A verse by verse commentary on Jeremiah 3 dealing with the anger of God at unfaithful Israel for her going whoring after other gods, and then Judah followed her example.Yet, God pleads for them to return to Him.

1. JEREMIAH 3 COMME TARY
EDITD BY GLE PEASE
1 “If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him and marries another man,
should he return to her again?
Would not the land be completely defiled?
But you have lived as a prostitute with many
lovers—
would you now return to me?”
declares the Lord.
BAR ES, "They say - Or, That is to say. The prophet has completed his survey of
Israel’s conduct, and draws the conclusion that as an adulterous wife could not be taken
back by her husband, so Israel has forfeited her part in the covenant with God.
Apparently the opening word, which literally means “to say,” only introduces the
quotation in the margin.
Yet return again to me - Or, “and thinkest thou to return unto me!” The whole
argument is not of mercy, but is the proof that after her repeated adulteries, Israel could
not again take her place as wife. To think of returning to God, with the marriage-law
unrepealed, was folly.
CLARKE, "If a man put away his wife - It was ever understood, by the law and
practice of the country, that if a woman were divorced by her husband, and became the
wife of another man, the first husband could never take her again. Now Israel had been
married unto the Lord; joined in solemn covenant to him to worship and serve him only.
Israel turned from following him, and became idolatrous. On this ground, considering
idolatry as a spiritual whoredom, and the precept and practice of the law to illustrate this
case, Israel could never more be restored to the Divine favor: but God, this first
husband, in the plenitude of his mercy, is willing to receive this adulterous spouse, if she
will abandon her idolatries and return unto him. And this and the following chapters are
spent in affectionate remonstrances and loving exhortations addressed to these sinful
people, to make them sensible of their own sin, and God’s tender mercy in offering to
receive them again into favor.

2. GILL, "They say, if a man put away his wife,.... Or, "saying" (w); wherefore some
connect those words with the last verse of the preceding chapter, as if they were a
continuation of what the Lord had been there saying, that he would reject their
confidences; so Kimchi; but they seem rather to begin a new section, or a paragraph,
with what were commonly said among men, or in the law, and as the sense of that; that if
a man divorced his wife upon any occasion,
and she go from him; departs from his house, and is separated from bed and board
with him:
and become another man's, be married to another, as she might according to the
law:
shall he return unto her again? take her to be his wife again; her latter husband not
liking her, or being dead? no, he will not; he might not according to the law in Deu_24:4
and if there was no law respecting this, it can hardly be thought that he would, it being
so contrary to nature, and to the order of civil society:
shall not that land be greatly polluted? either Judea, or any other, where such
usages should obtain; for this, according to the law, was causing the land to sin, filling it
with it, and making it liable to punishment for it; this being an abomination before the
Lord. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, render it, "shall not that
woman be defiled?" she is so by the latter husband; and that is a reason why she is not to
be received by the former again, Deu_24:4,
but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; or served many idols; the
number of their gods having been according to the number of their cities, Jer_2:28,
yet return again to me, saith the Lord; by repentance, and doing their first works,
worshipping and serving him as formerly; so the Targum,
"return now from this time to my worship, saith the Lord.''
The Vulgate Latin version adds, "and I will receive thee"; this is an instance of great
grace in the Lord, and which is not to be found among men.
HE RY, "These verses some make to belong to the sermon in the foregoing chapter,
and they open a door of hope to those who receive the conviction of the reproofs we had
there; God wounds that he may heal. Now observe here,
I. How basely this people had forsaken God and gone a whoring from him. The charge
runs very high here. 1. They had multiplied their idols and their idolatries. To have
admitted one strange God among them would have been bad enough, but they were
insatiable in their lustings after false worships: Thou hast played the harlot with many
lovers, Jer_3:1. She had become a common prostitute to idols; not a foolish deity was set
up in all the neighbourhood but the Jews would have it quickly. Where was a high place
in the country but they had had an idol in it? Jer_3:2. Note, In repentance it is good to
make sorrowful reflections upon the particular acts of sin we have been guilty of, and the
several places and companies where it has been committed, that we may give glory to

3. God and take shame to ourselves by a particular confession of it. 2. They had sought
opportunity for their idolatries, and had sent about to enquire for new gods: In the high -
ways hast thou sat for them, as Tamar when she put on the disguise of a harlot (Gen_
38:14), and as the foolish woman, that sits to call passengers, who go right on their
way, Pro_9:14, Pro_9:15. As the Arabian in the wilderness - the Arabian huckster (so
some), that courts customers, or waits for the merchants to get a good bargain and
forestal the market - or the Arabian thief (so others), that watches for his prey; so had
they waited either to court new gods to come among them (the newer the better, and the
more fond they were of them) or to court others to join with them in their idolatries.
They were not only sinners, but Satans, not only traitors themselves, but tempters to
others. 3. They had grown very impudent in sin. They not only polluted themselves, but
their land, with their whoredoms and with their wickedness (Jer_3:2); for it was
universal and unpunished, and so became a national sin. And yet (Jer_3:3), “Thou hadst
a whore's forehead, a brazen face of thy own. Thou refusedst to be ashamed; thou didst
enough to shame thee for ever, and yet wouldst not take shame to thyself.” Blushing is
the colour of virtue, or at least a relic of it; but those that are past shame (we say) are
past hope. Those that have an adulterer's heart, if they indulge that, will come at length
to have a whore's forehead, void of all shame and modesty. 4. They abounded in all
manner of sin. They polluted the land not only with their whoredoms (that is, their
idolatries), but with their wickedness, or malice (Jer_3:2), sins against the second table:
for how can we think that those will be true to their neighbour that are false to their
God? “Nay (Jer_3:5), thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldst, and
wouldst have spoken and done worse if thou hadst known how; thy will was to do it, but
thou lackedst opportunity.” Note, Those are wicked indeed that sin to the utmost of their
power, that never refuse to comply with a temptation because they should not, but
because they cannot.
II. How gently God had corrected them for their sins. Instead of raining fire and
brimstone upon them, because, like Sodom, they had avowed their sin and had gone
after strange gods as Sodom after strange flesh, he only withheld the showers from
them, and that only one part of the year: There has been no latter rain, which might
serve as an intimation to them of their continual dependence upon God; when they had
the former rain, that was no security to them for the latter, but they must still look up to
God. But it had not this effect.
III. How justly God might have abandoned them utterly, and refused ever to receive
them again, though they should return; this would have been but according to the
known rule of divorces, Jer_3:1. They say (it is an adjudged case, nay, it is a case in
which the law is very express, and it is what every body knows and speaks of, Deu_24:4),
that if a woman be once put away for whoredom, and be joined to another man, her first
husband shall never, upon any pretence whatsoever, take her again to be his wife; such
playing fast and loose with the marriage-bond would be a horrid profanation of that
ordinance and would greatly pollute that land. Observe, What the law says in this case -
They say, that is, every one will say, and subscribe to the equity of the law in it; for every
man finds something in himself that forbids him to entertain one that is another man's.
And in like manner they had reason to expect that God would refuse ever to take them to
be his people again, who had not only been joined to one strange god, but had played the
harlot with many lovers. If we had to do with a man like ourselves, after such
provocations as we have been guilty of, he would be implacable, and we might have
despaired of his being reconciled to us.
IV. How graciously he not only invites them, but directs them, to return to him.
1. He encourages them to hope that they shall find favour with him, upon their

4. repentance: “Thou thou hast been bad, yet return again to me,” Jer_3:1. This implies a
promise that he will receive them: “Return, and thou shalt be welcome.” God has not
tied himself by the laws which he made for us, nor has he the peevish resentment that
men have; he will be more kind to Israel, for the sake of his covenant with them, than
ever any injured husband was to an adulterous wife; for in receiving penitents, as much
as in any thing, he is God and not man.
JAMISO ,"Jer_3:1-25. God’s mercy notwithstanding Judah’s vileness.
Contrary to all precedent in the case of adultery, Jehovah offers a return to Judah, the
spiritual adulteress (Jer_3:1-5). A new portion of the book, ending with the sixth
chapter. Judah worse than Israel; yet both shall be restored in the last days (Jer_3:6-
25).
They say — rather, as Hebrew, “saying,” in agreement with “the LORD”; Jer_2:37 of
last chapter [Maurer]. Or, it is equivalent to, “Suppose this case.” Some copyist may have
omitted, “The word of the Lord came to me,” saying.
shall he return unto her — will he take her back? It was unlawful to do so (Deu_
24:1-4).
shall not — Should not the land be polluted if this were done?
yet return — (Jer_3:22; Jer_4:1; Zec_1:3; compare Eze_16:51, Eze_16:58, Eze_
16:60). “Nevertheless,” etc. (see on Isa_50:1).
K&D 1-2, "As a divorced woman who has become another man's wife cannot return
to her first husband, so Judah, after it has turned away to other gods, will not be
received again by Jahveh; especially since, in spite of all chastisement, it adheres to its
evil ways. Jer_3:1. "He saith, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and
become another man's, can he return to her again? would not such a land be polluted?
and thou hast whored with many partners; and wouldst thou return to me? saith
Jahveh. Jer_3:2. Lift up thine eyes unto the bare-topped hills and look, where hast thou
not been lien with; on the ways thou sattest for them, like an Arab in the desert, and
pollutedst the land by thy whoredoms and by thy wickedness. Jer_3:3. And the showers
were withheld, and the latter rain came not; but thou hadst the forehead of an harlot
woman, wouldst not be ashamed. Jer_3:4. Ay, and from this time forward thou criest
to me, My father, the friend of my youth art thou. Jer_3:5. Will he always bear a
grudge and keep it up for ever? Behold, thou speakest thus and dost wickedness and
carriest it out." This section is a continuation of the preceding discourse in Jer 2, and
forms the conclusion of it. That this is so may be seen from the fact that a new discourse,
introduced by a heading of its own, begins with Jer_3:6. The substance of the fifth verse
is further evidence in the same direction; for the rejection of Judah by God declared in
that verse furnishes the suitable conclusion to the discourse in Jer 2, and briefly shows
how the Lord will plead with the people that holds itself blameless (Jer_2:35).
(Note: The contrary assertion of Ew. and Nägelsb. that these verses do not belong
to what precedes, but constitute the beginning of the next discourse (Jer 3-6), rests
upon an erroneous view of the train of thought in this discourse. And such meagre
support as it obtains involves a violation of usage in interpreting ‫ּוב‬‫שׁ‬ְ‫ו‬ as: yet turn
again to me, and needs further the arbitrary critical assertion that the heading in
Jer_3:6 : and Jahveh said to me in the days of Josiah, has been put by a copyist in
the wrong place, and that it ought to stand before Jer_3:1. - Nor is there any reason

5. for the assumption of J. D. Mich. and Graf, that at Jer_3:1 the text has been
mutilated, and that by an oversight ‫י‬ ִ‫ה‬ְ‫י‬ַ‫ו‬ has dropped out; and this assumption also
contradicts the fact that Jer_3:1-5 can neither contain nor begin any new prophetic
utterance.)
But it is somewhat singular to find the connection made by means of ‫ּר‬‫מ‬‫א‬ ֵ‫,ל‬ which is not
translated by the lxx or Syr., and is expressed by Jerome by vulgo dicitur. Ros. would
make it, after Rashi, possem dicere, Rashi's opinion being that it stands for ‫ישׁ‬ ‫לי‬ ‫.לימר‬ In
this shape the assumption can hardly be justified. It might be more readily supposed
that the infinitive stood in the sense: it is to be said, one may say, it must be affirmed;
but there is against this the objection that this use of the infinitive is never found at the
beginning of a new train of thought. The only alternative is with Maur. and Hitz. to join
‫ּר‬‫מ‬‫א‬ ֵ‫ל‬ with what precedes, and to make it dependent on the verb ‫ס‬ፍ ָ‫מ‬ in Jer_2:37 : Jahveh
hath rejected those in whom thou trustest, so that thou shalt not prosper with them; for
He says: As a wife, after she has been put away from her husband and has been joined to
another, cannot be taken back again by her first husband, so art thou thrust away for thy
whoredom. The rejection of Judah by God is not, indeed, declared expressis verbis in
Jer_3:1-5, but is clearly enough contained there in substance. Besides, "the rejection of
the people's sureties (Jer_2:37) involves that of the people too" (Hitz.). ‫ּר‬‫מ‬‫א‬ ֵ‫,ל‬ indeed, is
not universally used after verbis dicendi alone, but frequently stands after very various
antecedent verbs, in which case it must be very variously expressed in English; e.g., in
Jos_22:11 it comes after ‫עוּ‬ ְ‫מ‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ִ‫,י‬ they heard: as follows, or these words; in 2Sa_3:12 we
have it twice, once after the words, he sent messengers to David to say, i.e., and cause
them say to him, a second time in the sense of namely; in 1Sa_27:11 with the force of: for
he said or thought. It is used here in a manner analogous to this: he announces to thee,
makes known to thee. - The comparison with the divorced wife is suggested by the law in
Deu_24:1-4. Here it is forbidden that a man shall take in marriage again his divorced
wife after she has been married to another, even although she has been separated from
her second husband, or even in the case of the death of the latter; and re-marriage of this
kind is called an abomination before the Lord, a thing that makes the land sinful. The
question, May he yet return to her? corresponds to the words of the law: her husband
may not again (‫שׁוּב‬ ָ‫)ל‬ take her to be his wife. The making of the land sinful is put by Jer.
in stronger words: this land is polluted; making in this an allusion to Lev_18:25, Lev_
18:27, where it is said of similar sins of the flesh that they pollute the land.
With "and thou hast whored" comes the application of this law to the people that had
by its idolatry broken its marriage vows to its God. ‫ה‬ָ‫נ‬ָ‫ז‬ is construed with the accus. as in
Eze_16:28. ‫ים‬ ִ‫ע‬ ֵ‫,ר‬ comrades in the sense of paramours; cf. Hos_3:1. ‫ים‬ ִ ַ‫,ר‬ inasmuch as
Israel or Judah had intrigued with the gods of many nations. ‫ּוב‬‫שׁ‬ְ‫ו‬ ‫י‬ ַ‫ל‬ ֵ‫א‬ .snoi is infin. abs.,
and the clause is to be taken as a question: and is it to be supposed that thou mayest
return to me? The question is marked only by the accent; cf. Ew. §328, a, and Gesen. §
131, 4, b. Syr., Targ., Jerome, etc. have taken ‫ּוב‬‫שׁ‬ְ‫ו‬ as imperative: return again to me; but
wrongly, since the continuity is destroyed. This argument is not answered by taking ‫ו‬
copul. adversatively with the sig. yet: it is on the contrary strengthened by this arbitrary
interpretation. The call to return to God is incompatible with the reference in Jer_3:2 to
the idolatry which is set before the eyes of the people to show it that God has cause to be

6. wroth. "Look but to the bare-topped hills." ‫ם‬ִ‫י‬ ָ‫פ‬ ְ‫,שׁ‬ bald hills and mountains (cf. Isa_
41:18), were favoured spots for idolatrous worship; cf. Hos_4:13. When hast not thou let
thyself be ravished? i.e., on all sides. For ְ ְ‫ל‬ַ ֻ‫שׁ‬ the Masoretes have here and everywhere
substituted ְ ְ‫ב‬ ַⅴ ֻ‫,שׁ‬ see Deu_28:30; Zec_14:2, etc. The word is here used for spiritual
ravishment by idolatry; here represented as spiritual fornication. Upon the roads thou
sattest, like a prostitute, to entice the passers-by; cf. Gen_38:14; Pro_7:12. This figure
corresponds in actual fact to the erection of idolatrous altars at the corners of the streets
and at the gates: 2Ki_23:8; Eze_16:25. Like an Arab in the desert, i.e., a Bedouin, who
lies in wait for travellers, to plunder them. The Bedouins were known to the ancients, cf.
Diod. Sic. 2:48, Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 28, precisely as they are represented to this day by
travellers. - By this idolatrous course Israel desecrated the land. The plural form of the
suffix with the singular ‫נוּת‬ְ‫ז‬ is to be explained by the resemblance borne both in sound
and meaning (an abstract) by the termination ‫וּת‬ to the plural ‫;וֹת‬ cf. Jer_3:8, Zep_3:20,
and Ew. §259, b. ְ‫ך‬ ֵ‫ת‬ ָ‫ע‬ ָ‫ר‬ refers to the moral enormities bound up with idolatry, e.g., the
shedding of innocent blood, Jer_2:30, Jer_2:35. The shedding of blood is represented as
defilement of the land in Num_35:33.
CALVI , "Many regard this verse as connected with the last, and thus read them
connectedly, “God hates false confidences, because he says, “etc. But this seems not
to me to be suitable; for Jeremiah brings before us here a new subject, — that God
seeks to be reconciled to his people, according to what a husband does, who desires
to receive into favor an unchaste wife, and is ready to grant her full pardon, and to
take her again as a chaste and faithful wife. This verse, then, cannot be connected
with the foregoing, in which, as we have seen, the people are condemned. The word
‫לסמר‬ lam er, means the same, as I think, as when we say in French, par maniere de
dire, or as when it is commonly said, “Suppose a case.” For the Prophet does not
here introduce God as the speaker, but lays before us a common subject, with this
preface, ‫,לאמר‬ lamer, that is, “Be it so, that a man divorces his wife, and she becomes
allied to another husband, can she again return to her first husband? This is not
usually done; but I will surpass whatever kindness there may be among men, for I
am ready to receive thee, provided thou wilt in future observe conjugal fidelity, and
part with thy adulteries and adulterers.” (72)
As to the main point, there is here no ambiguity: for God shews that he would be
reconciled to the Jews, provided they proceeded not obstinately in their sinful
courses. But in order to set forth more fully his mercy, he uses a comparison which
must be a little more attentively considered. He had before said that he held the
place of a husband, that the people occupied the station of a wife; and then he
complained of the base perfidy of the people, who had forsaken him, and said that
they had acted like a wife who, having despised her husband, prostituted herself to
such adulterers as might happen to meet her: but he now adds, “Behold, if a man
dismisses his wife, and she becomes the wife of another, he will never receive her
again.” And this was forbidden by the law. “But I am ready, “he says, “to receive
thee, though I had not given thee the usual divorce at my pleasure, as husbands are

7. wont to do who repudiate their wives, when there is anything displeasing in them.”
It is not a simple comparison, as many think; (I know not whether all think so, for I
have not read any who seem to understand the true meaning;) for God does not
simply compare himself to a husband who has repudiated his wife for adultery; but
as I have already said, there are here two clauses. The Jews were then wont to
divorce their wives even for slight causes, and for no cause at all.
ow, God speaks thus by Isaiah,
“Shew me the bill of your mother’s divorcement,”
(Isaiah 50:1)
as though he had said, “I have not repudiated your mother.” For if any one then
departed from his wife, the law compelled him to take some blame on himself; for
what was the bill of divorcement? It was a testimony to the wife’s chastity; for if any
one was found guilty of adultery, there was no need of divorcement, as it was a
capital crime. (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22.) Hence adulteresses were not
usually divorced; but if any woman had conducted herself faithfully towards her
husband, and he wished to repudiate her, the law constrained him to give her the
bill of divorcement: “I repudiate this wife, not because she hath broken or violated
the bond of marriage, but because her manners are not agreeable, because her
beauty does not please me.” Thus the husbands were then commanded to take some
of the blame on themselves. Hence the Lord says by Isaiah,
“Shew me the bill of your mother’s divorcement;”
as though he had said, “She has departed from me; she has broken the bond of
marriage by her fornications; I am not then in fault for being alienated from you.”
God then does not mean in this place, that he had divorced the people; for this
would have been wrong and unlawful, and could not have been consistent with the
character of God. But as I have already said, there is here a twofold comparison.
“Though a husband should fastidiously send away his wife, and she through his
fault should be led to contract another marriage, and become the partner of
another, as though in contempt of him, he could hardly ever bear that indignity, and
become reconciled to her: but ye have not been repudiated by me, but are like a
perfidious woman, who shamefully prostitutes herself to all whom she may meet
with; and yet I am ready to receive you, and to forget all your base conduct.” We
now then understand the import of the words.
In the second clause there is a comparison made from the less to the greater. For the
return into favor would have been easier, if the repudiated wife had afterwards
become acceptable to him, though she had become the wife of another; but when an
adulteress finds her husband so willing of himself, and ready to grant free pardon, it
is certainly an example not found among mortals. Thus we see that God, by an
argument from the less to the greater, enhances his goodness towards the people, in
order to render the Jews the less excusable for rejecting so pertinaciously a favor

8. freely offered to them.
But it may be asked, why the Prophet says, By pollution shall not this land be
polluted, or, through this? I shall speak first of the words, and then refer to the
subject. Almost all give this version, “Is not that land by pollution polluted.” But I
know not what sense we can elicit by such a rendering, except, it may be, that God
compares a divorced wife to the land, or that he, by an abrupt transition, transfers
to the land what he had said of a divorced wife, or rather that he explains the
metaphor which had been used. If this sense be approved, then the copulative which
follows must be rendered as a causative, which all have rendered adversatively, and
rightly too, “But thou.” I then prefer to read ‫,ההיא‬ eeia, by itself, “by this;” that is,
when a wife returns again to her first husband, after having married another; for
the law, as we have said, forbad this; and the husband must have become an
adulterer, if he took again the wife whom he had repudiated. Liberty was granted to
women by divorce; not that divorce was by God allowed; but as the women were
innocent, they were released, for God imputed the fault to the husbands. And when
the repudiated wife married another man, this second marriage was considered
legitimate. If, then, the first husband sought to recover the wife whom he had
divorced, he violated the bond of the second marriage. For this reason, and
according to this sense, the Prophet says, that the land would by this become
polluted; as though he had said, “It is not lawful for husbands to take back their
wives, however ready they may be to forgive them; but I require no other thing but
your return to me.”
As to the words, we now see that the Prophet does not say without reason, “By this;”
that is, when a woman unites herself to one man, and then to another, and
afterwards returns to her first husband; for society would thus be torn asunder, and
also the sacred bond of marriage, the main thing in the preservation of social order,
would be broken.
It is added, But thou hast played the harlot with many companions (73) What we
have before observed is here confirmed, — that the people had been guilty, not only
of one act of adultery, but that they were become like common strumpets, who
prostitute themselves to all without any difference; and this is what will be presently
stated. Those whom he calls companions or friends were rivals. He says, Yet return
to me, saith Jehovah: by which he intimated, — “Pardon is ready for thee, provided
thou repentest.”
An objection may, however, be here raised, — How could God do what he had
forbidden in his law? The answer is obvious, — o other remedy could have been
given to preserve order in society when men were allowed to repudiate their wives,
except by adding this restraint, as a proof that God did not favor their levity and
changeableness. It was thus necessary, for the interest of society, to punish such men
as were too morose and rigid, by withholding from them the power of recovering the
wives whom they had dismissed. It might otherwise have been, that one changed his
love the third day, or in a month, or in a year, and demanded his wife. God then
intended to put this restraint on divorce, so that no man, who had put away his wife,

9. could take her again. But the case is very different as to God himself: it is therefore
nothing strange that he claims for himself the right of being reconciled to the Jews
on their repentance. It follows —
According to what is said, If a man sends away his wife, And she goes from him and
becomes another man’s, Is he to return to her again? Polluted, shall it not be
polluted, even that land? But thou hast played the harlot with many friends, Yet
return to me, saith Jehovah.
The particle ‫הן‬ in the first line is Chaldee for ‫;אם‬ it is so rendered by the Targun and
the early versions. The pronoun ‫ההיא‬ after “land” cannot be rendered as Calvin
proposes; it agrees in gender with “land.” It is singular that the Septuagint, the
Vulgate, and the Arabic, have “woman” instead of “land;” yet the Syriac and
Targum retain “land:“ but in them all this pronoun is construed with the noun.
Gataker takes “land” here, and in Deuteronomy 24:4, as meaning “the state,“ the
community, and refers to umbers 35:33; Psalms 106:38; Isaiah 24:5. — Ed
COFFMA , "Verse 1
JEREMIAH 3
JUDAH MORE SI FUL THA ISRAEL
We continue to find little interest in the guessing game connected with assigning
dates to the various chapters of Jeremiah. In very few instances can it be affirmed
that the exact date makes much difference. Jellie gave the date of the first
paragraph here as the thirteenth year of Josiah, the next paragraph as the
seventeenth year of Josiah, pointing out that some scholars favored the eighteenth
year (E. Henderson), and some the year 620 B.C. (MH).[1]
Salient teachings of the chapter proclaim the final divorce of Israel as God's wife,
and the impossibility of her return to her former status (Jeremiah 3:1-5); the refusal
of Judah to learn her lesson despite the wretched example of Israel (Jeremiah 3:6-
10); God's continued pleading for both Israel and Judah to return unto their God in
full repentance (Jeremiah 3:11-13); the promise of God to receive a remnant from
both of the treacherous sister nations in the Messianic Age (Jeremiah 3:14-18); the
healing to take place in the days of the ew Covenant; a further admonition
regarding the uselessness and hurtfulness of idolatry (Jeremiah 3:19-22); but Israel
and Judah alike consent to lie down in their shame (Jeremiah 3:13-25).
Jeremiah 3:1-5
"They say, if a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another
man's wife, will he return unto her again? will not that land be greatly polluted?
But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith
Jehovah. Lift up thine eyes to the bare heights, and see; where hast thou not been
lain with? By the ways hast thou sat for them, as an Arabian in the wilderness; and
thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness. Therefore

10. the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; yet thou
hadst a harlot's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed. Wilt thou not from this
time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth? Will he retain his
anger forever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and hast done
evil things, and hast had thy way."
"They say, if a man put away his wife ..." (Jeremiah 3:1). Many scholars are quick
to point out that this corresponds to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, with the implication that
this information had only recently come to Jeremiah through the discovery of that
Book of the Law in the temple. This is by all odds an improper deduction, "This
does not necessarily presuppose the discovery of the Book of the Law in the temple
in 622 B.C."[2]
The words, `they say,' here clearly indicate that the knowledge revealed in
Deuteronomy 24:1-4, at the time Jeremiah wrote, was already well known by the
whole Jewish nation, that the impossibility of a divorced woman going back to her
first husband after being married to someone else was a common proverb known to
the whole Jewish world of that period. Why not? Deuteronomy was nothing new to
Israel, having already been in their possession since the great Lawgiver had written
it and left it for them, along with the whole law.
Of course, this little phrase is a death-blow to the theory of the late `discovery' of
Deuteronomy; and that accounts for all the confusion among so many scholars, as
pointed out by Cheyne, of whom he said, "Various ingenious attempts have been
made to explain this!"[3] However, no amount of ingenuity can remove the obvious
import of the words.
"Will he return unto her again ..." (Jeremiah 3:1)?. This type of question in Hebrew
always requires a negative answer, therefore affirming that God will not return to
the divorced Israel; but the final clause of the verse represents the Lord as inviting
the reprobate apostate wife to return? This can be nothing on earth except a
mistranslation.
"Yet return again to me, saith Jehovah ..." (Jeremiah 3:1). The marginal reading in
the American Standard Version has, "And thinkest thou to return unto me?" This
alternative has been adopted in the Revised Standard Version, "And would you
return to me, says the Lord?"[4] This is obviously to be preferred above the
American Standard Version. Some scholars have appealed to the analogy of Hosea
and Gomer in this passage, even affirming that Hosea's example in taking Gomer
back, "Indicated that God would do even this."[5] We are astounded that so many
scholars believe this but seem totally unaware that Hosea made it perfectly clear
that he was OT taking Gomer back as his wife, but as a slave!
"And Hosea said unto her: Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play
the harlot, and thou shalt not be any man's wife: so will I also be toward
thee!"(Hosea 3:3).
Yes, there is a triple betrothal mentioned later in Hosea; but it was for Jezreel, not

11. Israel, to the ew Israel, not to the old reprobate whore! (See the full development
of this in Vol. 2 of my series on the Minor Prophets.)
The true meaning of the last phrase of Jeremiah 3:1, therefore is this: "After your
wretched conduct, do you really suppose that you can return as the wife of God?"
"Lift up thine eyes unto the bare heights ..." (Jeremiah 3:2). These words explode
the arrogant notion of Israel that she might again be God's wife. Jeremiah here
challenges her to look everywhere and find a single tree under which she has not
committed whoredom by worshipping false gods and indulging in their sexual
orgies. Israel has been like the Arabians in the wilderness, (1) either lying in wait to
rob a caravan, or (2) sitting by the highway seducing travelers to adultery. That this
was a device often followed by immoral women is proved by Tamar's seduction of
Judah (Genesis 38:14ff).
"The showers have been withholden ... no latter rain ..." (Jeremiah 3:3). God's
punishment of the Once Chosen People by the withholding of rain and other
blessings had not led them to repentance, but rather to a bold and presumptuous
arrogance. The "latter rains" were the ones in the spring, without which it was not
possible to have an abundant harvest.
"Wilt thou not from this time cry, My father... Behold thou hast spoken and hast
done evil things!" (Jeremiah 3:4-5). Yes, yes, Israel continued to claim Jehovah as
their national God, and they always called upon him when in trouble, but their
conduct made it impossible for God to help them. The last lines in this paragraph
were rendered thus by Feinberg:
"This is how you talk,
but you do all the evil you can."[6]
Matthew Henry considered the meaning of these last two verses to be:
"Thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldst, and wouldst have spoken
and done worse if thou hadst known how; thy will was to do it, but thou hadst not
the opportunity![7]
"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.'"[8]
SIZE>
At this early period in Jeremiah's ministry, he evidently entertained high hope that
Judah would indeed repent and that the looming punishment of their captivity
might yet be averted. However, the shocking development of Judah's guilt being
even greater than Israel's occurred to Jeremiah as raising another problem. If
indeed Judah (more guilty than Israel) was to be spared, "Then the privilege of
forgiveness and restoration must be offered to the orthern Kingdom also, because

12. Judah's sins were worse than theirs."[9] This great privilege of forgiveness and
restoration to all men would be realized under the gracious and benevolent terms of
the ew Covenant, prophesied a moment later in this chapter.
othing even resembling the repentance and return of Judah to their true God,
however, came to pass. Surely God yearned for such repentance; but it never
happened; and as Cook pointed out, "The words of this paragraph are not the
language of consolation to the conscience-stricken, but they are the vehement
expostulation with hardened sinners. They prove the truth of the interpretation put
upon the last clause of the 1 st verse."[10]
And what was that interpretation? Here it is:
"`Yet return again unto me' should be rendered, `and thinkest thou to return unto
me?' The whole argument is not of mercy, but is proof that after her repeated
adulteries, Israel could not again take her place as a wife. To think of returning to
God with the marriage-law unrepealed was folly."[11]
A vital point so often misunderstood by expositors is the difference between God's
covenant with Racial Israel, which was terminated irrevocably in the total apostasy
of the Once Chosen People and the ew Covenant without any racial requirements
whatever. The promises a few verses later pertain to that ew Covenant, and not to
the old Racial Covenant that endowed the race of Israel with the status of being
Jehovah's espoused wife. That status was terminated irrevocably and finally by the
events of the apostasy of both Israel and Judah. And yet, no racial descendant of
Abraham who ever lived was in any manner excluded from the mercies and
blessings of God. It only means that his access to those blessings would be upon the
same terms applicable to everyone who ever lived on earth. "Whosoever will may
come"!
As Harrison observed, "Even though from the analogy here the nation (that is racial
Israel) could not take her place again as God's wife because of her repeated
adulteries, she could still be forgiven if she was truly repentant."[12] That
forgiveness, however, would not be under the old Sinaitic covenant, but under the
terms and conditions of the ew Covenant.
WHEDO , "Verse 1
ISRAEL’S SI A D PU ISHME T, Jeremiah 3:1-5.
1. They say — Hebrew, to say. This harsh and unusual use of the infinitive has been
to interpreters a source of perplexity. Does it mark the beginning of a new discourse,
or is it a continuation of the preceding? The former, say agelsbach and Ewald; the
latter, say Hitzig, Keil, and a majority of the best expositors. And inasmuch as we
have at verse six the formal marking of a new discourse, this latter view is clearly to
be preferred. And so this infinitive is not to be construed as an initial form, with
Jerome, R. Payne Smith, and many others; but as in direct and close dependence on
the preceding chapter, thus: “The Lord hath rejected thy confidences”… saying, etc.

13. Shall he return unto her again — A man who had put away his wife was forbidden
to take her again if, in the interval, she had been married to another. Deuteronomy
24:1-4.
Yet return… to me — Most expositors regard the verb here as an infinitive and the
sentence as a question: Will ye return to me? but there is no conclusive reason for
this. In the Authorized Version we have a very satisfactory rendering of the
Hebrew, and a most impressive illustration of the truth that God’s ways are not as
our ways. His wonderful mercy is superior to all human obstructions. Great as is
man’s sin, it is not so great as God’s mercy. With this view of the passage agree the
Syriac and Vulgate Versions and the Targum.
TRAPP, "Jeremiah 3:1 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him,
and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be
greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again
to me, saith the LORD.
Ver. 1. They say.] Vulgo dicitur, saith the Vulgate; Dicendo dicitur, say others. They
say, and they say well, for they have good law for it. [Deuteronomy 24:4] But I am
above law, saith God, and will deal with thee, not according to mine ordinary rule,
but according to my prerogative. Thou shalt be a paradox to the Bible; for I will do
that in favour of thee, which I have inhibited others in like case to do, and that
scarce any man would do, though there were no law to inhibit it, as one here
paraphraseth.
Shall not the land be greatly polluted?] Great sins do greatly pollute, that of
adultery especially, for this is a heinous crime; yea, it is an iniquity to be punished
by the judges. [Job 31:11]
But thou hast played the harlot; yet return to me.] Haec est Dei clementia
insuperabilis; God’s mercy is matchless. o man, no god, would show mercy as he
doth. [Micah 7:18 Malachi 3:7 Zechariah 1:3] He followeth after those that run
from him, as the sunbeams do the passenger that goeth from them; and as it is
sweetly set forth by our Saviour in those three parables of the lost coin, the lost
sheep, and the lost son. [Luke 15:3-32] Paul alloweth of Mark, [2 Timothy 4:11]
though before he had refused him, [Acts 15:38] and willeth others to entertain him.
[Colossians 4:10-11] Let none despair that hath but a mind to return to God, from
whom he hath deeply revolted. There is a natural ovatianism in the timorous
conscience of convinced sinners, to doubt and question pardon for sins of apostasy
and falling after repentance. But this need not be, we see here. Pernicious was
Ahithophel’s counsel to Absalom, "Go in to thy father’s concubines"; this he judged
such an injury as David would never put up; yet "return again to me, saith the
Lord," and all shall be well between us.
PARKER, "Contending Emotions

