I’m sure we have learnt from our previous studies that when God talks about His people committing adultery and going with prostitutes, he isn’t talking about sexual activities.
As we study God’s Word, we see over and over again that God’s anger is directed at their idolatry. Idolatry is the number one thing that angers God throughout Scripture.
This chapter begins with two questions: if a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? The answer to this question is no because, by Law, an Israelite who divorced his wife was not allowed to remarry her once she had been defiled, Deuteronomy 24:1-4.
Would not the land be completely defiled? Jeremiah 3:1. The answer to this question is yes, if Judah goes away and does all that she wants to do and then comes back, she will be defiled, Jeremiah 3:1.
It’s not a case of someone coming home who is sorry, but someone who is polluted. God cannot be defiled, so He won’t have it. The true meaning of the last phase of Jeremiah 3:1 is, ‘after your wretched conduct, do you really suppose that you can return as the wife of God?’
These words in Jeremiah 3:2 explode the arrogant notion of Israel that she might again be God’s wife. Jeremiah, therefore, challenges her to look everywhere, to find a single tree under which she has not committed prostitution by worshipping false gods and indulging in their sexual orgies, Jeremiah 3:3.
Israel has been like the Arabians in the wilderness, Jeremiah 3:2, which means either lying in wait to rob a caravan, or sitting by the highway and seducing travellers to adultery. This was a device often followed by immoral women. Tamar’s seduction of Judah in Genesis 38:14-16 is a good example of this.
The people are stubborn and hard-hearted. God withheld the showers and spring rains, Jeremiah 3:3. Israel doesn’t just have a surface problem; it has penetrated the people.
They refuse to be ashamed, they don’t know how to blush, Jeremiah 3:3. They pretend to be pure, yet still, mess about with idols. Even when they suffer, they have no shame, Jeremiah 3:3.
They belong to God, but they believe that God will be their Father and friend, instead of being their judge, Jeremiah 3:4 / Jeremiah 2:27. And even as they cry, they blame God.
God’s anger is a righteous anger, Jeremiah 3:5. They don’t want Him to be angry, but He will be until they get themselves sorted out, Jeremiah 3:5. It’s not that God departed from them; it’s they who have departed from God.
Keil, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The essential message of these first five verses is simply this: Judah, after it has turned away to other gods, will not be received again by Jehovah (as his espoused wife), especially in view of all her chastisements and her adherence to evil ways.’
This message came from God during the reign of Josiah. Josiah was a good king over Judah who began many reforms to try to turn the people back to God. And so, here we read about what Judah had actually done, Jeremiah 3:6. The Lord begins by describing what happened in Israel, the northern nation, before it was judged and destroyed.
Even while they are crying out for God, they continue to sin; they have turned away. All of this, the whole pattern, has been set by Israel. Judah had seen what happened to Israel, yet she walks in the same steps, committing idolatry, Jeremiah 3:6-7. She hadn’t learnt the lesson, and she has no fear of God, Jeremiah 3:8.
The people of Judah committed the same sins as the people of Israel, and they didn’t care, Jeremiah 3:9. They saw what happened to Israel, and yet they didn’t turn to God wholeheartedly and pretended to do so, Jeremiah 3:10.
In other words, they pretended they were changing, but they really didn’t. As a result of their pretence, God declares that Israel, despite being faithless, was more righteous than Judah, Jeremiah 3:10.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following concerning Jeremiah 3:11.
‘She was less offensive in my eyes, and more excusable, than treacherous Judah. So it is said, Luke 18:14, the humbled publican went down to his house justified rather than the boasting Pharisee. The one was more to be pitied than the other and more likely to receive the mercy of God.’
God now tells Jeremiah to proclaim a message toward the north, that is, toward faithless Israel, Jeremiah 3:12, despite the fact that Israel has already been taken into captivity by the Assyria, 2 Kings 17:6. God invites them to return to Him not because they are sinless but because He is a merciful God and refuses to be angry any longer with them, Jeremiah 3:12.
God also tells them how they can return to him, He says they need to acknowledge their guilt, Jeremiah 3:13. They need to acknowledge that they have rebelled against God, Jeremiah 3:13 / 2 Corinthians 7:8-10.
Once again, the message is return faithless Israel and notice God says, ‘I am your husband’, Jeremiah 3:14. When they start worshipping idols and turn away from Him, He is a jealous God.
