Jeremiah 3:1-5 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Reader Related Verse
Bible Comments

Israel's Infidelity. (Some introductory formula, like that of Jeremiah 2:1, has dropped out before Jeremiah 3:1; note mg.). Israel's marital unfaithfulness to Yahweh is too gross for a facile repentance to avail. The analogy of the law of divorce (mg. reference) suggests that Israel cannot deal with her Divine Husband as lightly as she will. She has waited for her lovers as persistently as a nomad plunderer for his victims. The loss of that prosperity which depended on the latter rain (of the spring) has brought no compunction. Recent promises have not been kept.

Jeremiah 3:1. land should be woman, with LXX; mg. 3 to be read.

Jeremiah 3:4. Render Hast thou not just cried; some see a reference here and in Jeremiah 3:5 to the Reformation under Josiah, and its relative failure. guide is friend or lover (cf. mg.) ; for the idea of Yahweh as both father and husband to Israel, see Hosea 2:16; Hosea 11:1.

Jeremiah 3:5. hast... done: read mg.

Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 3:1

Jeremiah 3:1-5

1 They say,a If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.

2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.

3 Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.

4 Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?

5 Will he reserve his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest.