Is Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave? why is he spoiled?
Is he a home-born slave? - No. (Exodus 4:22, "Thus saith the Lord (Yahweh), Israel is my son, even my first-born.") Jeremiah 2:16; Jeremiah 2:18; Jeremiah 2:36, and the absence of any express contrast of the two parts of the nation are against Eichorn's view, that the prophet proposes to Judah, as yet spared, the case of Israel (the ten tribes), which had been carried away by Assyria, as a warning of what they might expect if they should still put their trust in Egypt. 'Were Israel's ten tribes of meaner birth than Judah? Certainly not. If, then, the former fell before Assyria, what can Judah hope from Egypt against Assyria?' "Israel" is rather here the whole of the remnant still left in their own land, i:e., Judah, the surviving representative of the Jewish nation. 'How comes it to pass that the nation which once was under God's special protection (Jeremiah 2:3) is now left at the mercy of the foe as a worthless slave?' The prophet sees this event as if present, though it was still future to Judah (Jeremiah 2:19).