Jeremiah (1-31) 2:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Straightaway, early in the book of Jeremiah, you find his characteristic reasoning with the people. How do we approach people in witness, in preaching? There is a tremendous variety of approaches in this book. There are so many arguments and illustrations deployed to present spiritual truth and the challenge of the gospel, to reason with sinners. Those in chapter 2 are of one particular genre, and the prophet soon moves on to another in subsequent chapters. He attempts by inspiration all kinds of approaches, and we have to look at them and learn from them. Here in the first two verses, the scene is set, and it's very important we should understand it. ‘Moreover the word of the Lord came to me saying, Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem.’ That is rather graphic. It is not, ‘Tell them in so many words’, but ‘Go and cry’, and strong words are used: ‘in the ears of Jerusalem’. It is more than just a figure of speech, meaning that all the people of Jerusalem should be reached. He is to preach this message in a very insistent way. He must be heard. He is to do his utmost to ensure that everybody listens, and pays attention. And this is the message – ‘Saying, Thus saith the Lord.’ That is important for us, because if this is going to be an example of reasoning with souls, it comes not merely from Jeremiah, it comes from God. He is to make clear that this is God’s message to them, not his. This is inspired reasoning and the people must recognise this. ‘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.’ Israel is viewed as though she was a tender young bride. The Scripture makes much of the failure of Israel to respond to God in the wilderness (Psalm 95:9-11 (Hebrews 3:9-11); Deuteronomy 29:1-4; Number 14:32-33). This might lead us to understand these words as a description, not of Israel’s love for the Lord. but the Lord’s love and kindness towards Israel in the early days following the exodus. When we look back at the children of Israel in the wilderness, we might tend to think that they were hopeless from the beginning, because they hadn't been five minutes out of Egypt and they were complaining and grumbling. There were constant troubles, and Moses had to contend with so much, and then that generation was rejected. But that is not the whole truth, because here we read that God can look back and see that when they first went into the wilderness, they were like a young bride with full trust in her husband. You can almost visualise a man and a woman just married, going off to some place where they are going to be pioneers, build a log cabin, raise a family, and they are, both of them, ready for any kind of difficulty; love binds them together and motivates them, and keeps them through all the difficulties. You were like that, says God, when you first started. And when you think of it, they were. They followed Moses into a desert. Whatever induced them to do that? Not only the fact that they were being brought out of bondage, but they had some degree of trust. It may have been imperfect trust, and it may have soon been eroded away, but you see it. The passage goes on to say that they knew they would be protected. That is how the journey began. Although it did not last, there was certainly great joy in Israel at first: ‘Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. ² The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him’ (Exodus 15:1-2), and the women sang with Miriam (Exodus 15:21). They knew they had been delivered from Pharoah and his host. Even as a largely unregenerate people, they could still show some initial gratitude to God, and the Lord points to this in order to reason with them. But they lacked true faith in God, and it did not last. The challenge of Jeremiah is, where has all that gone? Where is all the trust of your forefathers? In the case of Israel, it was an appeal made to those who were only outwardly God’s people, but it was still a powerful argument and they could understand it. ‘Israel was holiness unto the Lord.’ They were a separate people,. a special people. a unique people. And we behaved as though we were a separate people, Jeremiah seems to say; not all the time, but certainly to begin with. We worshipped and we trusted and we followed Moses in the name of the Lord. ‘All that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them.’ This is about how God’s protective eye watching over them. He favoured them above every other nation on the earth. They knew they were a protected people, but where are they now? ‘And the first fruits of his increase.’ That is an interesting term to use, because it shows that ultimately the Gentiles are going to be brought in also; they should have been blessed through Israel’s witness, even in those ancient times.