Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 2:19
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that [it is] an evil [thing] and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear [is] not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
19. Thine own wickedness shall correct thee ] Thy misdeeds shall bring their own punishment with them. Correct in the sense (now growing obsolete) of chastise. Cp. Jer 10:24, Jer 30:11, Jer 46:28. So in Pro 29:17.
backslidings ] lit. backturnings, apostasy. The Hebrew word with the exception of its occurrence in Prov. (Pro 1:32) and a doubtful use in Ezek. (Eze 37:23, R.V. mg.) is confined to Hos. (Hos 11:7, Hos 14:4) and Jer., with whom it is a favourite (Jer 3:22, Jer 5:6, etc.).
and that my fear ] depending on “it is an evil thing and a bitter.” In other words the evil and bitterness are twofold; ( a) desertion, ( b) indifference.
my fear ] The fear of Me.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Correct thee – Or, chastise thee. Alliances with foreign powers shall bring trouble and not safety.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 2:19
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee.
Sin its own punishment
I. In the dealings of God with good men.
1. Neglect secret devotion, and God will refuse His blessing on other means of grace.
2. Indulge secret sin, and God will bring that sin into open light and condemnation.
3. Idolise created good, and God will take from us an idol, or make it a plague to us.
4. Act with faithlessness to others, and God will permit us to suffer from the treachery of others.
5. Undutifulness to parents punished by the defiance of our own children.
6. Indifference as to home piety returned upon us in the irreligion of those in the home.
II. In the dealings of God with wicked men.
1. Those who resent religious persuasions, and strive to stifle conviction, are deprived of godly parents and friends, and left to a fatal peace.
2. Those who repel the Gospel because of its humiliating truths, are allowed to believe a lie, etc.
3. In death and judgment, the punishment of the sinner will reflect his sin. (Andrew Fuller.)
The uses made by God of sin
I. Precautionary observations.
1. Sin, in its own nature, is inexpressibly bad. Not only the negation of all that is good, but the absolute plenitude of all that is evil. It is wrong raising itself against the order, purity, and happiness of the universe. The originating, exclusive, and prolific source of all human woe.
2. If in any circumstances sin appear in a beginning, and good and happiness in the end, the latter will not be, in any sense, the proper conduct of the former. Good comes of evil through causes exterior to evil, independent of evil, hostile to evil, and which turn evil to good account against evil. Imagine a man sleeping in a wood. A serpent strikes its fangs into one of his limbs. The man is stung into consciousness, and starts up from his slumber just in time to escape the pounce of a hungry tiger, whose eyes are glaring in the thicket. The serpent had no intention of saving him. It attacked him for itself; but the sudden anguish of the bleeding wound was the occasion of rescue from the two-fold destruction. So, often, man dead in trespasses and sins is maddened into activity by the remorse of wickedness, and ultimately rushes away from the adjacent coils of Satan and the gaping jaws of hell.
3. To turn evil to good account is one of the sovereign prerogatives of God. It is only through Divine interference and interworking that sin fails, at any time, to effect evil, only evil, and that continually. This is one of the express laws of the Divine conduct in the Bible. Joseph and his brethren. David and Shimei. Preaching Christ out of envy, etc.
II. What attitude God actually assumes and maintains towards sin.
1. God has surrounded sin by limits and restrictions. The moral sentiments of men–the moral restraints of society–the moral utterances of revealed religion–the moral corrections of the invincible laws of the material economy–have conspired to bind sin hand and foot, in its most monstrous and demoniacal forms.
2. Sin is permitted, but anticipated; defiled, but used; unscathed, but bridled and harnessed, till the reluctant monster shall be firmly yoked to the car of the mighty victor and swell the final triumph.
(1) God uses sin to punish sin. When God employed the passion and ambition of hostile monarchs to chastise the apostate Israelites, or when God directed warring kings, raging with the lust of empire, to relieve His afflicted and repentant people–in either case the Jews recognised the operation of an inter-working and over-ruling providence, and recorded the principles which we are explaining.
(2) God uses sin to defeat sin. Very often when two persons, two coteries, two nations, it may be, are struggling to obtain a false object, and both the parties or communities are equally profligate in the means which they employ to secure success, the plans of the unprincipled tricksters clash; all are overwhelmed with defeat and disgrace together, and the field is left free for right quietly to triumph. In the history of every kingdom and hierarchy, political and priestly despotism may be seen committing suicide by outdoing its ordinary amount of enormity.
(3) God uses sin to reprove sin. God does not turn sins into whips exclusively, by the pains and disappointments of iniquity, merely to scourge the sinner. The element of moral reproof is uniformly associated with the anguish of punishment. We ask not here how sin can at all become the means of moral instruction; we only state the fact. Without seeking the remote or proximate cause of such a phenomenon, it is sufficient for our present purpose to say that one act, or a few acts of sin, and the immediate consequences are often, to a man apparently established in irreligion, the occasion of godly sorrow for the sins of his whole life.
(4) God uses sin to promote goodness. The odiousness of sin, when visible in the conduct of the ungodly, is ever felt by Christians to be promotive of piety. It undoubtedly increases their gratitude when they are reminded, by contrast, of the obvious and revolting abominations from which they have been rescued. The daffy sinfulness, too, of which the best are conscious, which they frankly acknowledge, however unaffectedly deplore, becomes a source of sincere and growing humiliation. The transgressions, also, of the past are never remembered without grief; and the spirit is chastened into meekness at the recollection of even bygone and forgiven iniquities. And, beyond this, what salutary spiritual consequences are derived from a conscious proneness to sin in the future! To what self-renunciation does it conduct! what acts of self-consignment to God does it prompt! and how much possible sin does it annihilate!
(5) God uses sin to display the matchless glory of His Divine perfections. (H. Batchelor.)
It is an evil thing and bitter.
The evil of sin
I. Inquire wherein sin consists, according to the description of the prophet.
1. Every sinner has forsaken God.
(1) He does not desire Him as his portion, but other things in preference.
(2) He is not mindful of His favour, but esteems the friendship of a fellow creature more than His.
2. As God is not loved, so neither is He feared, at least, not in such a way as to depart from evil.
3. From these two sources proceed all the evils that are in the world.
(1) Forsaking God has been the cause of every abomination: hence all the wars, oppression, and injustice, between nations and individuals.
(2) From the same source also arises a rejection of Christ and the Gospel; a contempt of religion and of religious people.
(3) Hence, also, that hardness and indifference to the Gospel in many who attend upon it.
(4) Hence the most solemn warnings and tender expostulations are without effect, and all the mercy of the Saviour is neglected.
II. Consider the evil and bitter nature of sin.
1. We may know and see how evil and bitter a thing sin is, by the precepts of Gods holy law, which forbid it; and we must measure it by this rule to see what evil there is in it.
2. We may know and see by the awful threatenings of Gods Word, by which it stands condemned (Deu 28:15).
3. We may know and see by the bitter sorrows of true penitents (Psa 38:1-6; Psa 51:1-4; Zec 12:10).
4. Know by the bitter fruits it has already produced.
5. By the still more bitter fruits it would have produced if God had not restrained it.
6. By the bitter pains of eternal death.
7. Know it also by the bitter sufferings of the Son of God.
III. Enforce the exhortation: Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing.
1. Unless we know and see this, we can neither know nor see the salvation of God.
2. Without a knowledge of the evil of sin, we shall neither repent of it nor depart from it to any good purpose.
3. If we know and see it not truly in this world, we shall be made to know and see it to our cost in the world to come.
4. If we are brought to know and see it aright, we shall come to Christ; and herein will be the proof of our knowledge being in some measure what it ought to be (Joh 6:45). (Theological Sketchbook.)
The evil and bitterness of sin
I. Introductory observations.
1. Men in general think lightly of sin. They consider it rather as a failure or infirmity of nature, than as positive transgression, guilt, or vileness. Nay, fools make a mock of sin.
2. The great reason why men think so lightly of sin is, that they think lightly of God. Our judgment of anything is always in proportion to our esteem or disesteem of its opposite. God and sin are two contraries; and we will unavoidably form our estimate of sin, according to that which we form of essential holiness.
3. There is an infinite evil in sin. This may appear impossible, because man, its subject, is a finite being. But although viewed in man, or in any creature, as its subject, it can be only finite; with respect to God, the object against whom it is directed, it is infinitely evil: for it is an affront to His infinite perfections.
4. All sin has an infinite evil in it. The guilt of one sin exposes to eternal wrath. The least sin implies in it ingratitude, unbelief, rebellion, and atheism.
II. The evil of sin.
1. Because contrary to the nature of God, who is the supreme standard of truth and righteousness. Men may talk as they will of moral rectitude and the fitness of things. But these are terms without meaning, unless we understand them as relating to the perfections of the Divine nature; for there can be no notion of rectitude, fitness, or propriety, abstracted from the nature of God.
2. Because contrary to His holy law. This notion of sin is usually illustrated by the situation of a person under a bodily disease, who not only labours under the want of a proper temperament of humours, but hath a positive disorder among them. So sin, which is a moral disease, not only implies a want of proper conformity to the law, but a real opposition to it.
3. It is an attempt against the moral government of God in the world. This is the necessary result of its being a transgression of the law.
