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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 2:11

Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 2:11

Hath a nation changed [their] gods, which [are] yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for [that which] doth not profit.

11. a nation ] i.e. a heathen nation.

which yet are no gods ] Therefore it need not have occasioned surprise, if their worshippers had at some time deserted them. Heathen nations are loyal to their gods, unreal though they be. For reference to the question whether Jeremiah was a ‘speculative,’ or only a practical, monotheist, see Intr. ii. 3 ( a).

their glory ] Jehovah, Whose very nature is glory, makes that glory known to Israel as His chosen people, and gives them a share in it. Cp. Deu 10:21; also 1Sa 4:21; Psa 106:20.

be horribly afraid ] lit. shudder, bristle with horror.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

A nation – A Gentile nation, in strong antithesis to people, the appellation of Israel.

Their glory – Though the worship of the one true God is a nations greatest glory, yet it is irksome because it puts a constraint on human passions.

That which doth not profit – Israel had exchanged the prosperity which was Gods reward of obedience for the calamities which resulted from idol-worship.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Hath a nation changed their gods? q.d. No, they are unmovable and fixed to their idols, although they are false gods; what they receive from their fathers they tenaciously hold.

Their glory, viz. the true God, who was their glory; a metonymy of the adjunct, Psa 106:20; and who always did them good, giving them cause to glory in him, and to make their boast of him.

For that which doth not profit; for those which never did or can do them good, that have no essence or power; but of whom they must necessarily be ashamed, as Jer 2:26.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

11. gloryJehovah, the gloryof Israel (Psa 106:20; Rom 1:23).The Shekinah, or cloud resting on the sanctuary, was the symbol of”the glory of the Lord” (1Ki8:11; compare Ro 9:4). Thegolden calf was intended as an image of the true God (compare Exo 32:4;Exo 32:5), yet it is called an”idol” (Ac 7:41). It(like Roman Catholic images) was a violation of the secondcommandment, as the heathen multiplying of gods is a violation of thefirst.

not profit (Jer2:8).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?…. Though they are not by nature gods which they worship, only nominal and fictitious deities, yet they did not change them for others; but when they once embraced the worship of them, continued therein; so did the Chittim, the inhabitants of the isles, who though they traded to distant countries, from place to place; and so the Kedarenes, who dwelt in tents, and fed cattle, and moved from one desert to another, and from one pasture to another, as Jarchi observes; yet they carried their gods with them, and did not exchange them for new ones where they came. The Jewish writers say b, that the Kedarenes worshipped water, and the Chittim fire; and though they knew that water would quench fire, yet the latter would not change their gods. Kimchi and Abendana relate it just the reverse, and say the Kedarenes worshipped fire, and the Chittim water, which is most likely; and so it is said elsewhere c.

But my people have changed their glory; the true God, who is glorious in himself, and whom they should have glorified, and have counted it their highest honour and glory that they knew him, and were the worshippers of him; yet they changed him, their glory, into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass, Ps 106:20, wherefore it is justly added,

for that which doth not profit; meaning Baal, and such like idols; see the note on Jer 2:8.

b T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 5. 2. c Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 60. 3.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hence he says, Yea, pass over unto the islands; and then he adds, see whether there is a thing like this; that is, such a monstrous and execrable thing can nowhere be found. An explanation follows, No nation has changed its gods, and yet they are no gods; that is, religion among all nations continues the same, so that they do not now and then change their gods, but worship those who have been as it were handed down to them by their fathers. And yet, he says, they are no gods If it had been only said, that no nation has changed its gods, the impiety of Israel would not have been so grievously exposed; but the Prophet takes it for granted, that all the nations were deceived and led away after fictitious gods, and yet remained constant in their delusions. Now, God does not set this forth as a virtue; he does not mean that the constancy of the nations was worthy of praise in not departing from their own superstitions; but, compared with the conduct of the chosen people, this constancy might however appear as laudable. We hence see that the whole is to be thus read connectively, — “Though no nation worships the true God, yet religion remains unchangeable among them all; and yet ye have perfidiously forsaken me, and you have not forsaken a mere phantom, but your glory. ”

He sets here the favor of God in opposition to the delusions of false gods, when he says, My people have changed their own glory For the people knew, not only through the teaching of the law, but also by sure evidences, that God was their glory; and yet they departed from him. It is then the same as though Jeremiah had said, that all the nations would condemn the Israelites at the last day, because their very persistency in error would prove the greater wickedness of the Jews, inasmuch as they were apostates from the true God, and from that God who had so clearly manifested to them his power.

