Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 3:20
Surely [as] a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.
20. O house of Israel ] Israel as including Judah.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Surely as – Rather: Just as.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
God hereby telling her what she had formerly been, endeavours to engage her to what she ought to be, namely, considering her former unfaithfulness in time past, how she ought to carry it for the future. See 1Pe 4:3.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
20. Surelyrather, “But.”
husbandliterally,”friend.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband,…. Or, “her friend” i; who loves her, takes care of her, and provides for her, and goes after another man, and cohabits with him; which is a violation of the marriage covenant, and acting a base and treacherous part unto him to whom she is married
so have you dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord; who was their Father, friend, and husband; who loved them and distinguished them from all other people, by a variety of blessings and privileges; and yet they departed from his commandments and ordinances, and held the traditions of the elders, and taught for doctrines the commandments of men, and rejected the Messiah, and still continue in their disbelief of him, and hatred to him; and therefore it need not be wondered at that he should make any difficulty about their adoption and inheritance; and a marvellous thing it must be to take such persons, and put them openly among his children, and give them a right and meetness for the goodly inheritance.
i “ab amico suo”, Vatablus, Junius Tremellius, Piscator “a socio suo”, Cocceius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Israel Returning to God; Israel Encouraged in Their Return. | B. C. 620. |
20 Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD. 21 A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God. 22 Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God. 23 Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel. 24 For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 25 We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.
Here is, I. The charge God exhibits against Israel for their treacherous departures from him, v. 20. As an adulterous wife elopes from her husband, so have they gone a whoring from God. They were joined to God by a marriage-covenant, but they broke that covenant, they dealt treacherously with God, who had always dealt kindly and faithfully with them. Treacherous dealing with men like ourselves is bad enough, but to deal treacherously with God is to deal treasonably.
II. Their conviction and confession of the truth of this charge, v. 21. When God reproved them for their apostasy, there were some among them, even such as God would take and bring to Zion, whose voice was heard upon the high places weeping and praying, humbling themselves before the God of their fathers, lamenting their calamities, and their sins, the procuring cause of them; for this is that which they lament, for this they bemoan themselves, that they have perverted their way and forgotten the Lord their God. Note, 1. Sin is the perverting of our way, it is turning aside to crooked ways and perverting that which is right. 2. Forgetting the Lord our God is at the bottom of all sin. If men would remember God, his eye upon them and their obligation to him, they would not transgress as they do. 3. By sin we embarrass ourselves, and bring ourselves into trouble, for that also is the perverting of our way, Lam. iii. 9. 4. Prayers and tears well become those whose consciences tell them that they have perverted their way and forgotten their God. When the foolishness of man perverts his way his heart is apt to fret against the Lord (Prov. xix. 3), whereas it should be melted and poured out before him.
III. The invitation God gives them to return to him (v. 22): Return, you backsliding children. He calls them children in tenderness and compassion to them, foolish and froward as children, yet his sons, whom though he corrects he will not disinherit; for, though they are refractory children (so some render it), yet they are children. God bears with such children, and so much parents. When they are convinced of sin (v. 21), and humbled for that, then they are prepared and then they are invited to return, as Christ invites those to him that are weary and heavy-laden. The promise to those that return is, “I will heal your backslidings; I will comfort you under the grief you are in for your backslidings, deliver you out of the troubles you have brought yourselves into by your backslidings, and cure you of your refractoriness and tendency to backslide.” God will heal our backslidings by his pardoning mercy, his quieting peace, and his renewing grace.
IV. The ready consent they give to this invitation, and their cheerful compliance with it: Behold, we come unto thee. This is an echo to God’s call; as a voice returned from broken walls, so this from broken hearts. God says, Return; they answer, Behold, we come. It is an immediate speedy answer, without delay, not, “We will come hereafter,” but, “We do come now; we need not take time to consider of it;” not, “We come towards thee,” but, “We come to thee, we will make a thorough turn of it.” Observe how unanimous they are: We come, one and all. 1. They come devoting themselves to God as theirs: “Thou art the Lord our God; we take thee to be ours, we give up ourselves to thee to be thine; whither shall we go but to thee? It is our sin and folly that we have gone from thee.” It is very comfortable, in our returns to God after our backslidings, to look up to him as ours in covenant. 2. They come disclaiming all expectations of relief and succour but from God only: “In vain is salvation hoped for from the hills and from the multitude of the mountains; we now see our folly in relying upon creature-confidences, and will never so deceive ourselves any more.” They worshipped their idols upon hills and mountains (v. 6), and they had a multitude of idols upon their mountains, which they had sought unto and put a confidence in; but now they will have no more to do with them. In vain do we look for any thing that is good from them, while from God we may look for every thing that is good, even salvation itself. Therefore, 3. They come depending upon God only as their God: In the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. He is the Lord, and he only can save; he can save when all other succours and saviours fail; and he is our God, and will in his own way and time work salvation for us. It is very applicable to the great salvation from sin, which Jesus Christ wrought out for us; that is the salvation of the Lord, his great salvation. 4. They come justifying God in their troubles and judging themselves for their sins, Jer 3:24; Jer 3:25. (1.) They impute all the calamities they had been under to their idols, which had not only done them no good, but had done them abundance of mischief, all the mischief that had been done them: Shame (the idol, that shameful thing) has devoured the labour of our fathers. Note, [1.] True penitents have learned to call sin shame; even the beloved sin which has been as an idol to them, which they have been most pleased with and proud of, even that they shall call a scandalous thing, shall put contempt upon it and be ashamed of it. [2.] True penitents have learned to call sin death and ruin, and to charge upon it all the mischiefs they suffer: “It has devoured all those good things which our fathers laboured for and left to us; we have found from our youth that our idolatry has been the destruction of our prosperity.” Children often throw away upon their lusts that which their fathers took a great deal of pains for; and it is well if at length they are brought (as these here) to see the folly of it, and to call those vices their shame which have wasted their estates and devoured the labour of their fathers. Of the labour of their fathers, which their idols had devoured, they mention particularly their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. First, their idolatries had provoked God to bring these desolating judgments upon them, which had ruined their country and families, and made their estates a prey and their children captives to the conquering enemy. They had procured these things to themselves. Or, rather, Secondly, These had been sacrificed to their idols, had been separated unto that shame (Hos. ix. 10), and they had devoured them without mercy; they did eat the fat of their sacrifices (Deut. xxxii. 38), even their human sacrifices. (2.) They take to themselves the shame of their sin and folly (v. 25): “We lie down in our shame, being unable to bear up under it; our confusion covers us, that is, both our penal and our penitential shame. Sin has laid us under such rebukes of God’s providence, and such reproaches of our own consciences, as surround us and fill us with shame. For we have sinned, and shame came in with sin and still attends upon it. We are sinners by descent; guilt and corruption are entailed upon us: We and our fathers have sinned. We were sinners betimes; we began early in a course of sin: We have sinned from our youth; we have continued in sin, have sinned even unto this day, though often called to repent and forsake our sins. That which is the malignity of sin, the worst thing in it, is the affront we have put upon God by it: We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, forbidding us to sin and commanding us, when we have sinned, to repent.” Now all this seems to be the language of the penitents of the house of Israel (v. 20), of the ten tribes, either of those that were in captivity or those of them that remained in their own land. And the prophet takes notice of their repentance to provoke the men of Judah to a holy emulation. David used it as an argument with the elders of Judah that it would be a shame for those that were his bone and his flesh to be the last in bringing the king back, when the men of Israel appeared forward in it, 2Sa 19:11; 2Sa 19:12. So the prophet excites Judah to repent because Israel did: and well it were if the zeal of others less likely would provoke us to strive to get before them and go beyond them in that which is good.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
He confirms the first clause of the preceding verse: for he had said that it could hardly be that the Jews would recover what they had lost, and be formed again a new people; and he shews the reason, — because they were like an adulteress, as he had before stated. But he did not yet wish to take away every hope; only he insists on this, that they were seriously to consider their sins, in order that they might become displeased with themsalves, and flee to God’s mercy for refuge. Nor did he do this so much for their sake, as for the sake of the people among whom he dwelt. For he had respect, as it has been often stated, especially to the Jews, who had become so hardened in their vices as not to think that this example, by which God intended to terrify them, so as to bend their hard hearts to repentance, belonged to them. Hence it was for this reason that God so severely reproved Israel; for he had said before, that the Jews were still worse. He afterwards subjoins —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(20) Surely as a wife . . .In the midst of the bright vision of the future there comes unbidden the thought of the dark present: the faithless wife is not yet restored to her true friend and husband. Her guilt must be again pressed home upon her, so as to lead her to repentance.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. Surely as Rather, Just as.
Husband Hebrew, friend. Israel has been false to the holiest obligations, and this would seem to close the door of hope for her return.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Having Given His Glowing Promises YHWH Now Describes The Present Situation Of Israel Which Is In Stark Contrast To The Glowing Picture That He Has Painted ( Jer 3:20 to Jer 4:2 ).
The beautiful vision just revealed of YHWH’s intentions for His people is in deliberate and stark contrast to the reality. For far from turning to Him in repentance Israel are seen as set in their evil ways. They are like a wife who has treacherously deserted her husband, and in their perverted way are weeping and praying on the bare heights to gods who will not profit, because they have forgotten YHWH their God. This may refer to the exiles, or to the remnants who had remained in the land, or to both.
Nevertheless unfailingly He still offers them the opportunity of repentance. They are, however depicted as seeing themselves as beyond repentance, superficially recognising that YHWH is indeed the only Saviour, but being filled with deep shame because their penchant for idolatry (‘the shameful thing’) has resulted in the loss of everything that they had previously possessed, with the result that they feel that they can only lie down in shame and allow their confusion to cover them because of the depths of their sin against YHWH. They feel totally lost and without hope.
But YHWH then promises that if only they will truly come to Him in true repentance, putting away their idols, they can be delivered from their helpless state and become established in YHWH in truth and righteousness and a blessing to the nations. God’s mercy is still being offered to smitten Israel. There is in this a wonderful picture of the continuing graciousness of God towards those who have rejected Him, and to those who backslide. And it includes us, for had it not been for His continuing mercy in the face of our sin, where would we have been?
Jer 3:20
“Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel,” says YHWH.
Israel’s true state is made clear. They have dealt treacherously with God like a wife who has treacherously deserted her husband (which was why they were now in exile). Note therefore that it is not only Judah who are treacherous. It was just that Judah were more treacherous both in their hypocritical double standards and in their ignoring what had happened to Israel.
Jer 3:21
“A voice is heard on the bare heights, the weeping and the supplications of the children of Israel, because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten YHWH their God.”
In a vivid picture the truth about them is made clear. On the bare heights (compare Jer 3:2) where they had always gone to meet with their idolatrous gods they are still weeping before them and making supplication to them, and this was clear evidence that they had perverted their way and had forgotten YHWH. They were totally taken up with their idols. Or the idea may be that the remnants of Israel still in the land were weeping there in desperation for their stricken land. Not all of Israel had been taken into exile. A remnant still struggled on in the land.
Some see their weeping as directed at YHWH, but that would hardly have been on the bare heights where the false sanctuaries were, and had they so wept they would have been received back and forgiven.
Jer 3:22
“Return (shubu), you backsliding (shubebim) children, I will heal your backslidings (shubethecem).”
So YHWH calls on Israel (this chapter is all about Northern Israel, being held up as an example to Judah) as His backsliding (turning away) children to return back so that He may ‘heal their backslidings (turnings away)’, by forgiving them and restoring them to the true path, and then restoring to them all that they have lost. The term backsliding (turning) includes the thoughts of falling away, turning away from Him, going far from Him and stubborn resistance to YHWH’s call. To bring out the force of the Hebrew we might translate as, ‘Turn back you turning away people, and I will heal your turnings away’.
Jer 3:22
-23 “Behold, we are come to you, for you are YHWH our God. Truly in vain is (the help that is looked for) from the hills, the tumult on the mountains. Truly in YHWH our God is the salvation of Israel.”
Israel are then portrayed as ostentatiously and hypocritically acknowledging their folly and coming to Him. In doing so they profess to recognise that YHWH is their true God, and that all their attempts to look for help from the hills and to persuade the gods to act by all their tumultuous rituals and activities had been in vain. They profess to recognise that in truth YHWH alone is their God and is the only One Who can bring about the salvation of Israel. But it was not from the heart. They were simply oscillating in their despair between YHWH and their idols, assuring first one and then the other of their loyalty. (This is paralleled by the way that nations seek God at a time of national crisis with all kinds of expressions of submission, and then subsequently once again forget Him).
The introduction of ‘the help that is looked for’, which is not in the Hebrew, is in order to give the idea behind the literal ‘truly as a lie from the hills is the tumult on the mountains’. This is on the basis of the fact that as they have turned for help to YHWH, it was a recognition that what was from the hills had failed. The omission of words leaving the reader/hearer to fill them in is a feature of ancient Hebrew.
Jer 3:24
“But the shameful thing has devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.”
But then they have to recognise the realities of the situation. They have lost everything. For ‘the shameful thing’ (their idolatrous behaviour) has devoured everything that their fathers had worked for and had produced from their youth. This may signify the centuries of wasted sacrifices, or that now they had lost their flocks and their herds, and many had lost their sons and their daughters, to the invader. And they were in exile among the nations. It had been a bitter price to pay (but brings out how seriously God treats sin, seeing it as no light matter).
Jer 3:25
“Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us, for we have sinned against YHWH our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of YHWH our God.”
Thus they feel that they can only lie down in their shame and let their confusion cover them. For they recognise that they have sinned against YHWH their God, both them and their fathers, from their youth (just as they had worked from their youth (Jer 3:24) to build up their herds and flocks while ignoring YHWH) and even to this day. And they had not obeyed YHWH their God. It is a true summary of Israel’s state. But their repentance was not deep enough to genuinely bring them back to Him.
Jer 4:1-2
“If you will return, O Israel,” says YHWH, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight, then you will not be removed, and you will swear, ‘As YHWH lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, and the nations will bless themselves in him, and in him will they glory.”
But YHWH is ever ready to respond in mercy. He assures them that if they will genuinely turn to Him, and will put away their idols (their ‘abominations’) out of His sight, then once they have returned they will not again be removed. They will then be in a position to swear ‘as YHWH lives’ in truth and justice and righteousness. For having come to Him in repentance they will know Him and His living power, and will know that He is the living God, and will have become established in truth, justice and righteousness as a result of His inworking within them. And the consequence of this will be that the nations will bless themselves in YHWH, and will glory in Him. Israel’s turning to YHWH will result also in the nations coming to Him. This was always the final goal of the prophets. And it found its fulfilment when the remnant from among Israel truly repented and responded to Jesus Christ (Acts 2-12) and as a result proclaimed His truth among the nations.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jer 3:20 Surely [as] a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.
Ver. 20. Surely as a treacherous wife, &c. ] This ye have done, but that is your present grief, and now you look upon your former disloyalties with a lively hatred of them, holding that the time past of your life may suffice to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, &c. 1Pe 4:3
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
husband = guide, or friend, as in Jer 3:4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
husband: Heb. friend, Hos 3:1
so have: Jer 3:1, Jer 3:2, Jer 3:8-10, Jer 5:11, Isa 48:8, Eze 16:15-52, Hos 5:7, Hos 6:7, Mal 2:11
Reciprocal: Son 5:16 – friend Isa 24:16 – the treacherous Isa 59:13 – departing Jer 36:22 – General Eze 16:32 – General Joh 4:18 – is not 1Co 7:10 – Let
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 3:20. God did not wish his people to forget the reason they were to be so bitterly chastised. Even in the midst of passages predicting their return to divine favor, they were often reminded of their shortcomings. Various things and relations In human life are used as illustrations. In one verse it will be the relation of parent and offspring, then perhaps of husband and wife. The latter is used in this verse although the word husband is rendered “friend in the margin, which is also the definition in the lexicon of Strong. But there Is no conflict in the rendering, for a husband should be considered the best earthly friend a woman can have. This wife (the house of Israel) had been unfaithful to her husband and had tried to do so secretly, which is the meaning of doing it treacherously.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 3:20-21. Surely, as a wife treacherously departeth, &c. This may be rendered, As a woman is not faithful to her husband, or, her friend, as the Hebrew signifies. Here God returns to the carnal Israelites; so that the Jewish doctors seem to be right in calling the spirit of prophecy an abrupt spirit. So have you dealt treacherously with me God, by thus reminding the Israelites of what they had formerly been, endeavours to bring them to repentance and new obedience for the time to come. A voice was heard, &c. Here the prophet, foreseeing that some of them would at length be brought to true repentance for all their misdoings, represents them as bewailing themselves upon the high places, the scenes of their former idolatries. Compare Jer 31:9; Jer 50:4; Zec 12:10. Or, as some think, he alludes to the usual practice of praying upon the tops of houses in great calamities, Isa 15:3; and Isa 22:1; Jer 7:29. For they have perverted their way This is that which they lament: for this they bemoan themselves. They have forgotten the Lord their God Of this they were now sensible, and for this they were humbled, as being the first step toward their apostacy. Observe well, reader, 1st, Sin is the perverting of our way; it is turning aside to crooked paths, and perverting that which is right. By it we embarrass ourselves, and bring ourselves into trouble and misery. 2d, Forgetting the Lord our God is at the bottom of all sin: if men would remember God, and their obligations to him, and consider that his eye is upon them, they would not transgress as they do. 3d, Prayers and tears well become those whose consciences tell them that they have perverted their way and forgotten their God.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3:20 Surely [as] a wife treacherously departeth from her {t} husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.
(t) The Hebrew word signifies a friend or companion, and here may be taken for a husband, as it is used also in Hos 3:1 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
All this blessing would come to Israel in spite of her past treacherous unfaithfulness to her spiritual lover, Yahweh. That treachery was deliberate; it was not a provoked departure.
"The mixing of metaphors (God is both father and husband) heightens the pathos of the speech and helps one empathize with God in his disappointment and emotional pain." [Note: Robert B. Chisholm Jr., Handbook on the Prophets, p. 159. See also Terence Fretheim, The Suffering of God, p. 116.]
"It is important to retain memory of this deep compassion when we read the prophet’s declarations of judgment (Jer 4:5 ff.); in judgment, the compassion is still present, hoping beyond the judgment for a restoration of the relationship of love." [Note: Craigie, p. 64.]