YHWH Lays Down His Final Terms (Jeremiah 3:1-5).
The latter rains have failed to come because they have been faithless to YHWH, something that is evident to anyone who will look to the bare hills or the wayside resting places. For there their flagrant misbehaviour is made apparent. But if they will only return to Him, calling Him Father and taking Him as the guide of their youth, He may well yet be ready to listen to them. Their answer is, however, seen in their unresponsive attitudes.
“They say, ‘If a man put away his wife,
And she go from him, and become another man's,
Will he return to her again?
Will not that land be greatly polluted?'
But you have played the harlot with many lovers,
Yet return again to me”, the word of YHWH.'
What ‘they said' was strictly in accordance with the Law. See Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Once a man had put away his wife and she had belonged to another, he was not allowed to take her back again. And yet YHWH's compassion was such that He was prepared, as it were, to set aside that Law and accept His people back from their lovers if only they would return to Him again. The door of mercy was still open, and this was to be seen as the dictate of YHWH (neum YHWH). It was not, of course, actually a breaking of the Law because no individual woman was involved, nor was an earthly marriage. Besides even on the facts Judah had not remarried. She had instead had many lovers. The real point is that God's covenant love was so great that He was willing to receive Judah back if only she will truly return to Him with all her heart.
“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see,
Where have you not been lain with?
By the ways have you sat for them,
As an Arabian in the wilderness,
And you have polluted the land with your whoredoms,
And with your wickedness.”
He charges them to look at the bare heights where they have been carrying out their lewd activities, and point out any place which was free from the taint of their sexual misbehaviour. There was none. And He calls on them to consider the resting places by the way where they have awaited prostitutes, in the same way as an Arabian in the wilderness (who, because they lived in the wilderness had to wait for their favours in places where prostitutes might be found) would do. Thus had they polluted the land by their irresponsible sexual activities and by their wicked ways.
Alternately the reference to the Arabian in the wilderness may have in mind Arabians waiting in the wilderness for unsuspecting travellers to pass by whom they could rob. They wait for prostitutes like the Arabian waits for victims.
“That is why the showers have been withheld,
And there has been no latter rain,
Yet you have a harlot's forehead,
You refused to be ashamed.”
And it was because they had polluted the land that the showers had been withheld and that there had been no latter rain (the March/April rain on which the final harvest depended). Yet even when they had become aware of this they were so hardened in sin that they had refused to be ashamed. ‘You have a harlot's forehead.' Unlike other women who were discreet and pure, covering their heads from the eyes of men, harlots brazenly bared their foreheads so that the men whom they sought would know that they were available. It was a sign that they too, like Judah, were hardened in sin.
“Will you not from this time cry to me,
‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth?' ”
But YHWH, ever patient in His faithfulness and compassion, still wants His people to turn to Him, so He asks them whether they will not from this time call to Him, saying, ‘My Father, You are the guide of my youth'. He wants them to look back to earlier days in the wilderness when they had initially sought the truth of YHWH, before they had become so hardened. If they will once again respond to Him as their Father on a continuing basis, He will gladly take them up.
“Will he retain his anger for ever?
Will he keep it to the end?
Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things,
And have had your way.”
Jeremiah then adds the final words. Will YHWH retain His anger for ever? Will He keep it to the end? The answer, if only they will truly repent and turn to Him as their Father, is ‘No', but if they remain as they are it is ‘Yes'. For Jeremiah recognises that they are so steeped in sin that it is preventing their response. They have ‘spoken and done evil things', and have ‘continually had their own way'. It will not be easy for them to relinquish those ways and respond to God as their Father. So like Jesus would after him Jeremiah calls on his countrymen to respond to God as their heavenly Father, but similarly to Jesus He makes clear to them that it will depend on a true and obedient response. They cannot call Him Father and not do what He says.