Now, if one asks, whether religion has been changed by any of the nations? First, we know that this principle prevailed everywhere, — that there was to be no innovation in the substance of religion: and Xenophon highly commends this oracle of Apollo, — that those gods were rightly worshipped who have been received by tradition from ancestors. The devil had thus bewitched all nations, — “No novelty can please God; but be ye content with the usual custom which has descended to you from your forefathers.” This principle then was held by the Greeks and the Asiatics, and also by Europeans. It was therefore for the most part true what the Prophet says here: and we know that when a comparison is made, it is enough if the illustration is for the most part, επὶ τὸ πολὺ, as Aristotle says, confirmed by custom and constant practice. We hence see that the charge of levity against the Jews was not unsuitably brought by Jeremiah, when he said, that no nation had changed its gods, but that God had been forsaken by his people whose glory he was; that is, to whom he had given abundant reasons for glorying. (38)

(38) “Their glory” are by some considered to be God himself, and not the glory, that is, the honor, dignity, and greatness which he bestowed on the people, as Calvin here intimates: but the latter is more consistent with what follows, which literally is, “for nothing that profits:” for the לא here, as in Jer 2:8, is evidently a noun, or a pronoun. The comparison here is between what God gives and what false gods give; the comparison before was between God himself and the false gods. God gives glory, renders his people great and illustrious; but the false gods give nothing that profits, that really benefits, or does any good. — Ed

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(11) Hath a nation . . .Emphatically a heathen nation, as contrasted with the people of Jehovah. They were faithful to their false gods; Israel was unfaithful to the true. The words changed their glory find an echo in Rom. 1:23, though here they express the thought that the worship of Jehovah was the true glory of Israel as a people, and that they had wilfully abandoned it.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

11. Changed . It is best to regard this as from an ayin-vav root, and not as identical in its root with “boast yourselves,” in Isa 61:1.

Gods Our Authorized Version misses the full force of the original.

Hath a nation changed gods, which are yet no gods What so extraordinary as to change gods? And yet the matter is not fairly illustrated by an appeal to experience, for the gods of the nations are not gods. The prophet opposes to glory not its exact antithesis, shame, but that which doth not profit, perhaps as pointing the contrast more sharply.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jer 2:11. Hath a nation changed their gods? That is, according to Bishop Warburton’s interpretation, “Have any of the nations brought the God of Israel into the number of their false gods, as the Israelites have brought in them to stand in fellowship with the true?” For that the ancients frequently changed their tutelary gods, or one idol for another, is too notorious to need any proof. This contrariety, therefore, to their received custom is remarkable. The reason of it may be this: it was a thing well known to the neighbouring nation, that the God of Israel had an abhorrence to all community or alliance with the gods of the nations. This unsociable temper would deter those people, who all held him as a tutelary deity of great power, from ever bringing him into the fellowship of their country gods; for, after such declaration, they could not suppose that his company would prove very auspicious; and in truth they had a signal of his ill neighbourhood much to their cost, 1Sa 5:4-5; 1Sa 5:12. See Div. Leg. vol. 4.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Jer 2:11 Hath a nation changed [their] gods, which [are] yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for [that which] doth not profit.