Now He begins to talk about their rewards if they respond to God’s will. God will choose them, and they will be given a home if they repent and turn back and that home is ‘Zion’, Jeremiah 3:14.
Wycliff’s Old Testament commentary says the following.
‘Out of God’s purifying judgment upon his apostate people shall come a few refined souls. They will be gathered and shall constitute the New Israel, blessed of God, Romans 11:5.’
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘If there should be but one of a city left, or one willing to return, and two only of a whole tribe, yet will I receive these, and bring them back from captivity into their own land. I have heard these words most sinfully applied to show the nature of a fancied eternal decree of election, that has appointed in several cases one only out of a whole city, and two out of a whole family, to be eternally saved, leaving the rest, according to the decree of reprobation, to perish everlastingly! And yet these persons, who spoke thus of the Fountain of eternal goodness and mercy, professed to believe in Him who by the grace of God tasted death for every man.’
We see a change going to take place in God’s government. They will also have precepts, laws, and the proper shepherds. God says He will give them good shepherds to lead them in knowledge and understanding, Jeremiah 3:15 / John 10:11 / 1 Peter 5:2-3.
They will be given wisdom to make decisions and help the flock develop properly. We still need such shepherds today to give us wisdom and show us how to develop our growth.
People will not miss the ark of the covenant, Jeremiah 3:16; it won’t mean anything to them. It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made.
It’s unbelievable that no one would ever think about the ark again, but the reason is simple: God will come in the flesh to dwell among His people, John 1:1 / John 1:14, and He will reside in the heart of every baptised Christian, Acts 2:38.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following concerning God’s throne, Jeremiah 3:17.
‘Jehovah’s throne shall not be the ark but Jerusalem, i.e., the Christian Church, Revelation 21:2 / Galatians 4:26.’
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The new Jerusalem, the universal Church of Christ, shall be God’s throne: and wherever he is acknowledged as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, there God sits on his throne, and holds his court.’
God says He will give His people a new heart to replace the evil one they have, Jeremiah 3:17. This is a heart that desires to live for God, but also a heart which is willing to repent and confess our sins to Him, 1 John 1:9.
In Jerusalem, the change will come from God’s gathering. In those days, the house of Judah will join with the house of Israel, Jeremiah 3:18. This refers to the glorious days of Christianity and the ingathering of Jews from all the lands of their dispersion and the uniting of them with the Christian church, Ezekiel 37:15-28 / Ephesians 2:13 / Hebrews 12:18-24.
Notice that God says He is going to treat them as His children, the people would call him, ‘My Father,’ Matthew 6:9-13 / Luke 11:2-4, and His children wouldn’t turn from following Him, Jeremiah 3:19. He really wants to treat them as His own and give them a beautiful inheritance among the nations, Jeremiah 3:19.
God says, like a woman unfaithful to her husband, you have been unfaithful to me, Jeremiah 3:20. We can almost feel the pain of God’s words in Jeremiah 3:21, as he reflects upon their adulterous behaviour towards God.
Despite their unfaithfulness towards God and despite God’s heartache, He asks His faithless sons to return to Him, Jeremiah 3:22. He wants them to return so He can cure them of their unfaithfulness, Jeremiah 3:1, and backsliding, Jeremiah 3:22.
As a result of God’s offer to cure them, they say they will come to God because He really is their God, Jeremiah 3:22. And they now recognise that the very places they committed idolatry can’t offer salvation, Jeremiah 3:23.
They now understand that their shameful behaviour and shameful idols have consumed all the efforts of the labourers, Jeremiah 3:24 / 2 Samuel 2:8, and shame and dishonour should cover them, Jeremiah 3:25. In other words, they sinned, but now they are shamed simply because they didn’t obey God’s command, Jeremiah 3:25.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The word shame, here and in Jeremiah 11:13 / Hosea 9:10, is supposed to signify Baal, the idol which they worshipped. That thing or shame which has brought you into contempt, confusion, and ruin. Sooner or later every sinner must be ashamed of his conduct, next, confounded; and, lastly, ruined by it, unless by true faith and hearty repentance he returns to the Lord.’
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The overwhelming sorrow, both of the great prophet and of the people who had fallen away from God, suffering the consequences of their sin, is the emotion that surfaces here at the end of this chapter. In all the history of mankind, there is hardly any greater tragedy than that which befell the disobedient people of God.’