Jeremiah 2:4-6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Hear, O house of Jacob, &c. The prophet here directs his discourse to the twelve tribes, as he does afterward, Jeremiah 3:14, &c. For the captivity of the ten tribes was not so total but that there were some Israelites still remaining in the land among the Assyrian colonists. What iniquity have your fathers found in me? That is, what injustice or unfaithfulness in not performing my part of the Sinai covenant? That they are gone far from me Far from the love and fear of me, and from obedience to my laws; far from my worship and service; and have walked after vanity Have followed after vain idols, incapable of affording them either protection or help. And are become vain In their imaginations, Romans 1:21-22; fools, as senseless as the stocks or stones, of which they made their idols. Neither said they, Where is the Lord? They made no inquiry after him, took no thought about their duty to him, nor expressed any desire to recover his favour; that brought us up out of the land of Egypt? Working such a deliverance for us as had never been wrought for any people. That led us through the wilderness Conducting and sustaining our whole nation in that barren desert for the space of forty years, by almost incessant miracles; through a land of deserts and pits Through desolate and dangerous places; through a land of drought Where we had no water but by a miracle; and of the shadow of death Houbigant renders it, where death threatened us. A barren and deadly land, where no man could live; bringing forth nothing that could support life, and therefore where nothing but death could be expected; and, besides, possessed by great numbers of venomous and destructive creatures, such as scorpions, serpents, &c., and where we were exposed to the attacks of many enemies. A land that no man passed through As having in it no accommodation for travellers, much less for habitation.