4. It is abominable to God. Nothing else in the universe is the object of Divine hatred, or nothing else but on account of sin.
5. That sin is an evil thing is evident from that malignity which is in its nature. Does the justice of God proclaim the guilt of sin? Do we learn its filth from its contrariety to Divine holiness? Its malignity also appears by its opposition to the alluring perfection of love.
6. Because it makes man the slave of Satan. By the law of his creation, he is the subject of God. To Him he owes his service, and to Him only.
Inferences–
1. That those who have never seen sin to be evil and bitter have no fear of God.
2. The danger of entertaining trivial thoughts of sin.
3. The dreadful ingratitude that is in sin.
4. The impossibility of delivering ourselves from sin. The necessity of washing in the blood of Christ.
III. The bitterness of sin.
1. Sin is so bitter in its consequences that it has deprived us of all good. It has robbed us of the Divine image and favour.
2. Sin has subjected us to all penal evil. The curse of the law; afflictions; death
3. Sin has introduced disorder into the whole creation of God.
IV. By what proofs sinners may know and see that sin is evil and bitter.
1. By the commands and threatenings of the law. It threatens death in all its extent: temporal, spiritual, and eternal.
2. By terrors of conscience.
3. From the complaints of Gods people, on account of sin. They everywhere, when rightly exercised, represent it as their heaviest burden; and however great their afflictions, they consider sin as greater than any ether.
4. By the punishments inflicted on sinners in this life. Flood: Sodom and Gomorrah.
5. Many see and know the evil and bitterness of sin by their own eternal misery. Hell.
6. In the sufferings of the Son of God. (J. Jamieson M. A.)
Sin evil and bitter
Many and great are the benefits arising from a proper view of the evil of sin. It teaches us our true relation to God, and the value of Christs salvation. It shows us the necessity of repentance, and serves to form in us that spirit of humility, which so well state, a fallen creature. To promote this necessary branch of Christian knowledge, therefore, I propose to set before you some of the evils contained in sin.
1. Sin is an act of rebellion against God, our supreme governor. We all feel it to be right that a master should govern his servant, a parent his child, a king his subjects:–and, in these cases, if obedience be refused, we immediately censure it as wrong. Now, all the relations of father, master, and king, do not confer a thousandth part of the right to rule, and to be obeyed, which centres in God. If authority is attached to property, the world is His, and the fulness of it;–if to high station, He is King of kings, and Lord of lords;–if to natural right, whose claim can be so little liable to dispute as that of the Creator of all things, by whom all things subsist? The language of sin is, Who is the Lord that I should obey Him? Now, when we consider the infinite glory, power, and goodness of God, whose authority is thus trampled upon; the meanness of man–dust of the earth quickened into life by God; the slightness of the motive by which in many cases he is induced to disobey God; and the desperate boldness or unthinking carelessness with which he dares to transgress, often showing neither reluctance, nor apprehension, nor sorrow, surely we shall see in this one view of the subject how evil and bitter a thing it is that we have forsaken the Lord God, and that His fear is not in us. But to all this it may be objected, that guilt lies chiefly in the intention; and that it is not the intention of the sinner to offend God, much less to rebel against Him: his end is only to please himself. This may be true; but is it not rebellion against God not to intend to obey Him? No criminal directly proposes to insult the laws of his country. He intends only to please himself; to serve some selfish end of his own. But when the act which he commits is forbidden by the law, we consider him as justly liable to suffer the penalty of disobedience. But it is pleaded, We have no distinct idea, when we sin, of acting against the will of God, but are drawn, by thoughtlessness, to do that which in our more serious moments we condemn. Is thoughtlessness itself, in respect to God and our duty, no crime? This is to excuse the guilt of the single act, by acknowledging a general principle of evil. Men, for the most part, know that what they are about to do is forbidden by God. Their conscience reproves them; their guilt is placed full in their view, and yet they proceed in their course.
2. The evil of sin will further appear from this consideration, that by every act of sin we do in effect arraign the wisdom and goodness of God. Every one who sins decides against the wisdom and goodness of God. He declares by actions, which always speak more strongly than words, that God would have more promoted the happiness of man had He allowed him to indulge his lusts; that His yoke, therefore, is hard. Now, is it not an unpardonable presumption in us thus to set up our judgment against that of God?
3. The evil of sin appears also from its tendency to defeat the designs of God. It introduces disorder into His dominions. It spreads desolation through His works. It destroys the happiness, harmony, and glory of the world, and fills it with misery and discord. All sin has this tendency. For, be it remembered, we are not to measure the evil of sin by its effects, but by its tendency. If God, by His power, prevents the effects which it would otherwise produce, this does not take away from its proper malignity.
