Jeremiah (1-31) 3:6 Commentary and Bible Study

Many people begin a completely new section here, and there's a certain amount of justification for that, because now it is all about the call to repentance until chapter 4 verse 4. But what has gone before leads up to this challenge to Judah. Why is Josiah named again? Possibly because we are reminded that this has to be preached in the days of a good king. It intensifies the guilt of the people of Judah. ‘The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done?’ We tend to think of backsliding in too moderate a way. We think of a believer being a backslider, which means he hasn’t abandoned the faith altogether, but he has just swerved aside and lost his way, and now he is in a state of rebellion against God or contention with God, and is not serving him and praying to him as he ought. We want him to be restored, and God will restore him in due time. But here the Hebrew word translated ‘backsliding’ means something worse than that. It means: ‘Hast thou seen that which apostate Israel [hath done]?’. Israel hasn't just backslidden. We are now switching from Judah to the northern ten kingdoms which had gone for over a century; for over a century, they have been in captivity. Samaria has fallen; the northern kingdoms have been judged: that is Israel. So we switch now to Israel. ‘The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah, Hast thou seen that which [apostate] Israel hath done?’ Israel was to begin with worse than Judah. They had changed the religion under Jeroboam. They polluted the true religion and the whole system of worship, and on top of that committed idolatry. So they were far worse initially. And Jeremiah is once again reasoning with the people of Judah. Actually God is saying this to Jeremiah: ‘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.’ That is why she was judged and Samaria fell. Well what is the point of this subject matter coming in? ‘And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me’ – I appealed to her – ‘But she returned not’, so she was condemned. ‘And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.’ The Hebrew indicates deceitful, something along those lines. Israel was deceitful. She was doing two things at once: pretending she worshipped the true God, and yet worshipping idols. But Judah, the southern kingdom, which of course was preserved for very much longer; she did not fear. When judgment came on Israel and Samaria fell in 722 BC, and the Assyrians took the people captive and restocked the land with others moved from elsewhere, Judah didn't say, ‘We had better give up our idolatry, because this could happen to us. Who would have thought that the ten northern tribes would finally come under the judgment that the prophets have warned of?’ The judgment of Israel in the north had affected Judah in the south, also. They should have been stirred, but they were not, and this is the argument here. So Judah is pretty thick-skinned and resistant.‘And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away,’ – the fall of Samaria – ‘and given her a bill of divorce;’ – that was that; Israel would never be reconstituted – ‘yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.’ So Jeremiah, to some extent repeats himself, but he is making the people feel this. ‘Don’t you feel uncomfortable. You are Judeans and your sister has gone because she did exactly what you are doing.’