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It is probable that this chapter was Jeremiah's first sermon after his ordination; and a most lively pathetic sermon it is as any we have is all the books of the prophets. Let him not say, "I cannot speak, for I am a child;" for, God having touched his mouth and put his words into it, none can speak better. The scope of the chapter is to show God's people their transgressions, even the house of Jacob their sins; it is all by way of reproof and conviction, that they might be brought to repent of their sins and so prevent the ruin that was coming upon them. The charge drawn up against them is very high, the aggravations are black, the arguments used for their conviction very close and pressing, and the expostulations very pungent and affecting. The sin which they are most particularly charged with here is idolatry, forsaking the true God, their own God, for other false gods. Now they are told, I. That this was ungrateful to God, who had been so kind to them (Jer 2:1-8). II. That it was without precedent, that a nation should change their god (Jer 2:9-13). III. That hereby they had disparaged and ruined themselves (Jer 2:14-19). IV. That they had broken their covenants and degenerated from their good beginnings (Jer 2:20, Jer 2:21). V. That their wickedness was too plain to be concealed and too bad to be excused (Jer 2:22, Jer 2:23, Jer 2:35). VI. That they persisted witfully and obstinately in it, and were irreclaimable and indefatigable in their idolatries (Jer 2:24, Jer 2:25, Jer 2:33, Jer 2:36). VII. That they shamed themselves by their idolatry and should shortly be made ashamed of it when they should find their idols unable to help them (Jer 2:26-29, Jer 2:37). VIII. That they had not been convinced and reformed by the rebukes of Providence that had been under (Jer 2:30). IX. That they had put a great contempt upon God (Jer 2:31, Jer 2:32). X. That with their idolatries they had mixed the most unnatural murders, shedding the blood of the poor innocents (Jer 2:34). Those hearts were hard indeed that were untouched and unhumbled when their sins were thus set in order before them. O that by meditating on this chapter we might be brought to repent of our spiritual idolatries, giving that place in our souls to the world and the flesh which should have been reserved for God only!

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 2 This chapter contains the prophet's message from the Lord to the people of the Jews; in which they are reminded of their former favours, in order to aggravate their sins and transgressions they were chargeable with; to show their ingratitude and unkindness, and to bring them to a conviction and acknowledgment of their iniquities, without which punishment would be inflicted on them. The preface to this message is in Jer 2:1, and the discourse begins with an account of their former state and condition when they came out of Egypt; what kindness was shown them by the Lord, and what was returned to him by them; what they were to him, and how much regarded by him, Jer 2:2 and so far were they from being injured by him, that might cause them to depart from him, which they are desired to give attention to, that they were followed with various instances of goodness, which are particularly enumerated; and yet no notice was taken of them, neither by people, priests, pastors, and prophets, who were guilty of the grossest ignorance and wickedness, Jer 2:4, wherefore the Lord determines to plead with them and theirs; and charges them with such idolatry as was not to be found among the Gentiles, Jer 1:9 the heavens are called upon to be astonished at it; and the reason given for it, the ingratitude and folly of this people, Jer 2:12 in order to reclaim them, the Lord by the prophet proceeds to observe to them the corrections and chastisement they had already endured, being brought into bondage, their land wasted, cities burnt, and their glory taken from them; all which were owing to their revoltings and backslidings, and by which they might see what an evil and bitter thing sin is in its effects, Jer 2:14 and again reminds them of former favours; how that he loosed them from their yoke and bonds, when they promised to transgress no more, and yet did more and more; how he had raised them from a right seed, and planted them a noble vine, and yet they were sadly degenerated, and were guilty of such crimes as were not to be removed by anything done by them, Jer 2:20, and notwithstanding all this, they had the impudence to deny that they were tainted with idolatry, when they had been so guilty of it in the valley of Hinnom, and elsewhere; and were comparable to the lustful dromedary and wild ass, and so fond of strange gods, that they thirsted after them, and were resolved to follow them, Jer 2:23 and yet the time would come when all ranks of men among them would be ashamed of their worship of stocks and stones, and in the time of their trouble call upon the Lord to save them, when they would be sent to their gods, who were as numerous as their cities, Jer 2:26 wherefore it was in vain to plead their innocence, when they were all so guilty, and had received correction without amendment, and had even slain the prophets of the Lord, Jer 2:29 and then the Lord again upbraids them with their ingratitude to him, who had been so good and kind to them; with their forgetfulness of him, illustrated by a maid's not forgetting her ornaments, and a bride her attire; with their artful methods to entice others to idolatry, and with their shedding of innocent blood; and yet, after all this, they asserted their innocence, and affirmed they had never sinned, Jer 2:31, for all which sentence is pronounced against them, and punishment is threatened them, Jer 2:36.