Ver. 11. Hath a nation changed their gods? ] No; they are too pertinacious in their superstitions. Xenophon saith it was an oracle of Apollo, that those gods are rightly worshipped which were delivered them by their ancestors; and this he greatly applaudeth. Cicero also saith, that no reason shall ever prevail with him to relinquish the religion of his forefathers. That monarch of Morocco told an English ambassador, that he had lately read St Paul, and that he disliked nothing in him but this, that he had changed his religion. a

Which yet are no gods. ] Sed hominum figmenta et ludibria daemonum. But are the invention of men and mockery of demons. When Hercules came into a temple, and found the image or statue of Adonis in it, he pulled it down with this expression, Certe nil sacri es, Sure thou art no god; the like may be said of all idols.

But my people have changed their glory, ] i.e., Their God, of whom they might glory, saying, as Deu 32:31 “Their rock is not as our rock, our enemies themselves being judges.”

a Heyl., Cosmography.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Jeremiah

STIFF-NECKED IDOLATERS AND PLIABLE CHRISTIANS

Jer 2:11 .

The obstinacy of the adherents of idolatry is in striking contrast with Israel’s continual tendency to forsake Jehovah. It reads a scarcely less forcible lesson to many nominal and even to some real Christians.

I. That contrast carries with it a disclosure of the respective origins of the two kinds of Religion.

The strangeness of the contrasted conduct is intensified when we take into account the tremendous contrast between the two Objects of worship. Israel’s God was Israel’s ‘Glory’; the idol-worshipper bowed down before ‘that which doth not profit,’ and yet no experience of God could bind His fickle worshippers to Him, and no experience of the impotence of the idol could shake its votaries’ devotion. They cried and were not heard. They toiled and had no results. They broke their teeth on ‘that which is not bread,’ and filled their mouths with gritty ashes that mocked them with a semblance of nourishment and left them with empty stomachs and excoriated gums, yet by some strange hallucination they clung to ‘vanities,’ while Israel was always hankering after opportunity to desert Jehovah. The stage of civilisation partly accounts for the strange fascination of idolatry over the Israelites. But the deeper solution lies in the fact that the one religion rises from the hearts of men, corresponds to their moral condition, and is largely moulded by their lower nature; while the other is from above, corresponds, indeed, with the best and deepest longings and needs of souls, but contravenes many of their most clamant wishes, and necessarily sets before them a standard high and difficult to reach. Men make their gods in their own image, and are conscious of no rebuke nor stimulus to loftier living when they gaze on them. The God of Revelation bids men remake themselves in His image, and that command requires endless effort. The average man has to put a strain on his intellect in order to rise to the apprehension of God, and a still more unwelcome strain on his moral nature to rise to the imitation of God. No wonder, then, if the dwellers on the low levels should cleave to them, and the pilgrims to the heights should often weary of their toil and be distressed with the difficulty of breathing the thin air up there, and should give up climbing and drop down to the flats once more.

II. That contrast carries with it a rebuke.

Many voices echo the prophet’s contrast nowadays. Our travelling countrymen, especially those of them who have no great love for earnest religion, are in the habit of drawing disparaging contrasts between Buddhists, Brahmins, Mohammedans, any worshippers of other gods and Christians. One may not uncharitably suspect that a more earnest Christianity would not please these critics much better than does the tepid sort, and that the pictures they draw both of heathenism and of Christianity are coloured by their likes and dislikes. But it is well to learn from an enemy, and caricatures may often be useful in calling attention to features which would escape notice but for exaggeration. So we may profit by even the ill-natured and distorted likenesses of ourselves as contrasted with the adherents of other religions which so many ‘liberal-minded’ writers of travels delight to supply.

Think, then, of the rebuke which the obstinate adherence of idolaters to their idols gives to the slack hold which so many professing Christians have on their religion.

Think of the way in which these lower religions pervade the whole life of their worshippers, and of how partial is the sway over a little territory of life and conduct which Christianity has in many of its adherents. The absorption in worship shown by Mohammedans, who will spread their prayer carpets anywhere and perform their drill of prayers without embarrassment or distraction in the sight of a crowd, or the rapt ‘devotion’ of fakirs, are held up as a rebuke to us ‘Christians’ who are ashamed to be caught praying. One may observe, in mitigation, that the worship which is of the heart is naturally more sensitive to surrounding distractions than that which is a matter of posturing and repetition by rote. But there still remains substance enough in the contrast to point a sharp arrow of rebuke.

