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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Jeremiah 2:29 - 2:37
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The Guilt Established
v. 29. Wherefore will ye plead with Me? contending with the Lord as though He had no right to punish them. Ye all have transgressed against Me, saith the Lord, forsaking Him in rebellious wickedness.
v. 30. In vain have I smitten your children, in endeavoring to bring them to their senses; they received no correction, they would not permit themselves to be guided on the right path; your own sword hath devoured your prophets like a destroying lion. Cf 2Ch_36:16; Neh_9:26; Mat_23:29-31.
v. 31. O generation! Children of perverseness now living! See ye the word of the Lord, which is hereby brought before them with the demand that they regard it. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel, where all the necessaries of life are wanting, a land of darkness? so that they would seem to be under the shadow of death when in His care. Wherefore say My people, We are lords, proudly strutting about as though they were their own masters; we will come no more unto Thee? fatuously boasting that they no longer were in need of Him.
v. 32. Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire? the precious girdle with which she adorned herself on her wedding-day. Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number. Israel should have clung to her God, her highest and most precious Ornament and Possession, by whom she had been so richly blessed. Instead of that she forsook Jehovah, not only once, in an unguarded moment, but continually.
v. 33. Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? Israel decking herself like a harlot to accomplish her ends. Therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways. As wicked as the Gentiles were in themselves, Israel was able to give them instruction in wickedness.
v. 34. Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents, of holy men and prophets who dared to reprove Israel for her sins. I have not found it by secret search, such a careful scrutiny was not necessary in this case, but upon all these, on account of the sin of idolatry, which finally led to the murder of the Lord's servants.
v. 35. Yet thou sayest, with brazen boldness. Because I am innocent, surely His anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, citing Israel before the tribunal of His judgment, because thou sayest, I have not sinned, in a self-righteous denial of her guilt.
v. 36. Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? in forming alliances with her heathen neighbors. Thou also shall be ashamed of Egypt, whose vassal Israel was for a while, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria, after King Ahaz had sent there for help, 2Ch_28:16-21.
v. 37. Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, from all heathen allies, and thine hands upon thine head, as a sign of deep mourning; for the Lord hath rejected thy confidences, the heathen nations in whom Israel trusted, and thou shalt not prosper in them, have no success in the stays on which she relied. All such as are Christians in name only and rely upon the enemies of the Lord will finally find themselves forsaken by their supposed friends and subject to the punishments of the Lord.