Is Israel a servant?.... That he does not abide in the house, in his own land, but is carried captive, becomes subject to others, and is used as a slave; so the Targum, "as a servant;'' is he not the Lord's first born? are not the people of Israel called the children of the living God? how come they then to be treated not as children, as free men, but as servants? this cannot be owing to any breach of covenant or promise on God's part, or to the failure of the blessing of national adoption bestowed on them; but to some sin or sins of theirs, which have brought them into this miserable condition: is he a home born slave? or born in the house, of the handmaid, and so in the power of the master of the family in whose house he was born, Exo 21:4 or the sense is, either Israel is a servant, or a son of the family (d), as some render the words; not the former, being not only the son of a free woman, but Jehovah's firstborn; if the latter, why is he spoiled? why is he delivered up to the spoilers? as the Targum; why should he be given up into the hands of the Babylonians, and become their prey? is it usual for fathers to suffer their children, or those born in their house, to be so used? some reason must be given for it. (d) "filius familias", Munster.

And our hearts are thus circumcised from evil, so that we are happy to die for the name of the good Rock, which causes living water to burst forth for the hearts of those who by Him have loved the Father of all, and which gives those who are willing to drink of the water of life. But you do not comprehend me when I speak these things; for you have not understood what it has been prophesied that Christ would do, and you do not believe us who draw your attention to what has been written. For Jeremiah thus cries: "Woe unto you! because you have forsaken the living fountain, and have digged for yourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. Shall there be a wilderness where Mount Zion is, because I gave Jerusalem a bill of divorce in your sight?"

Hence also Jacob, as I remarked before, being himself a type of Christ, had married the two handmaids of his two free wives, and of them begat sons, for the purpose of indicating beforehand that Christ would receive even all those who amongst Japheth's race are descendants of Canaan, equally with the free, and would have the children fellow-heirs. And we are such; but you cannot comprehend this, because you cannot drink of the living fountain of God, but of broken cisterns which can hold no water, as the Scripture says.

Nor do we receive that useless baptism of cisterns, for it has nothing to do with this baptism of life. Wherefore also God has announced that you have forsaken Him, the living fountain, and digged for yourselves broken cisterns which can hold no water.

By reason, therefore, of this laver of repentance and knowledge of God, which has been ordained on account of the transgression of God's people, as Isaiah cries, we have believed, and testify that that very baptism which he announced is alone able to purify those who have repented; and this is the water of life. But the cisterns which you have dug for yourselves are broken and profitless to you.

This “tree” is a mystery. In ancient times, Moses sweetened the bitter water with it. The people who were perishing of thirst in the desert drank and were revived because of it. We do this, too. We were drawn out from the calamities of the world in which we were lingering, perishing with thirst (that is, deprived of the divine Word). We drank “by the faith which is on him,” the baptismal water of the “tree” of the passion of Christ. We have revived the faith from which Israel has fallen away, as foretold through Jeremiah, who says, “Send, and continue to ask whether such things have been done, whether nations will change their gods (and these are not gods!). But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled at this, O heavens!”—and when were they appalled? Undoubtedly when Christ suffered—“and be shocked,” he says, “utterly desolate.”

When we were together in council, dearest brethren, we read your letter which you wrote to us concerning those who seem to be baptized by heretics and schismatics, (asking) whether, when the), come to the Catholic Church, which is one,4 they ought to be baptized. On which matter, although you yourselves hold thereupon the truth and certainty of the Catholic rule, yet since you have thought that of our mutual love we ought to be consulted, we put forward our opinion, not as a new one,5 but we join with you in equal agreement, in an opinion long since decreed by our predecessors, and observed by us,-judging, namely, and holding it for certain that no one can be baptized abroad outside the Church, since there is one baptism appointed in the holy Church. And it is written in the words of the Lord, "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out broken cisterns, which can hold no water."

Is it right to say that what is God’s offspring and proper to him exists out of nothing? Or, is it reasonable in the very idea that what is from God has accrued to him, that someone should dare to say that the Son does not always exist? For in this again the generation of the Son exceeds and transcends human thoughts, that we become parents of our own children in time, since we ourselves first did not exist and then came into being. But God, in that he always exists, is always Father of the Son. And the origination of humankind is brought home to us from parallel experiences. However, since “no one knows the Son but the Father, and no one knows the Father but the Son, and the one to whom the Son will reveal him,” therefore the sacred writers to whom the Son has revealed him have given us a certain image from things visible, saying, “Who is the brightness of his glory and the expression of his person”; and again, “For with you is the well of life, and in your light shall we see lights.” And when the Word chides Israel, he says, “You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom,” and this is the fountain that says, “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.” Although the illustration is rather ordinary and vague compared with what we would like, it is still nonetheless possible from it to understand something above humanity’s nature, instead of thinking the Son’s generation is on a level with ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever did not exist so that he should dare to say that the Son has not always existed or that the Son did not exist before his generation? Or who is capable of separating the radiance from the sun or to conceive of the fountain as always void of life that he should madly say, “The Son exists from nothing,” when it is the Son who says, “I am the life”? Or, who can conceive of him as “alien to the Father’s essence,” who says, “He that has seen me, has seen the Father”? For the sacred writers, wishing us to understand things in this way, have given these illustrations. It is unseemly and truly irreligious, when Scripture contains such images, to form ideas concerning our Lord from others that are neither in Scripture nor have any religious bearing.

