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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 3:6 - 3:6
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Israel's backsliding and rejection a warning for Judah. - Jer 3:6. "And Jahveh spake to me in the days of King Josiah, Hast thou seen what the backsliding one, Israel, hath done? she went up on every high mountain, and under every green tree, and played the harlot there. Jer 3:7. And I thought: After she hath done all this, she will return to me; but she returned not. And the faithless one, her sister Judah, saw it. Jer 3:8. And I saw that, because the backsliding one, Israel, had committed adultery, and I had put her away, and had given her a bill of divorce, yet the faithless one, Judah, her sister, feared not even on this account, and went and played the harlot also. Jer 3:9. And it befell that for the noise of her whoredom the land was defiled, and she committed adultery with stone and wood. Jer 3:10. And yet with all this, the faithless one, her sister Judah, turned not to me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, saith Jahveh." The thought of these verses is this: notwithstanding that Judah has before its eyes the lot which Israel (of the ten tribes) has brought on itself by its obdurate apostasy from the covenant God, it will not be moved to true fear of God and real repentance. Viewing idolatry as spiritual whoredom, the prophet developes that train of thought by representing the two kingdoms as two adulterous sisters, calling the inhabitants of the ten tribes מְשֻׁבָה, the backsliding, those of Judah בָּגֹודָה, the faithless. On these names Venema well remarks: "Sorores propter unam eandemque stirpem, unde uterque populus fuit, et arctam ad se invicem relationem appellantur. Utraque fuit adultera propter idololatriam et faederis violationem; sed Israel vocatur uxor aversa; Juda vero perfida, quia Israel non tantum religionis sed et regni et civitatis respectu, adeoque palam erat a Deo alienata, Juda vero Deo et sedi regni ac religionis adfixa, sed nihilominus a Deo et cultu ejus defecerat, et sub externa specie populi Dei faedus ejus fregerat, quo ipso gravius peccaverat." This representation Ezekiel has in Jer 23 expanded into an elaborate allegory. The epithets מְשֻׁבָה and בָּגֹודָה or בֹּגֵדָה (Jer 3:11) are coined into proper names. This is shown by their being set without articles before the names; as mere epithets they would stand after the substantives and have the article, since Israel and Judah as being nomm. propr. are definite ideas. מְשׁוּבָה is elsewhere an abstract substantive: apostasy, defection (Jer 8:5; Hos 11:7, etc.), here concrete, the apostate, so-called for her many מְשֻׁבֹות, Jer 3:22 and Jer 2:19. בָּגֹודָה, the faithless, used of perfidious forsaking of a husband; cf. Jer 3:20, Mal 2:14. הֹלִכָה הִיא, going was she, expressing continuance. Cf. the same statement in Jer 2:20. וַתִּזְנִי, 3rd pers. fem., is an Aramaizing form for וַתִּזְנֶה or וַתִּזֶן; cf. Isa 53:10.