4. The evil of sin will further appear when we consider the ingratitude contained in it. Is there, then, no guilt in sin which injures and insults our best Friend; no evil in that disposition which allows us to be even negligent in our conduct towards Him to whom we owe such obligations?
5. Sin manifests also an abject and grovelling spirit. It proposes to gratify the corrupt appetites of the flesh, and considers only the present moment: for this, reason is dethroned, while the flesh is allowed to rule: for this, honour, conscience, and the fear of God, are trampled under foot: for this, eternity is sacrificed to time. It belongs only to fallen beings; it is the badge of their shame, and the rod of their punishment.
6. Lastly, the evil of sin appears in the injury it does to others. It is the excellence of holiness that it spreads happiness around; but it is the effect of sin, like a pestilence, to spread ruin and desolation. All I have said of sin in general applies, of course, to every act of sin; and yet how very different an appearance does sin usually bear to us from what has been described! Is God, then, an angry tyrant, who marks in secret the weaknesses and follies of His creatures, in order, at length, to pour out His vengeance on them? Far from us be such an idea of our gracious and merciful God. He is slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil. (Christian Observer.)
Sin
1. The nature of sin. Forsaking the Lord as our God.
2. The cause of sin. Because His fear is not in us.
3. The malignity of sin. An evil and bitter thing.
4. The fatal consequences of sin. Without God.
5. Use and application. Repent of thy sin. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee: the meaning is either,
1. There need no further evidence against thee than thine own evil courses, Hos 5:5. Or rather, might correct thee, i.e. one would think should be sufficient to reclaim thee: see Hos 2:7. Or,
2. Thy own wickedness is the cause of thy correction. Or,
3. Thy wickedness will be an evidence that whatever thou sufferest is just.
Thy backslidings shall reprove thee; the same with the former, but in other words, after the manner of the Hebrews, or a metonymy of the effect for the cause; Thou wilt not be persuaded fill thou come to suffer, thou wilt not be instructed until corrected: or rather, as before, Thy many backslidings might teach thee more wisdom, and convince thee of thy folly: so doth the word reprove signify, Job 6 25.
Know, i.e. call to mind thy experiences, and consider well with thyself, and thou canst not but be convinced of those things, what forsaking of God hath cost thee.
An evil thing and bitter, viz. of punishment principally; so Isa 45:7; though it be true also of sin: therefore he calls it bitter, because the effect of it will be so; it will be unpleasing and bitterness in the latter end.
The Lord thy God, i.e. me.
My fear is not in thee; or, the fear of me; or, thou hast not my fear in thee; this being the ground of all thy sin and suffering, Psa 36:1; Rom 3:16,18.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. correct . . . reproverather,in the severer sense, “chastise . . . punish” [MAURER].
backslidings“apostasies”;plural, to express the number and variety of their defections.The very confederacies they entered into were the occasion of theiroverthrow (Pro 1:31; Isa 3:9;Hos 5:5).
know . . . seeimperativefor futures: Thou shalt know and see to thy cost.
my fearrather, “thefear of Me.“
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thine own wickedness shall correct thee,…. That is, either their wickedness in going to Egypt and Assyria, and the ill success they had in so doing might be an instruction to them to act otherwise, and a correction of their sin and folly; or that their wickedness was a reason, and a very just one, why they were chastened and corrected of the Lord:
and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; or be the cause why they were reproved of God; or their ill success in turning their backs on him, and going to the creature for help, was a severe rebuke of their sin and madness. The Targum is,
“I have brought afflictions upon thee, and thou hast not refrained from thy wickedness; and, because thou art not turned to the law, vengeance is taken on thee.”
Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter; or observe and take notice what evil and bitter things sin, particularly the forsaking of the Lord and his worship, brings upon persons; for not sin itself is meant, though that is exceeding sinful, and is a root of bitterness, however sweet it may be to the taste of a sinner, and produces bitter effects; but the punishment of sin is meant, or corrections and reproofs for it; which are evil things, as calamities, and captivity, and the like; and which are very ungrateful and disagreeable to flesh and blood; and yet men, going on in a course of sin, and forsaking the Lord, as it follows, are the cause of these things:
that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God; [See comments on Jer 2:13], this is the source of all the evil and bitterness experienced by them:
and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts; this was the reason of their forsaking the Lord, his ways and worship, because they had no reverence of him; his fear was not before their eyes, nor on their hearts; and both were the cause of evil coming upon them; so the Targum paraphrases the words,
“and know and see, for I have brought evil and bitterness upon thee, O Jerusalem, because thou hast forsaken the worship of the Lord thy God, and hast not put my fear before thine eyes, saith the Lord, the God of hosts.”
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Here again, the Prophet confirms what I have before stated, — that the people would at length find, willing or unwilling, what it was to deport from God; as though he had said, “As thou hast not hitherto learnt by so many evidences, that thy perfidy is the cause of all thy evils, God will heap evils on evils, that thou mayest at length know, even against thy will, that thou receivest, a reward due to thy wickedness.” This is the sum of the whole.
But he says first, chastise thee shall thy wickedness, as though he had said, that though God ascended not his tribunal, nor put forth his hand to punish the people, yet judgment would be evident in their very sins. And this is much more powerful, and has greater weight in it than if the Prophet had said only, that God would inflict on the people a just punishment; thy wickedness, he says, shall chastise thee; and a similar mode of speaking is adopted by Isaiah;
“
Stand;” he says, “against thee shall thy wickedness,” (Isa 3:9; Isa 59:12)
as though God had said, “If I were even to be silent and not to take upon me the office of a judge, and if there were no other accuser, and no one to plead the cause, yet stand against thee will thy wickedness, and fill thee with shame.” To the same purpose is what is said here, thy wickedness (45) shall chastise thee
But we must consider the reason why the Prophet said this. There were then, we know, complaints in the mouths of many, — that God was too rigid and severe. Since then they thus continually clamored against God; the Prophet repels such calumnies, and says that their wickedness was sufficient to account for the vengeance executed upon them. He says the same of their turnings aside; (46) but what he had said generally before, he now expresses more particularly, — that the people had withdrawn themselves from the worship of God and obedience to him. He therefore points out here the kind of wickedness of which they were guilty, as though he had said that there was no need of an accuser, of witnesses, or of a judge, but that the defections of the people alone would sufficiently avail to punish them.
He afterwards adds, Thou shalt know and see how wicked and bitter it is to forsake Jehovah thy God These are words hard in their construction; but we have already explained the meaning; “Thy forsaking,” or thy defection, means, “that thou hast forsaken thy God.” And my fear was not on, or, in thee Here, again, the Prophet points out as by the finger the sins of the people. He had before spoken of their turnings aside; but he now mentions their defection, — that the people had plainly and openly departed from the true God. They, indeed, ever continued some kind of worship in the Temple: but as the whole of religion was corrupted by many superstitions, and as there was no fidelity, no sincerity; and as they mingled the worship of idols with that of the true God, they had dearly departed from God, who is jealous of his honor, according to what is in the law, and allows of no rivals. (Exo 20:5; Exo 34:14) We now then perceive the meaning of the Prophet.
He says, Thou shalt know that it is an evil and a bitter thing, etc. This must be applied to punishment; and he repeats what he had said before, — that the evils which the people then suffered did not happen by chance, and that as they were overwhelmed with many bitter sorrows, the cause was not to be sought afar off, for their bitterness, and whatever calamities they endured, flowed from their impiety. Thou shalt then know by the reward itself; even experience will convince thee what it is to depart from God; and he says, from Jehovah thy God, or, to forsake Jehovah thy God. For, if God had not made known his grace to the Israelites, their perverseness would not have been so detestable; but since they had found God to be a Father to them, and since he had so bountifully treated them, having been pleased to enter into a covenant with them, their wickedness was inexcusable.
And afterwards the person is changed, And my fear was not in thee Here at length the Prophet intimates, that they were destitute of every sense of religion; for by the fear of God is meant reverence for his name. Men often fall, we know, through mistake, and are deceived by the craft of Satan; and when made thus miserable they are to be pitied. But the Prophet shews here that the people were wholly undeserving of pardon. How so? Because there was no fear of God in them. “You cannot,” he says, “object and say, that you have been deceived, or make any pretense by which you may cover your wickedness: it is evident that you have acted shamelessly and basely in forsaking thy God, for there was no fear of God in you. (47) He subjoins at last, saith Jehovah of hosts: by which words the Prophet secures more authority to what he had announced; for what he had said must have been very bitter to the people: and many of them, no doubt, according to their usual manner, shook their heads; for we know how insolent were most of them. Hence the Prophet here openly declares, that he was not the author of what he had said, but only the proclaimer; that it proceeded from God, and that he had spoken nothing but what God himself had commanded.
(45) Blarney renders it “adversity.” That the word sometimes means that, is true, but most commonly wickedness; and this is the sense required by the context: it must be that which corresponds in character with the word that follows — apostasy, or turning aside. “Wickedness” is the meaning sanctioned by all the early versions, as well as modern. — Ed.
(46) The word is singular in all the early versions. It is rendered “apostasy — ἀποστασία,” by the Septuagint, and, “turning aside — aversio,” by the Vulgate Though there is no MS. in favor of the singular, yet the verb connected with it is in that number. The true reading no doubt is according to the versions, confirmed as it is by the number of the verb. — Ed
(47) The verse literally is as follows, —
19. Chastise thee shall thy wickedness, And thy apostasy, it shall correct thee; Know then and see, That evil and bitter shall be Thy forsaking of Jehovah thy God; And my fear is not in thee, Saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts.
The future is spoken of. They were warned; they were to know and see, or consider, that the forsaking of God, “the apostasy,” would be afflictive and bitter: and then the cause of the “wickedness” first mentioned is stated, no “fear” of God. How “wickedness” was to chastise them, and “apostasy” to correct them, is signified, — they would turn out to be “evil” — afflictive — hurtful, and “bitter” — grievous — painfully distressing. Hence Grotfius’s exposition cannot be right —”Thy wickedness shall be a proof that thou art justly punished.” The reference is to the very evils and miseries to which their “wickedness” and “apostasy” would inevitably lead them. Their foreign alliances were eventually the means of their degradation and misery; and in seeking them, they forsook God as their protector; and by adopting idols, they forsook him as the object of their worship. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(19) Thine own wickedness.The strain is now of a higher mood, and rises from what is local and temporary to the eternal law of retribution. Punishment comes as the natural consequence of sins. Our pleasant vices become whips to scourge us. The backslidings of Israel, in courting the favour of foreign states by adopting their creed and worship, shall involve her in ever fresh calamities.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
19. Thy backslidings shall reprove thee This verse sums up all Judah’s misdoings in one plain, comprehensive, terrible statement. All this fearful array of evils those filling the background of the recent past and those crowding the immediate future are self-procured. The nation had voluntarily plucked an apple of Sodom, only to find it to be “bitter and bloody dust!”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 2:19. Thine own wickedness shall correct thee Shall accuse or condemn thee. This whole discourse of Jeremiah is a kind of pleading, (see Jer 2:9.) wherein the prophet maintains the cause of God against his people.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 1028
THE EVIL OF BACKSLIDING
Jer 2:19. Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing, and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God.
SIN and misery are very nearly connected; and the nearer we are to God by relation or profession, the more immediately will our transgressions be followed by tokens of his displeasure. The Israelites were Gods chosen people; yet, while the Amorites, and other idolatrous nations, were left to fill up the measure of their iniquities, before they were visited according to their deserts, the Jews, especially while journeying through the wilderness, were speedily chastened for their iniquities, and made to feel the evil and bitterness of sin. Thus, only in a more secret and silent manner, does God now punish the backslidings of his people; nor does he notice only the grosser violations of his law, but the more hidden abominations of the heart, and secret declensions from the spiritual life. Indeed, he makes sin its own punishment, according to what is written in the text: to elucidate which, we shall shew,
I.
In what respects our own backslidings correct us
It is not unfrequently that, even in our temporal concerns, we suffer loss by relaxing our diligence in spiritual duties: but it is invariably found, that backslidings from God are attended with very painful consequences:
1.
They wound our conscience
[Conscience, if duly attended to, is a faithful monitor, and will upbraid us for declensions, however secret, and transgressions, however small: and when it testifies of willful deliberate sin, when it summons us into the divine presence, and accuses us before God, it will make a Felix tremble, and a Judas abhor his very existence. This is a correction, which, as no enlightened person would willingly endure, so neither, till he return to God, or have his conscience seared as with au hot iron, can he hope to escape.]
2.
They intercept our views of God
[God is exceeding gracious to those who walk circumspectly before him: but he has warned us that, if we forsake him, he will forsake us [Note: 2Ch 15:2.]. This his people of old experienced to their cost, as the prophet told them; Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear [Note: Isa 59:2.]. And is this a slight correction? Let the cries and terrors of persons under dereliction [Note: Psa 77:1-9; Psa 88:3-16.], be to us as a beacon for our effectual admonition.]
3.
They indispose us for spiritual exercises and enjoyments
[While we maintain close fellowship with God, our duties are a source of the sublimest happiness: but when we decline from his ways, the whole work of religion becomes a burthen. Have we neglected prayer for a season, or been inattentive in it to the frame of our minds? how painful a task is it to approach our God! the most glorious of all privileges is turned into an irksome rite, to which we are goaded by a guilty conscience. The same indisposition instantly extends itself to every other office of religion; so that the visiting of the sick, the conversing on spiritual subjects, the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and indeed the whole life of religion is bereft of vital energy, and degenerates into an empty and unproductive form. What an awful punishment is this!]
4.
They lay us open to the incursions of sin and Satan
[Righteousness is, as it were, a breast-plate that guards our vitals, and proves an armour on the right hand and on the left [Note: Eph 6:14. 2Co 6:7.] but unwatchfulness deprives the soul of its defence, and exposes us to the envenomed darts of our great adversary. If we have secretly declined from God, the temptations, which once were easily overcome, have a deep and lasting effect: our spirits are soon ruffled; our evil passions are soon awakened; and, if God interpose not for our recovery we shall soon return with the dog to his vomit, and with the sow that is washed to her wallowing in the mire. Sin, of any kind, makes a breach in the soul, which, if not stopped at first, will widen, till our desolation is inevitable, and our ruin final, Who can but tremble at the warning which God himself has given us; His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his own sins [Note: Pro 5:22.]?
Additional light will be reflected on this subject, while we consider,
II.
The evil and bitterness of a backsliding state
The sinfulness of an ignorant and carnal state, heinous as it is, is by no means comparable to the guilt of backsliding from God. To view backslidings in their real malignity we must remember that they involve in them,
1.
A violation of the most solemn engagements
[The man, who professes to be a follower of Christ, pledges himself by that very profession to devote himself entirely to the service of his God: he declares, as it were, his approbation of his baptismal covenant, and his determination through grace to adhere to it in all things. But, in proportion as he yields to open sin or secret declensions, he revokes all his promises, and renounces all his expectations of the Divine favour. How vile, and how desperate, must such a conduct be in the eyes of God!]
2.
A contempt of the richest mercies
[While we serve God aright, we never find him backward to recompense our worthless endeavours: the more diligently we have sought him, the more abundantly has he enriched us with grace and peace. When therefore we forsake him, we say, in fact, that we neither love nor fear him, (see ver. 19.) yea, that we despise his mercies, and prefer the pleasures of sin before any of the pleasures which he can afford us. What base ingratitude, what daring insolence is this!]
3.
A vindication of Gods open and avowed enemies
[Practical piety condemns the world; but impiety, as far as it extends, proclaims to all, that God is not worthy to be loved and served. The backslider goes further still; and says to all around him, I have tried God, and found him to be a wilderness to his people [Note: ver. 31.]: I once was weak enough to think that the more religious I was, the more happy I should be: but I was disappointed in my hopes; and now revert to my former ways, that all may know the superior happiness, which, in my opinion at least, is to be enjoyed in freedom from restraints, and in the gratifications of time and sense. Alas! on what a precipice does the backslider stand! and, what an account will he have to give at last, if he do not instantly return to God in penitence and faith!]
Nor is the bitterness of such a state easy to be appreciated
[If we would know and see what a bitter thing it is to forsake the Lord, let us consult the declarations of God, the Lord God of hosts, and the experience of his ancient people. What broken bones did the fall of David occasion [Note: Psa 51:8.] And where was the blessedness which the Galatian Church had once enjoyed, when, through the influence of their false teachers, they had declined from the simplicity of the Gospel [Note: Gal 4:15.]? Indeed, let any man consult the records of his own conscience, and he will soon perceive, that, as there is no happiness to be compared with a state of nearness to God, so there is no misery like that which a sense of his departure from us will occasion. As for the bitterness of it to apostates in the day of judgment, that cannot be described; and we pray God we may never be left to feel and endure it, But let us study to know and see it in its true light, that we may be stirred up by the consideration of it to cleave unto our God with full purpose of heart.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Jer 2:19 Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that [it is] an evil [thing] and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear [is] not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
Ver. 19. Thine own wickedness shall correct thee. ] Erudiat te malitia tua; let thine own wickedness, with the sad consequents thereof, teach thee better things. as Jer 6:8 Let it for shame, let it , let smart make wit. Isa 28:19 Pro 29:15
Know therefore, and see.
That it is an evil thing and bitter.
“ Laeta venire Venus, tristis abire solet. ”
Drunkenness is sweet, but wormwood is bitter. These inhabitants of Jerusalem were made drunk, but with wormwood; Lam 3:15 they found that sin was a Dulc-acldum, a a bitter sweet – sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the maw, stomach as that book in the Revelation; like Adam’s apple, or Esau’s pottage, or Jonathan’s honey, or Judas’s thirty pieces, whereof he would fain have been rid, but could not; they burned like a spark of hell fire in his hand, but especially in his conscience. The devil, with the panther, hideth his deformed head till the sweet scent have drawn other beasts into his danger, and then he devoureth them. Did we but consider what sin will cost us at last, we dare not but be innocent.
a . – Philo.
Jeremiah
FORSAKING JEHOVAH
Jer 2:19 Of course the original reference is to national apostasy, which was aggravated by the national covenant, and avenged by national disasters, which are interpreted and urged by the prophet as God’s merciful pleading with men. But the text is true in reference to individuals.
I. The universal indictment.
Then-consider what this forsaking is-at bottom aversion of will, or rather of the whole nature, from Him.
How strange and awful is that power which a creature possesses of closing his heart against God, and setting up a quasi-independence!
How universal it is-appeal to each man’s own consciousness.
II. The special aggravation.
III. The bitter fruit.
So the prophet appeals to experience. As the Psalmist confidently invites to ‘taste and see that God is good,’ so Jeremiah boldly bids the apostates know and see that departing is bitter.
It is so, for it leaves the soul unsatisfied.
It leads to remorse.
It drags after it manifold bitter fruits. ‘The wages of sin is death.’
Sin without consequent sorrow is an impossibility if there is a God.
IV. The loving appeal.
is not in thee = should not have pertained to thee.
Thine: Jer 2:17, Pro 1:31, Pro 5:22, Isa 3:9, Isa 5:5, Isa 50:1, Hos 5:5
and thy: Jer 3:6-8, Jer 3:11-14, Jer 5:6, Jer 8:5, Hos 4:16, Hos 11:7, Hos 14:1, Zec 7:11
bitter: Jer 4:18, Job 20:11-16, Amo 8:10
and that my: Jer 5:22, Jer 36:23, Jer 36:24, Psa 36:1, Rom 3:18
Reciprocal: Gen 42:21 – we saw Exo 33:6 – General Num 5:18 – the bitter water Rth 1:5 – Mahlon 1Sa 15:14 – What meaneth 1Ki 9:9 – Because 1Ki 13:21 – Thus saith 1Ki 18:18 – in that ye have 2Ch 12:2 – because 2Ch 12:5 – Ye have forsaken me 2Ch 24:20 – because 2Ch 28:6 – because Job 20:14 – his meat Psa 107:17 – because Psa 125:5 – As for such Pro 13:15 – but Pro 14:14 – backslider Isa 1:4 – forsaken Isa 59:13 – departing Jer 3:14 – O backsliding Jer 3:25 – for we have sinned Jer 7:19 – they provoke Jer 14:7 – for our Jer 15:6 – forsaken Jer 18:15 – my people Jer 19:4 – they have Jer 30:15 – for the Lam 5:16 – woe Eze 16:59 – I will Eze 29:16 – the confidence Eze 39:24 – General Hos 7:2 – their own Hos 13:9 – thou Mic 1:5 – the transgression of Jacob Zep 1:17 – because
Verse 19. Sin often works its own rebuke on the principle that “whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap (Gal 6:8). This is especially true in moral questions if the Lord takes an active part in the case as he was to do with these people of Israel. It is an evil thing and- bitter means their conduct toward God was evil as it pertained to Him. and it would be bitter for them when they realized the punishment It brought them. This bitterness is predicted in terms of deep sadness in Psalms 137. Mg fear is not in thee refers to their lack of reverence for God and his law. For the fulfillment of the prediction in the first part of the verse, see the long note that shows their complete recovery from idolatry. It is given with the comments on Isa 1:25 in the 3rd volume of this Commentary.
Jer 2:19. Thy own wickedness shall correct thee The miseries that your own sins have brought upon you, one would suppose, might be sufficient to reclaim you from your evil courses, and induce you to return to God, by a sincere repentance, Hos 2:7. Know therefore Upon the whole matter; and see that it is an evil thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God For that is the thing that makes thine enemies, enemies indeed, and thy friends, friends in vain. The sense of the clause is, Call to mind what thou hast found by experience, and reflect seriously upon it, and thou canst not but be convinced how dear the forsaking of God hath cost thee. And that my fear Or, the fear of me; or, that thou hast not my fear in thee, saith the Lord Consider this well, for it is the ground of all thy sin and suffering, in order that thy correction may not end in thy utter ruin. This whole discourse of Jeremiah is a kind of pleading, wherein the prophet maintains the cause of God against his people.
2:19 Thy own wickedness shall {e} correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that [it is] an evil [thing] and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear [is] not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts.
(e) Meaning, that the wicked are insensible, till the punishment for their sin waken them as in Jer 2:26, Isa 3:9 .
The consequences of the people’s own wickedness and apostasies would come back on them and plague them. This should teach them that it was morally evil and experientially bitter for them to abandon Yahweh their God. All these bad things happened to them because they did not fear the Lord.
"The greatest judgment God can send to disobedient people is to let them have their own way and reap the sad, painful consequences of their sins." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 80. Cf. Romans 1:24.]
"One may turn to or away from Yahweh, and one may turn to and away from other allegiances. No book in the OT contains so many nuances of this idea as Jeremiah." [Note: Thompson, p. 175.]
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)