But since many heresies have existed and the people of God have been torn apart at the instigation of demons, the truth must be briefly exposed by us and placed in its own peculiar dwelling place, so that if any one shall desire to draw the water of life, he may not be born to broken cisterns that hold no water but may know the abundant fountain of God. Watered by this fountain, he may enjoy perpetual light.

Is he not one who bewitches the sheep of our patriarch, that they may not drink from the pure water that springs up unto life everlasting but may draw down on themselves the saying of the prophet: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water”? Because they should confess that the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, as the divine Word teaches and as they who have pondered it more deeply have taught.

“He has opened a pit and dug it.” We do not find the name of “pit” ever assigned in the divine Scriptures to something good or a “well” of water to something bad. That into which Joseph was thrown by his brothers is a pit. There is a slaughter “from the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the captive woman that was in prison.” In the Psalms, “I am counted among those who go down to the pit.” In Jeremiah it is said, “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

So she went down to the fountain of wisdom, whether the Church or the soul, to fill her entire vessel and to draw from the pure disciplines of wisdom that the Jews refused to draw from the flowing fountain. Who is this fountain, listen to the one saying: "They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water." To this fountain ran the thirsting soul of the prophets, as David also says: "My soul thirsts for the living God"; so that it could quench its thirst with the richness of divine knowledge and wash away the blood of foolishness with the flow of spiritual waters.

So when the whole world was parched with the drought of Gentile superstition, then came that dew of the heavenly visits on the fleece. But after that the lost sheep of the house of Israel (whom I think that the figure of the Jewish fleece shadowed forth), after that those sheep, I say, “had refused the fountain of living water,” the dew of moistening faith dried up in the breasts of the Jews, and that divine Fountain turned away its course to the hearts of the Gentiles. Whence it has come to pass that now the whole world is moistened with the dew of faith, but the Jews have lost their prophets and counsellors.

Still the Anomoeans have another well-rehearsed argument. What is that? Scripture says, “God is spirit.” Tell me, then, does that bring his essence to light? Will anyone accept that argument if he has even drawn a little way near to the doors of the divine Scriptures? According to that argument, God will also be fire, just as it has been written that God is spirit, so has it been written, “Our God is a consuming fire,” and again, “a fountain of living water.” Not only will God be a spirit and a fountain and a fire; he will also be a soul, a wind, a human mind, and other things far more absurd than these.

O blessed change! Once the body wept, but now laughs forevermore. Once it desired the broken cisterns of which the prophet speaks, but now it has been satisfied in the Lord, the fountain of life.

(Verses 12, 13.) Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord. For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. LXX: The heavens were astonished at this, and were greatly alarmed, and the rest likewise. The heavens to whom it was said: Listen, O heavens, and I will speak. (Deut. 32:1): and, Hear, O earth, the words of the Lord (Isaiah 1:2), seeing that the commands of God are trampled upon, it shudders, and cannot hide its astonishment. For every creature groans and laments over the sins of men. But God's people have done two things against Him. First, they have forsaken God who is the source of life, and He gave them a commandment, saying: 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt' (Exod. XX, 2). Second, it is written in the same place: 'You shall have no other gods before me'; for this reason they have followed demons, whom He calls broken cisterns, because they are unable to keep God's commandments. And this must be noted, that the fountain is perpetual, and it has life-giving waters. But the cisterns and lakes, either from torrents or from muddy waters, are filled with earth and rain. The gates of heaven are called those, of which it is also written in the twenty-third psalm: Lift up your heads, O gates, and the king of glory will enter. Concerning which the Septuagint translated: Lift up your gates, O princes: of which more will be said in its proper place. And what Aquila and Symmachus interpreted as 'coelos', and LXX and Theodotion as 'coelum', should not be confused. For in Hebrew, 'Samaim' is a common noun, and both the plural and singular forms are referred to as 'coeli' with the same name, just like Thebes, Athens, and Salonae.

Let him “possess his vessel in sanctification and honor,” let him drink of his own wells, not out of the dissolute cisterns of the harlots that cannot hold within them the pure waters of chastity.

Doubtless the heretics, who follow the teachings of demons, who think up false systems under the impulse of their spirit, who let it be known that they have seen visions that they have not seen and by their deadly arguments sow their seed in foolish and credulous hearts—doubtless these are the ones who do not hold the head, namely, Christ, the source of truth. Whatever is opposed to his teaching is without sense, and these are the “blind, leaders of the blind,” of whom I think it is said, “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Iniquity lies to itself either by corrupting the nature you have made and ordained or by perverting it. It lies to itself when it practices an immoderate use of things permitted or when it burns for things forbidden to that use which is against nature. It lies to itself when convicted, raging with heart and voice against you as it kicks against the goads, or when—breaking through the pale of human society—they audaciously rejoice in private cliques or divisions on the basis of whether they have been pleased or offended. These things happen whenever you are abandoned and whenever, from a self-willed pride, they choose to align themselves instead with something false that they cherish instead of you, O Fountain of life, the one, true Creator and Ruler of the universe.

The arrogance of pride, the pleasure of lust and the poison of curiosity are the motions of a dead soul. It is not that it is dead in such a way as to lack all movement; rather, it dies by “abandoning the fountain of life” and thus is taken up by the transitory world and is conformed to it.

In fact, with us is “the living water,” the very water that gushes from Christ. But you, separated from the everlasting fountain, from where do you receive your birth? And likewise had the Holy Spirit not departed from the original mother; from which did it come to you? Of course, perhaps the Spirit has followed one who engages in strife and, having abandoned so many priests and not content with its consecrated dwelling place, has truly loved the broken cistern of an impure fountain? From where do your people possess the Spirit, those whom an anointed priest has not sealed? From where do they possess the water, those who have withdrawn from their mother’s womb? From where do they possess spiritual renewal, those who have lost the cradle of nuptial peace?

Now, here he clearly reveals to us the mystery of the holy Trinity: he called the only-begotten Word of God a fountain of life. This is the name, too, remember, God personally gave himself through the prophet Jeremiah: “They have forsaken me, a fountain of living water, taken their leave and dug for themselves cracked cisterns incapable of holding water.”

EXPOSTULATION WITH THE JEWS, REMINDING THEM OF THEIR FORMER DEVOTEDNESS, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT FAVOR, AND A DENUNCIATION OF GOD'S COMING JUDGMENTS FOR THEIR IDOLATRY. (Jer. 2:1-37) cry--proclaim. Jerusalem--the headquarters and center of their idolatry; therefore addressed first. thee--rather, "I remember in regard to thee" [HENDERSON]; "for thee" [MAURER]. kindness of thy youth--not so much Israel's kindness towards God, as the kindness which Israel experienced from God in their early history (compare Eze 16:8, Eze 16:22, Eze 16:60; Eze 23:3, Eze 23:8, Eze 23:19; Hos 2:15). For Israel from the first showed perversity rather than kindness towards God (compare Exo 14:11-12; Exo 15:24; Exo 32:1-7, &c.). The greater were God's favors to them from the first, the fouler was their ingratitude in forsaking Him (Jer 2:3, Jer 2:5, &c.). espousals--the intervals between Israel's betrothal to God at the exodus from Egypt, and the formal execution of the marriage contract at Sinai. EWALD takes the "kindness" and "love" to be Israel's towards God at first (Exo 19:8; Exo 24:3; Exo 35:20-29; Exo 36:5; Jos 24:16-17). But compare Deu 32:16-17; Eze 16:5-6, Eze 16:15, Eze 16:22 ("days of thy youth") implies that the love here meant was on God's side, not Israel's. thou wentest after me in . . . wilderness--the next act of God's love, His leading them in the desert without needing any strange god, such as they since worshipped, to help Him (Deu 2:7; Deu 32:12). Jer 2:6 shows it is God's "leading" of them, not their following after God in the wilderness, which is implied.

two evils--not merely one evil, like the idolaters who know no better; besides simple idolatry, My people add the sin of forsaking the true God whom they have known; the heathen, though having the sin of idolatry, are free from the further sin of changing the true God for idols (Jer 2:11). forsaken me--The Hebrew collocation brings out the only living God into more prominent contrast with idol nonentities. "Me they have forsaken, the Fountain," &c. (Jer 17:13; Psa 36:9; Joh 4:14). broken cisterns--tanks for rain water, common in the East, where wells are scarce. The tanks not only cannot give forth an ever-flowing fresh supply as fountains can, but cannot even retain the water poured into them; the stonework within being broken, the earth drinks up the collected water. So, in general, all earthly, compared with heavenly, means of satisfying man's highest wants (Isa 55:1-2; compare Luk 12:33).