And there is no denying that in these ‘heathen’ religions, religion is intertwined with every act of life in a fashion which may well put to shame many of us. Remember how Paul had to deal at length with the duty of the Corinthians in view of the way in which every meal was a sacrifice to some god, and how the same permeation of life with religion is found in all these ‘false faiths.’ The octopus has coiled its tentacles round the whole body of its victim. Bad and sad and mad as idolatry is, it reads a rebuke to many of us, who keep life and religion quite apart, and lock up our Christianity in our pews with our prayer-books and hymnaries.

Think of the material sacrifices made by idolaters, in costly offerings, in painful self-tortures, and in many other ways, and the niggardliness and self-indulgence of so many so-called Christians.

III. The contrast suggests the greatness of the power which can overcome even such obstinate adherence to idols.

There is one, and only one, solvent for that rock-like obstinacy-the Gospel. The other religions have seldom attempted to encroach on each other’s territory, and where they have, their instrument of conversion has generally been the sword. The Gospel has met and mastered them all. It, and it only, has had power to draw men to itself out of every faith. The ancient gods who bewitched Israel, the gods of Greece, the gods of our own ancestors, the gods of the islands of the South Seas, lie huddled together, in undistinguished heaps, like corpses on a battlefield, and the deities of India and the East are wounded and slowly bleeding out their lives. ‘Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, the idols are upon the beasts,’ all packed up, as it were, and ready to be carried off.

The rate of progress in dethroning them varies with the varying national conditions. It is easier to cut a tunnel through chalk than through quartz.

IV. That contrast carries with it a call for Christian effort to spread the conquering Gospel.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

their glory = His glory. This is one of the emendations of the Sopherim (App-33), by which the Hebrew kebodi (“My glory”) was changed to kebodo (“His glory”), out of a mistaken idea of reverence.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

a nation: Jer 2:5, Mic 4:5, 1Pe 1:18

no gods: Jer 16:20, Psa 115:4, Isa 37:19, 1Co 8:4

changed their glory: Jer 2:8, Deu 33:29, Psa 3:3, Psa 106:20, Rom 1:23

Reciprocal: Deu 31:16 – forsake me Jdg 16:23 – Dagon 1Sa 4:21 – The glory 2Ki 1:3 – ye go 2Ki 22:17 – have forsaken 2Ch 13:9 – no gods Psa 4:2 – my glory Psa 81:11 – people Isa 43:22 – thou hast been Isa 44:9 – and their Jer 2:13 – broken cisterns Jer 2:32 – a maid Jer 5:7 – no gods Jer 16:19 – wherein Eze 5:7 – neither have done Eze 14:5 – estranged Amo 3:9 – Publish Amo 6:2 – Pass Mar 6:6 – marvelled Luk 2:32 – and 1Co 8:5 – that Eph 1:17 – the Father 2Ti 2:14 – to no

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Jer 2:11. The question asked has the negative answer implied. These inferior nations had been true to their idol gods although in truth such objects were no gods. But God’s people had forsaken the true God and replaced him (in their hearts) with that which doth not profit. We would condemn a man if he deserted a friend of some standing, even though the one for whom he deserted the first one offered greater favors than had been provided by the other. It would be regarded rather In the nature of a bribe, But tbe people of God had done worse than that. They had turned their backs upon a true friend and gone after one who could give them nothing.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

2:11 Hath a nation changed [their] gods, which [are] yet no gods? but my people have changed their {q} glory for [that which] doth not {r} profit.

(q) That is, God who is their glory, and who makes them glorious above all other people, reproving the Jews that they were less diligent to serve the true God, than were the idolaters to honour their vanities.

(r) Meaning the idols who were their destruction, Psa 106:36 .

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes