Jeremiah 2:2,3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem In the most public parts of the city, that all may hear; saying, Thus saith the Lord I deliver his message, and not my own. I come to you with a commission from God, and speak in God's name. I remember thee, &c. I remember my first kindness to thee, when I delivered thee out of Egypt; (see Hosea 2:15;) and espoused thee to myself, to be my own peculiar people. The covenant which God made with the Israelites, at mount Sinai, is commonly represented under the metaphor of a marriage contract. Upon this account idolatry is represented as spiritual adultery, because it is the same degree of unfaithfulness to God which an adulteress is guilty of in respect of her husband. When thou wentest after me in the wilderness Out of that love and affection that thou didst manifest to me in following my conduct. Or rather, when thou wast led by me through the wilderness, and I took such care both to protect and provide for thee, and that by a train of miracles; in a land that was not sown Or, as Houbigant reads it, in an uncultivated land. Israel was holiness to the Lord A people dedicated to God; and the first-fruits of his increase Or, as the first-fruits. As the first-fruits are holy to God, so was Israel. All that devour, or rather, devoured, him For it refers to the time past, not to the future; and so the following words: all that were injurious to him; shall, or, did, offend Were obnoxious and liable to punishment, as if they had devoured holy things, Proverbs 20:25. Evil shall come, rather, came, upon them Some evil was inflicted on them from the Lord, who was always wont to stand forth for the vindication of his people; as upon the Egyptians, Amalekites, Sihon, Og, the Midianites, Canaanites, and others, as the four last books of Moses abundantly testify.