer 2:12 | Listen heavens, while I speak; hear earth the words that I shall say! Dt 32:1 |
| ...who say to a piece of wood, "You are my father," and to a stone, "You gave birth to me." For they turn their backs, never their faces; yet when trouble comes they shout, "Get up! Save us!" [...] Does a girl forget her ornaments, a bride her sash? And yet my people have forgotten me, days beyond number. Jer 2:27, 32 | You forgot the Rock who fathered you, the God who made you, you no longer remember. Dt 32:18 |
| Where are your gods you made for yourself? Let them get up if they can save you when trouble comes! For you have as many gods as you have towns, Judah! Jer 2:28 | "Where are their gods then?" he will ask, "the rock they sought refuge, who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libations?" Let these arise and help you, let these be the shelter above you! Dt 32:37-38 |
Jeremiah 2:14-19 ~ Israel is Responsible for the Coming Catastrophe
In verses 14-19 Yahweh asks a series of five rhetorical questions (verses 14a, 14b, 17, 18a and 18b), typical in the accusation section of a covenant lawsuit. The answers can be summed up by stating that Israel has brought all her miseries on herself because she was unfaithful to her covenant oath in abandoning Yahweh her God and in not giving Him the reverence He deserved.
Jeremiah 2:20-25 ~ Yahweh Reminds the Judeans of their Rebellious Nature
Question: In verses 20-21 what three symbolic images does Yahweh use to describe Israel's rebellion? Please consult the handout of the chart from lesson 1 on the Symbolic Images of the Old Testament Prophets or the chart on the website.
Answer: He uses the imagery of domesticated animals that stubbornly refuse to be obedient to the master's yoke, the marriage imagery of an adulterous wife, and the image of the fruitful vine turned unfruitful.
Jeremiah 2:26-32 ~ The Failure of Israelite Leadership and Idol Worship
Question: How is it that Israel, or people today for that matter, came to forget God and all He had done that was good?
Answer: Israel forgot God while focusing her attention and affection on the world.
Question: How many different parts of society that made up the covenant people became idol worshipers?
Answer: All levels of society:
- the common people
- the kings
- the leading citizens
- the priests
- the prophets
Jeremiah 2:33-37 ~ Israel's Pursuit of Injustice
Question: In what ways have the covenant people displayed their love of injustice?
Answer: Symbolically their garments are stained with the blood of the poor and the blood of innocent men convicted unjustly. To make matters worse, the Israelites/Judahites refuse to take responsibility for their transgressions.
Yahweh will pass judgment on them for the refusal to repent their many sins. Part of their judgment will be that the hope they have placed on the Egyptians to defeat the Babylonian threat will come to nothing. They will still become captives and exiles of the enemy from the North, marching away into exile with their hands on their heads.
Ezekiel 28:1-6 ~ Charges Against the Prince of Tyre
The first oracle divides into two parts: verses 1-5 and 6-10, with each part introduced by the phrase, "The Lord Yahweh says this..." The Hebrew title melek, king, is not used for the ruler of Tyre until verse 11. The Hebrew word nagid translates as "prince," "commander," or "ruler.'
Question: What was the root of the sin of the ruler of Tyre?
Answer: Excessive pride that led to thinking he was godlike.
Question: In his excessive pride, what three prideful claims does Yahweh accuse the ruler of Tyre of making in verse 2?
Answer:
- He claims to be divine.
- He claims divine authority.
- He claims divine intelligence.
Ezekiel 28:6-10 ~ Judgment Against the Ruler of Tyre
In verses 6-8, Yahweh pronounces His sentence against the Prince of Tyre for claiming divinity: a foreign army will destroy his wealth and power, and because he is human and not divine, he will be powerless to save himself.
Ezekiel 28:11-19 ~ Lament for the Prince of Tyre
Like all laments in Scripture, this one divides into two parts with verse 15b as the transition from the first to second part:
Part 1: A description of past glory (verses 12b-15)
Part 2: An account of disaster, which in this case is justified punishment (verses 16-19).
Notice how the focus of the lament changes from the "king of Tyre" in verse 12 to the "cherub" [living creature] in verses 14 and 16.
The anger of God directed against Tyre's ruler is not because of any explicit offense against Israel but against God. In the lament, God adds an addition sin. The two stated offenses are hubris in self-deification born of wealth and splendor (verses 2, 5, 17) and corruption in commerce that results in offenses against a universal code of morality (verse 18).
The perfect creature in Part 1 becomes a winged-creature/cherub in Part 2. The "mountain of God" becomes "holy precincts" and "precious stones" from the real world are replaced by "red-hot coals" from which the cherub is ultimately banished (verses 14 and 16). Part 2 describes the sin and punishment of the cherub/winged creature described in Part 1 to have sinned "in commerce." The judgment in Part 2 is before royal peers "a spectacle for kings" (verse 17) and "before all the eyes that saw you" (verse 18). Part 2 describes the sin and punishment of the creature in which the series of punishments is graded:
- expelled from God's mountain
- hurled to the ground,
- consumed by fire
- reduced to ashes
Ezekiel 28:23-26 ~ Oracle Against Sidon
Located about 20 miles north of Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Sidon and deported her citizens in the same year he began the siege of Tyre, 586/5 BC. The Table of Nations in Genesis Chapter 10 lists Sidon as the eldest son of Canaan son of Ham and grandson of Noah (Gen 10:15; 1 Chr 1:13). Sidon had close relations with Israel in the 9th century BC when a daughter of the King of Sidon named Jezebel married Ahab, King of the Northern Kingdom Israel. It was a marriage with disastrous consequences, during the prophetic ministry of Elijah (1 Kng 16:31).
Ezekiel 28:24-26 ~ Oracle Promising Israel's Deliverance from the Nations
This passage makes the same promises God instructed Jeremiah to give the Jerusalemites in Jeremiah Chapters 30-31 in "The Book of Consolation": For look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall bring back the captives of my people Israel and Judah), Yahweh says. I shall make them come back and take possession of the country I gave to their ancestors (Jer 30:3).
God fulfilled the prophecy after the covenant people spent the seventy year exile in atonement for Judah's sins. When Persian King Cyrus defeated the Babylonians, he issued a decree called the Edict of Cyrus (539 BC), allowing all people taken into exile by the Babylonians to return to their homelands (2 Chr 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4). The nation of Judah lived in peace with all her neighbor states under the protection of the Persian Empire until the conquest of Alexander the Great. Judah submitted to the Greeks under the rule of the Greek Egyptians and then the Seleucid-Syrian Greeks. Judah then gained her independence for a brief hundred years, achieved by the efforts of the Maccabee brothers and their descendants the Hasmonean kings of Judah. The period of independence lasted until the Romans made Judah the Roman vassal state of Judaea in 63 BC. After the Roman conquest, Judaea lived in peace with her neighbors under Rome's protection.
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A Daily Defense
DAY 225 The Time and Place of the Ascension
CHALLENGE: “The Gospel of Luke contradicts Acts on the Ascension. Luke says it happened at Bethany on the same day as the Resurrection; Acts says it happened on the Mount of Olives forty days after.”
DEFENSE: Neither is a contradiction.
First, let’s look at the texts involved in the place of the Ascension:
Then he led them out as far as Bethany . . . and was carried up into heaven (Luke 24:50–51).
He was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. . . .
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet (Acts 1:9, 12).
This solution simply requires a little knowledge of the geography around Jerusalem: Bethany was on the Mount of Olives (aka Mount Olivet). The “most frequently mentioned town of this name [is] located on the [East] slopes of the Mount of Olives” (Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, s.v., “Bethany (Place)”).
You can tell this simply by reading Luke. Just before the Triumphal Entry, we read: “When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples (Luke 19:29, emphasis added).”
Second, regarding the time of the Ascension, Luke’s Gospel records events taking place on the day of the Resurrection (Luke 24:1ff) and then advances to the Ascension without mentioning the gap of time between them.
Luke merely says “Then he led them out as far as Bethany,” without specifying how much time transpired before the word “then”—a term that merely means the Ascension took place at some point after the events that preceded it. This is the kind of chronological approximation expected in ancient literature (see Day 258).
It so happens that in Acts Luke clarifies the matter and indicates how long after the Resurrection the Ascension took place (Acts 1:3). He also expected his Gospel to be read in light of Acts.
That’s why he referred Theophilus back to the Gospel, calling it “the first book” (Acts 1:1). The fact that both books were written by the same author and intended as companion works means they should be read in light of each other.
There is no contradiction here. The objection simply expects more chronological detail than the ancient audience did.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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