Jeremiah (1-31) 2:33 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Jeremiah (1-31) 2:33

Comments

‘Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love?’ This is addressed now to a single feminine person. Israel is spoken to as if she was a young woman making herself more attractive in order to attract her lovers. The language is figurative and again applies primarily to her idolatry. ‘Therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.’ She is like someone who has not only practiced harlotry herself, but even taught other vulnerable ones around her to do the same thing. ‘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.’ Furthermore there has been oppression in the land and exploitation of the poor. Israel had been commanded from the beginning to care for the poor and needy, but greed and cruelty had entered into their society. To aggravate this, the Lord says, it wasn’t as if this was hard to find or as if you had any shame in committing this sin. It was there for all to see, and you made no attempt to hide it. You are shameless in what you do. The blood of your victims is there on your skirts and you have not even washed it off.But in spite of this you still dare to say, ‘Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me.’ Who are you trying to fool? Do you really think I will take your protestations of innocence seriously? says the Lord. The Lord is not going to give up, even though the peoples’ heart is so hard, and there are so few signs of encouragement that they will ever be persuaded. ‘Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.³⁶ Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way?’ There is one argument after another in Jeremiah’s address to them and in his attempts to persuade them. He has already been told that, for the most part, they will not listen to him (Jeremiah 1:19), but the Lord still desires him to speak.

Application

The preacher has to be constantly dealing with the deception of the human heart. So many things that are said by men and women to excuse their sin are acts of deception, and we must not be taken in by them. That is the state of our society. How are we going to get it across to people without being over offensive? How are we going to get through to them? Even if they are totally godless, the normal thing is for people to think, ‘If there is a God, I shall be all right.’ They go to their funerals, and talk afterwards and say, ‘Oh, that person who has died, he is up there looking down on us.’ It is all so futile; it is all nonsensical and shallow. In the back of their minds they are thinking, it is inconceivable that there could be hellfire or judgment or punishment. No, we are not as bad as that. If there is a God, if there is anything in it, we will be up there one day, just by going on as we are. The Israelites thought in exactly the same way.

So the reasoning of Jeremiah in chapter 2 is pleading with the people of God of old to come back. And so today we apply these things to our churches, and we apply them to ourselves. And that's how we read the Bible. We say to ourselves these things are written from my learning. How does this apply to me? What is the meaning of this pleading for us? Where have I gone wrong? What are the promises? What are the blessings? If you approach the book in this way, you couldn’t do the whole of Jeremiah chapter 2 in a single devotional, if you were reading it with that in mind. You could only do 6 to 10 verses, and you find so much blessing and so many challenges. Listen to the prophet speaking top us even from so many centuries ago; let him be a doctor and a pastor and a prophet to your soul.

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Jeremiah (1-31) 2:33 Commentary and Bible Study