14. Jeremiah 3
We often speak about contending emotions. We do not know certainly whether the
love or the wrath will overcome at the last. We burn with anger, and then we are
melted with pity; we denounce and repel, and then in some sudden inspiration not
human we hold out the sceptre and bid the alien return. We need not go beyond the
range of our own consciousness to verify all this marvellous play of emotion. We are
not the same in the evening we were in the morning: sometimes we sleep off our
anger and awake radiant with benignity; then the sudden thought of ill-usage
returns, and we frown again, and our forehead is clothed with denser clouds. Such
is the panorama of emotion—its marvellous colour, its changing energy, its variant
tone. All this we find on the widest scale in the Book of God. How God"s method
changes! He will destroy, and yet he will not hurt; he offers men great blessing, and
on their ill-behaviour he suspends, if not withdraws, the offer; he is clothed with
judgment, yet his mercy abideth for ever. Here we find the harmony of contraries.
All this is needful, in order that our own consciousness may be covered and satisfied
by the revelation of God"s person and government. We understand all the action
and interaction:—when God is angry and when he is grieved; when he sorrows and
when he beams with complacency upon those who have returned in humbleness to
seek his pardon and to kiss his hand. We need not travel the whole Biblical space in
illustration and confirmation of this, for we have here, as in a little Bible, all the ups
and downs, all the dark thunder and all the vivid lightning, all the tender music, all
the wrestling love, all thunder-crowned Sinai, and all blood-besprinkled Calvary,
within the few lines which constitute the parable cf this chapter. A wonderful
structure is the Bible: sometimes it runs itself altogether into one little chapter, so
that we may see its whole purpose at a glance; now it bewilders; now it is too
profound for us, and we dare not plunge into its mysterious depths; and now it is
higher than heaven, what can we do? and now it is brighter than the white flame of
midday, who can look at its dazzling glory? and then it tabernacles itself in some
brief sentences, attempers itself, atmospheres itself, and comes within our own
condition, so that we may look at it whilst it looks at us, and study it, and reply to its
appeals, and make acquaintance with its mystery of judgment and its mystery of
gospel. To this chapter we may come with the high expectation of finding in it the
whole gamut of divine emotion.
God tells us why there are difficulties in our culture and experience of nature. The
sentence is a bold one, and he would be a bold man who would read it today loudly.
Yet so must we read it:—
"Therefore the showers have been withholden" ( Jeremiah 3:3).
Some men smile at the fanatical notion that God so interferes in nature as to express
moral disapprobation or moral regard: but who are they that smile? what have they
done for the world? There is nothing so easy as to smile with a kind of benignant
contempt—not the bitter scorn which great subjects might elicit from great
scorners, but a sort of modified and semi-benignant contempt, as should say, The

15. poor creatures! how little they know of the constitution of the universe, the laws of
nature, the economy of time and space, and the general condition of things! All this
reproach ought to have an effect upon us; but what effect? Because some man has
smiled at our piety, is our piety therefore not worth entertaining, preserving, and
extending? First, who is the man? What will he do for us in the great crisis? If he
should turn out to be wrong, will he stand in our place and bear the issue bravely
like a vicarious hero? What if his smile be turned against himself, and God should
laugh at his calamity and mock when his fear cometh? Men who can smile at deep
convictions are never to be trusted. A man who can smile at a pagan idolater, when
that idolater is really and truly expressing his soul"s uppermost temper in relation
to the idol which he worships, is not a religious man; Hebrews , too, is a mocker: he
may mock from a different level, but the same mockery is in him, and he does not
understand human nature when religiously fired, elevated, inflamed, ennobled.
There does not seem to be such a violation of reason in this declaration as might at
first sight appear. If God is immanent in the universe, not a deity immeasurable
distances away from his creation; if he is in it, part of it; if without him it could not
hold together for a moment, there is nothing unreasonable in the thought that he
should sometimes show resentment at the spirit of evil, indicate some emotion at
least in the presence of ingratitude. We do the same ourselves. Parents sometimes
give children to feel that the penalty of ill-behaviour is the withdrawment of a
privilege, the abbreviation of a holiday, the suspension of a pleasure, Put it in what
way we may, we still have under all the external appearance the reality of our being
so identified with the life of the house that we cannot allow evil behaviour, evil
temper, ingratitude to pass without showing that it is undesirable, unwelcome,
improper. Sometimes by deprivation God inflicts punishment upon those who turn
away from him. In this case the penalty was one of deprivation—the showers had
been withholden. Sometimes the penalty is positive, and there are too many showers.
God drowns the world that denies him. He does not withhold the showers for want
of water; the deluge is always ready: the river of God is full of water. It may be
unscientific and ignorant to think that God interferes with nature, but it stands to
our highest reason as a probable truth. If he made it, he may interfere with it; if he
constructed it, he may sometimes wind it up, visit it, operate upon it, assert his
eternal proprietorship. If the great landlord allows us to walk through his fields
freely and joyously, he may sometime, say, once in twenty-one years, put up a fence
or a boundary, which being interpreted means, This path is mine, not yours; the
boundary will be taken down again tomorrow, but it is here today to signify that
you have acquired no rights by constant use. It is not an unnatural intervention, nor
do we see that it is an unreasonable intervention, on the part of God, if we deny him,
neglect him, scorn him, operate wholly against the spirit of his holiness, that he
should now and again withhold the shower, or send such deluges upon the earth as
shall wash away our seed and make a desert of our garden.
God penetrates the most skilfully contrived disguises:—
"Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my
youth?" ( Jeremiah 3:4).

16. Yet God proclaims the great Gospel. Here we see the contending emotion:—
"Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding
Israel" ( Jeremiah 3:12).
Men will never be brought back by force. God never arrests a Prayer of Manasseh ,
and by some constabulary energy fixes him in heaven. That would be no heaven to
such a man. We are not in heaven unless we are heavenly. God has no heaven for us
if we are not godly. Men themselves must act. Here is a mystery of will and
necessity, divine sovereignty and human volition; and great battles may be fought
around these theological terms to no effect. We must recognise the real philosophy
of things, the actual sense of life, the innermost motive and pulse of being; then we
shall understand how it is that men cannot return, and yet they can return,—that
they can only return by the attraction of a welcome, and that the attraction is itself
an assistance to their upward home-going emotion. If we cannot explain it in words,
we have felt it in the deepest places of the heart.
God reveals his character; he says, "I am merciful,... and I will not keep anger for
ever" ( Jeremiah 3:12). How could he? Sweet are these words! o man ever made
them or put them together about any other god. Have you in all the history of
mythology or idolatry found such a description of any hand-made deity? We might
almost say it of the dear, beneficent sun: he does seem to be merciful; he who could
burn us with light, kisses the tiny flower as if it were a little child; he who pours so
much light upon the earth that it runs off, so to say, at the edges to water with glory
under-worlds and other spaces, never hurts the earth with a dart of fire. But all this
mercy is ascribed to the Living God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and he
will continue to reveal his mercy until he consummates the revelation in the Cross of
Calvary, the death, the atonement, of his own Son.
God never varies the essential conditions of pardon—"Only acknowledge thine
iniquity" ( Jeremiah 3:13). That is ew Testament speech: "If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." But we must acknowledge, and we
must acknowledge fully; we must keep back nothing. How difficult actually to
empty the heart! We can confess a great deal, but we keep back the blackest word;
we can confess all things in general terms, but to detail our sin, to write out a bill of
particulars, to hand to God the diary of the heart, who could do it? Blessed be God,
we have not to hand that diary to one another. If we have done wrong to any Prayer
of Manasseh , to that man we are bound to confess the wrong we have done; but we
are not bound to tell priest or friend or dearest brother all we have done: we are to
say to God, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight."
We believe in confession, but not in confession to any fellow-sinner, who may even
have exceeded ourselves in the enormity of iniquity. If you have done wrong to
Prayer of Manasseh , woman, or child, go and say so; without that there can be no
forgiveness. Having done wrong to God, enter thou into thy closet, and when thou
hast shut the door tell him all, and say that this very telling of it all means trust and
love: thou couldst not whisper it in the ear of judgment,—thou venturest to whisper
it in the ear of mercy.

17. PULPIT, "That this chapter (to which the first four verses of Jeremiah 4:1-31.
ought to have been attached) belongs to the time of Josiah seems to be proved by
Jeremiah 3:6, and the years immediately following the reformation are not
obscurely referred to in Jeremiah 3:4, Jeremiah 3:10. aegelsbach gives a striking
distribution of its contents. The general subject is a call to "return." First, the
prophet shows that, in spite of Deuteronomy 24:1, etc; a return is possible
(Deuteronomy 24:1-5). Then he describes successively an invitation already uttered
in the past, and its sad results (Deuteronomy 24:6-10), and the call which will, with a
happier issue, be sounded in the future (Deuteronomy 24:11 -25); this is followed by
an earnest exhortation, addressed first to Israel and then to Judah (Jeremiah 4:1-4).
Jeremiah 3:1
They say, etc.; as the margin of Authorized Version correctly states, the Hebrew
simply has "saying." Various ingenious attempts have been made to explain this.
Hitzig, for instance, followed by Dr. Payne Smith, thinks that "saying" may be an
unusual equivalent for "that is to say," "for example," or the like; while the Vulgate
and Rashi, followed by De Wette and Rosenmüller, assume an ellipsis, and render,
"It is commonly said," or "I might say." But far the most natural way is to suppose
that "saying" is a fragment of the superscription of the prophecy, the remainder of
which has been accidentally placed in Jeremiah 3:6, and that we should read, "And
the word of the Lord came unto me in the days of Josiah the king, saying." So J. D.
Michaelis, Ewald, Graf, aegelsbach. If a man put away his wife. The argument is
founded on the law of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, which forbade an Israelite who had
divorced his wife to take her again, if in the interval she had been married to
another. The Jews had broken a still more sacred tie, not once only, but repeatedly;
they worshipped "gods many and lords many;" so that they had no longer any
claim on Jehovah in virtue of his "covenant" with his people. Shall he return, etc.?
rather, Ought he to return? The force of the term is potential (comp. Authorized
Version of Genesis 34:7, "which thing ought not to be done"). Shall not in the next
clause is rather would not. Yet return again to me. So Peshito, Targum, Vulgate,
and the view may seem to be confirmed by the invitations in Deuteronomy 24:12,
Deuteronomy 24:14, Deuteronomy 24:22. But as it is obviously inconsistent with the
argument of the verse, and as the verb may equally well be the infinitive or the
imperative, most recent commentators render, "And thinkest thou to return to
me?" (literally, and returning to me! implying that the very idea is inconceivable).
Probably Jeremiah was aware that many of the Jews were dissatisfied with the
religious condition of the nation (comp. verse 4).
PETT, "Verses 1-5
YHWH Lays Down His Final Terms (Jeremiah 3:1-5).
The latter rains have failed to come because they have been faithless to YHWH,
something that is evident to anyone who will look to the bare hills or the wayside
resting places. For there their flagrant misbehaviour is made apparent. But if they
will only return to Him, calling Him Father and taking Him as the guide of their

18. youth, He may well yet be ready to listen to them. Their answer is, however, seen in
their unresponsive attitudes.
Jeremiah 3:1
“They say, ‘If a man put away his wife,
And she go from him, and become another man’s,
Will he return to her again?
Will not that land be greatly polluted?’
But you have played the harlot with many lovers,
Yet return again to me”, the word of YHWH.’
What ‘they said’ was strictly in accordance with the Law. See Deuteronomy 24:1-4.
Once a man had put away his wife and she had belonged to another, he was not
allowed to take her back again. And yet YHWH’s compassion was such that He was
prepared, as it were, to set aside that Law and accept His people back from their
lovers if only they would return to Him again. The door of mercy was still open, and
this was to be seen as the dictate of YHWH (neum YHWH). It was not, of course,
actually a breaking of the Law because no individual woman was involved, nor was
an earthly marriage. Besides even on the facts Judah had not remarried. She had
instead had many lovers. The real point is that God’s covenant love was so great
that He was willing to receive Judah back if only she will truly return to Him with
all her heart.
Jeremiah 3:2
“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see,
Where have you not been lain with?
By the ways have you sat for them,
As an Arabian in the wilderness,
And you have polluted the land with your whoredoms,
And with your wickedness.”
He charges them to look at the bare heights where they have been carrying out their
lewd activities, and point out any place which was free from the taint of their sexual
misbehaviour. There was none. And He calls on them to consider the resting places
by the way where they have awaited prostitutes, in the same way as an Arabian in
the wilderness (who, because they lived in the wilderness had to wait for their
favours in places where prostitutes might be found) would do. Thus had they
polluted the land by their irresponsible sexual activities and by their wicked ways.
Alternately the reference to the Arabian in the wilderness may have in mind
Arabians waiting in the wilderness for unsuspecting travellers to pass by whom they
could rob. They wait for prostitutes like the Arabian waits for victims.
Jeremiah 3:3
“That is why the showers have been withheld,
And there has been no latter rain,

19. Yet you have a harlot’s forehead,
You refused to be ashamed.”
And it was because they had polluted the land that the showers had been withheld
and that there had been no latter rain (the March/April rain on which the final
harvest depended). Yet even when they had become aware of this they were so
hardened in sin that they had refused to be ashamed. ‘You have a harlot’s
forehead.’ Unlike other women who were discreet and pure, covering their heads
from the eyes of men, harlots brazenly bared their foreheads so that the men whom
they sought would know that they were available. It was a sign that they too, like
Judah, were hardened in sin.
Jeremiah 3:4
“Will you not from this time cry to me,
‘My Father, you are the guide of my youth?’ ”
But YHWH, ever patient in His faithfulness and compassion, still wants His people
to turn to Him, so He asks them whether they will not from this time call to Him,
saying, ‘My Father, You are the guide of my youth’. He wants them to look back to
earlier days in the wilderness when they had initially sought the truth of YHWH,
before they had become so hardened. If they will once again respond to Him as their
Father on a continuing basis, He will gladly take them up.
Jeremiah 3:5
“Will he retain his anger for ever?
Will he keep it to the end?
Behold, you have spoken and have done evil things,
And have had your way.”
Jeremiah then adds the final words. Will YHWH retain His anger for ever? Will He
keep it to the end? The answer, if only they will truly repent and turn to Him as
their Father, is ‘ o’, but if they remain as they are it is ‘Yes’. For Jeremiah
recognises that they are so steeped in sin that it is preventing their response. They
have ‘spoken and done evil things’, and have ‘continually had their own way’. It
will not be easy for them to relinquish those ways and respond to God as their
Father. So like Jesus would after him Jeremiah calls on his countrymen to respond
to God as their heavenly Father, but similarly to Jesus He makes clear to them that
it will depend on a true and obedient response. They cannot call Him Father and not
do what He says.
BI 1-5, "Return again to Me, saith the Lord.
The backslider invited to return
We have here a wonderful display of God’s character: forbearance, pity, and love.
I. What is inferred. A departure from God.
1. The life of an ungodly man is one long departure from God. Every step he takes
leads him farther away.

20. 2. What departures we find even in the holiest and best! Secret neglects. Seductions
in daily avocations and companions. Tampering with sin.
II. What is declared. A returning to God as a promising God, as a forgiving God, as our
God and Father in Christ Jesus, in real humiliation of spirit before Him; for “whoso
confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have mercy.” Observe, the return is not a mere
turning away from sin; it is finding the way back again to God. The very fruit and work of
the blessed Spirit.
III. What is displayed. Touching tenderness.
1. God Himself speaks.
2. He points to the Cross. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
Return to God
1. Let Christian believers behold in these words with whom it is that they have to do.
There have been times when the Lord made you rejoice before Him—when your
fellowship with Him was delight. And so He would have had you to continue. But
your joy changed into sorrow, your light was quenched in darkness; not because you
were forsaken, but because you forsook. You did evil in the sight of the Lord, and He
delivered you into the hands of the Philistines. But He did not forsake you utterly,
nor cast you off forever. He brought you back, and restored to you “the joy of His
salvation.” Soon you forgot it all. You did evil again in His sight. He departed from
you, and you were carried captive by your enemies. In the land of Babylon you wept,
and hung your tuneless harps upon the willows, for you could not sing the Lord’s
song in a strange land! You remembered Zion, and eagerly longed that your captivity
might come to an end. And the Lord ended your captivity and brought you back. Yet,
notwithstanding all your sad experiences, you have again and again forgotten and
forsaken Him. What should be your feelings when you think of these things? Should
there be any sorrow like unto your sorrow? Yet be not afraid; conclude not that your
sins must of necessity have separated forever between you and God; say not that for
you there is no hope in Israel, and no place left for repentance. Had you to do with
man it might be so. Were you to be dealt with as you have sinned, It could not but be
so. But the Lord God is merciful and gracious, His love continues as strong as ever.
He cannot bear to give you up. He compassionates your weakness. He laments your
folly.
2. Let those who are still in the gall of bitterness—alienated from the life of God,
through the ignorance that is in them, be assured that this language is addressed
even to them. You are His, although you are now strangers and foreigners; for His
hand did form you, and you were not designed to be His enemies. You have chosen
to be so; but all the enmity is on your side. Your enemy He has never been; nor is He
now your enemy! He is emphatically the friend of sinners. (R. J. Johnstone, M. A.)
Backsliding process
A church is sometimes astounded by the fall of some professor in it: this is the fruit, not
the seed or the beginning of backsliding. So a man is laid on a sick bed, but the disorder
has only now arrived at its crisis; it has for some time been working in his system, and
has at length burst out and laid him low. So the sin of departing from God and secretly

21. declining has been going on while the profession has still been maintained; the process
of backsliding has been working silently yet surely until a temptation has at last opened
the way for its bursting forth, to the scandal of God’s people and true religion. In the
sight of God the man was fallen before, we only now have first discovered it. (H. G.
Salter.)
Therefore the showers have been withholden.
God inflicting punishment on those who turn away from Him
If God is immanent in the universe, not a Deity immeasurable distances away from His
creation; if without Him it could not hold together for a moment, there is nothing
unreasonable in the thought that He should sometimes show resentment at the spirit of
evil, indicate some emotion at least in the presence of ingratitude. We do the sage
ourselves. Parents sometimes give children to feel that the penalty of ill-behaviour is the
withdrawment of a privilege, the abbreviation of a holiday, the suspension of a pleasure.
Sometimes by deprivation God inflicts punishment upon those who turn away from
Him. In this case the penalty was one of deprivation—the showers had been withholden.
Sometimes the penalty is positive, and there are too many showers. God drowns the
world that denies Him. He does not withhold the showers for want of water; the debt, go
is always ready: the river of God is full of water. It may be unscientific and ignorant to
think that God interferes with nature, but it stands to our highest reason as a probable
truth. If He made it, He may interfere with it; if He constructed it, He may sometimes
wind it up, visit it, operate upon it, assert His eternal proprietorship. If the great
landlord allows us to walk through his fields freely and joyously, he may sometimes, say,
once in twenty-one years, put up a fence or a boundary, which being interpreted means,
This path is mine, not yours; the boundary will be taken down again tomorrow, but it is
here today to signify that you have acquired no rights by constant use. It is not an
unnatural intervention, nor do we see that it is an unreasonable intervention on the part
of God if we deny Him, neglect Him, scorn Him, operate wholly against the spirit of His
holiness, that He should now and again withhold the shower, or send such deluges upon
the earth as shall wash away our seed and make a desert of our garden. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The chief cause of calamities
Great honour has always been paid by all nations to their supposed gods, and it has
always been reckoned a crime to rob them of the glory of which they were supposed to be
so jealous. One of the Greek comedians in a stage play asks this question, “Who was the
wicked author of the vines being blasted by the frost?” And he gives the answer, “He who
gave the honours of the gods to men.” This heathen writer teaches us a lesson when we
fail to trace our trials to the first cause. Who shall say that some dishonour of the name
of God may not be the cause of our afflictions? Sorrow does not come out of the dust.
The seeds of disease are not driven about recklessly. The lightning does not strike by
chance. There are reasons for what seems evil which we cannot trace, and perhaps one of
the chief causes of the calamities which befall men may be found in their want of regard
for the honour and glory of the Divine Name. (Quiver.)

22. 2 “Look up to the barren heights and see.
Is there any place where you have not been
ravished?
By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers,
sat like a nomad in the desert.
You have defiled the land
with your prostitution and wickedness.
BAR ES, "These words are not the language of consolation to the conscience-
stricken, but of vehement expostulation with hardened sinners. They prove, therefore,
the truth of the interpretation put upon the preceding verse.
As the Arabian ... - The freebooting propensities of the Bedouin had passed in
ancient times into a proverb. As eager as the desert-tribes were for plunder, so was Israel
for idolatry.
CLARKE, "As the Arabian in the wilderness - They were as fully intent on the
practice of their idolatry as the Arab in the desert is in lying in wait to plunder the
caravans. Where they have not cover to lie in ambush, they scatter themselves about,
and run hither and thither, raising themselves up on their saddles to see if they can
discover, by smoke, dust, or other token, the approach of any travelers.
GILL, "Lift up thine eyes unto the high places,.... Where idols were set and
worshipped; either places naturally high, as hills and mountains, which were chosen for
this service; or high places, artificially made and thrown up for this purpose; see 2Ki_
17:9, Jarchi interprets the word ‫שפים‬ of "rivulets of water"; and so the Targum, where
also idolatry was committed:
and see where thou hast not been lien with; see if there is a hill or mountain, or
any high place, where thou hast not committed idolatry; the thing was so notorious, and
the facts and instances so many, there was no denying it; every hill and mountain
witnessed to their idolatry; to which agrees the Targum,

23. "see where thou hast not joined thyself to worship idols:''
in the ways hast thou sat for them; for the idolaters, waiting for them, to join with them
in their idolatries; as harlots used to sit by the wayside to meet with their lovers, to be
picked up by them, or to offer themselves to them as prostitutes, Gen_38:14 which
shows that these people were not drawn into idolatry by the temptations and
solicitations of others: but they put themselves in the way of it, and solicited it, and
others to join with them in it:
as the Arabian in the wilderness; who dwelt in tents in the wilderness, and sat by
the wayside to trade with those that passed by; or else lay in wait in desert and by places
to rob all that passed by them; and so the Vulgate Latin version renders it,
in the ways thou didst sit, expecting them as a thief in the wilderness; the
Arabians being noted for thieves and robbers. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic
versions, render it,
as a crow, or raven, of the desert; the same word signifying a "raven" and an
"Arabian": see 1Ki_17:4,
and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy
wickedness; the land of Judea, where idolatry was so openly and frequently
committed, which brought a load of guilt upon it, and exposed it to the wrath and
judgments of God; so the Targum,
"thou hast made the land guilty with thine idols and with thy wickedness.''
HE RY 2-4, " He therefore kindly expects that they will repent and return to him,
and he directs them what to say to him (Jer_3:4): “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto
me? Wilt not thou, who hast been in such relation to me, and on whom I have laid such
obligations, wilt not thou cry to me? Though thou hast gone a whoring from me, yet,
when thou findest the folly of it, surely thou wilt think of returning to me, now at least,
now at last, in this thy day. Wilt thou not at this time, nay, wilt thou not from this time
and forward, cry unto me? Whatever thou hast said or done hitherto, wilt thou not from
this time apply to me? From this time of conviction and correction, now that thou hast
been made to see thy sins (Jer_3:2) and to smart for them (Jer_3:3), wilt thou not now
forsake them and return to me, saying, I will go and return to my first husband, for then
it was better with me than now?” Hos_2:7. Or “from this time that thou hast had so
kind an invitation to return, and assurance that thou shalt be well received: will not this
grace of God overcome thee? Now that pardon is proclaimed wilt thou not come in and
take the benefit of it? Surely thou wilt.”
(1.) He expects that they will claim relation to God, as theirs: Wilt thou not cry unto
me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth? [1.] They will surely come towards him
as a father, to beg his pardon for their undutiful behaviour to him (Father, I have
sinned) and will hope to find in him the tender compassions of a father towards a
returning prodigal. They will come to him as a father, to whom they will make their
complaints, and in whom they will put their confidence for relief and succour. They will
now own him as their father, and themselves fatherless without him; and therefore,
hoping to find mercy with him (as those penitents, Hos_14:3), [2.] They will come to
him as the guide of their youth, that is, as their husband, for so that relation is

24. described, Mal_2:14. “Though thou hast gone after many lovers, surely thou wilt at
length remember the love of thy espousals, and return to the husband of thy youth.” Or
it may be taken more generally: “As my Father, thou art the guide of my youth.” Youth
needs a guide. In our return to God we must thankfully remember that he was the guide
of our youth in the way of comfort; and we must faithfully covenant that he shall be our
guide henceforward in the way of duty, and that we will follow his guidance, and give up
ourselves entirely to it, that in all doubtful cases we will be determined by our religion.
JAMISO ,"high places — the scene of idolatries which were spiritual adulteries.
In ... ways ... sat for them — watching for lovers like a prostitute (Gen_38:14,
Gen_38:21; Pro_7:12; Pro_23:28; Eze_16:24, Eze_16:25), and like an Arab who lies in
wait for travelers. The Arabs of the desert, east and south of Palestine, are still notorious
as robbers.
CALVI , "As the Prophet had charged the Jews with being wanton in a loose and
promiscuous manner, as it is the case with abandoned women, after having cast
away all shame, that they might not evade the charge and object, that they were not
conscious of any crime, he makes them in a manner the judges themselves, Raise up,
he says, thine eyes to the high places and see; that is, “I bring forward witnesses
sufficiently known to thee; there is no hill in the land where thou hast not been
connected with idols.” We have already said, and we shall find the same thing often
mentioned by this Prophet, — that superstitions are deemed idolatries by God. But
it was a customary thing with the Jews to ascend high places, as though they were
there nearer to God. This is the reason why the Prophet bids them to turn their eyes
to all the hills: See, he says, whether is there any hill free from thy fornications. For
as strumpets seek hiding — places to perpetrate their obscenities, so the Jews sought
hills as their brothels. And thus their impiety was the more execrable as they went
forth openly, and especially as they wished their flagitious acts to be seen at a
distance, ascending, as they did, elevated places; but strumpets, having found
adulterers or paramours, are wont to seek some secret retreats. The Prophet then
cuts off from the Jews every occasion for evading the charge, when he bids them to
raise up their eyes to the high places; for when they prostrated themselves before
their idols, it was the same as when strumpets commit acts of adultery.
And he adds, that they sat by the ways, as the Arabian in the desert He again
repeats what we have before observed, — that the Jews were not led away by the
enticement of others to violate the conjugal pledge which they had given to God, but
were, on the contrary, moved by their own wantonness, so that they of themselves
sought base and filthy gratifications, he had before said, “Thou hast corrupted
others by thy wickedness;” and now he confirms the same, “Thou hast sat, he says,
“by all the ways.” This also is what is done by vile strumpets, who, as it has been
said, have lost all shame. But the Prophet enhances this crime by another
comparison, As an Arabian in the desert, who lies in wait for travelers, that he may
rob and kill them: thus hast thou sat by the ways (74)
We then see here a double comparison; one taken from strumpets, who having in
time past made gain, when they find themselves neglected, besiege the ways, and

25. offer themselves to any they may meet with. This is the first comparison; the other
is, that they were like robbers, who lie in wait for travelers; as though he had said,
that the Chaldeans and Egyptians were excusable when compared with the Jews,
because they had been drawn by their wicked arts into illicit treaties, like a traveler
who passing by is enticed by a robber, — “What art thou but a helpless man; but if
thou joinest me, and engagest to be my companion, there is the best prospect of gain,
and new spoils will fall into our hands daily.” Such a robber is twice and three times
more wicked than the other. So also, the Prophet says of the Jews, that they were
like old robbers, who had become hardened in intrigues, in plunders, and in every
kind of wickedness, and had enticed to themselves both the Egyptians and the
Assyrians. It afterwards follows —
Lift up thine eyes upon the open plains, and see; Where hast thou not been defiled
in the highways? Thou hast sat waiting in them like an Arabian in the desert.
To render ‫,שפים‬ “open plains,” is without authority; it means “craggy eminences,“
or elevated places. See umbers 23:3; Isaiah 41:18; Jeremiah 14:6. The division,
too, is arbitrary. “The ways,” or highways, connects better with the following verb;
and ‫להם‬ is not “in them,“ but to or for them, that is, her lovers, mentioned in the
preceding verse. Our version is the most suitable, with which that of Calvin
corresponds.
“Arabian” is rendered “crow” by the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic; “
robber” by the Vulgate, but “Arabian” by the Targum. It is true that the word for a
crow is from the same root, but the iod attached to it shews it to be a proper name.
Where the Vulgate got the word “robber,“ it is hard to know. — Ed.
COKE, "Jeremiah 3:2. High-places, &c.— See Proverbs 7:8-10 and the
Observations, p. 52. The fondness of the people for idolatry is compared to the
wantonness of a harlot, who lies in wait for men as for her prey; or as the Arabian
hides himself in the desert, to strip the unwary traveller. Mr. Harmer has cited from
a manuscript of Sir John Chardin the following lively description of the attention
and eagerness of the Arabs in watching for passengers, whom they may spoil. "Thus
the Arabs wait for caravans with the most violent avidity, looking about them on all
sides, raising themselves up on their horses, running here and there to see if they
cannot perceive any smoke, or dust, or tracks on the ground, or any other marks of
people passing along." Harmer's Observations, vol. 1 Chronicles 2 obs. 7.
TRAPP, "Jeremiah 3:2 Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou
hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the
wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy
wickedness.
Ver. 2. And see where thou hast not been lien with.] Pouring out thy spiritual
whoredoms, as Papists now do with their crosses, chapels, pictures, set up in all
places.

26. In the ways thou hast sat for them.] For thy customers and copse mates, like a
common strumpet. See Genesis 38:19, Ezekiel 16:24-25; Ezekiel 16:31.
As the Arabian in the wilderness.] As highway robbers wait for and waylay
passengers, making it thy trade.
PULPIT, "Lift up thine eyes, etc. o superficial reformation can be called
"returning to Jehovah." The prophet, therefore, holds up the mirror to the sinful
practices which a sincere repentance must extinguish. The high places; rather, the
bare hills (comp. on Jeremiah 2:20). In the ways hast thou sat for them. By the
roadside (comp. Genesis 38:14; Proverbs 7:12). As the Arabian in the wilderness. So
early was the reputation of the Bedouin already won (comp. 6:1-40.). Jerome ad loc.
remarks, "Quae gens latrociniis dedita usque hodie incursat terminos Palaestinae."
3 Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;
you refuse to blush with shame.
CLARKE, "There hath been no latter rain - The former rain, which prepared
the earth for tillage, fell in the beginning of November, or a little sooner; and the latter
rain fell in the middle of April, after which there was scarcely any rain during the
summer.
GILL, "Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been
no latter rain,.... There were two seasons of the year when rain in common fell upon
the land of Israel, called the former and the latter rain, and both are designed here. The
former by ‫,רביבים‬ "showers", so called from the multitude of drops in them: these
showers, or the former rain, used to fall in the month Marchesvan, which answers to
part of our October; it was in autumn, at the fall of the year, at seedtime, when great
quantity of rain usually fell, to prepare the earth for sowing, and watering the seed sown;

27. whence that month was sometimes called Bul, as Kimchi observes, from "mabbul", a
flood. The latter rain fell in Nisan, which answers to our March; it was in the spring, a
little before harvest, which swelled the grain, made the skin the thinner, and the flower
the finer. This is called ‫:מלקוש‬ now, because of the idolatry of these people, those rains
were withheld from them, as they were in the times of Ahab, 1Ki_17:1, which brought a
famine upon them; and was a manifest token of the divine displeasure, and what was
threatened them in case they sinned against the Lord, Deu_28:23,
and thou hadst a whore's forehead; was impudent and unconcerned, repented not
of sin, or blushed for it, though such judgments were upon them; hence the Rabbins (x)
say rains are not withheld but for impudence, according, to this Scripture:
thou refusedst to be ashamed; to be made ashamed by the admonitions of the
prophets, or by the judgments of God; see Jer_5:3.
JAMISO ,"no latter rain — essential to the crops in Palestine; withheld in
judgment (Lev_26:19; compare Joe_2:23).
whore’s forehead — (Jer_8:12; Eze_3:8).
K&D, "But the idolatrous race was not to be brought to reflection or turned from its
evil ways, even when judgment fell upon it. God chastised it by withholding the rain, by
drought; cf. Jer_14:1., Amo_4:7. ‫ים‬ ִ‫יב‬ ִ‫ב‬ ְ‫,ר‬ rain-showers (Deu_32:2), does not stand for the
early rain (‫ה‬ ֶ‫ּור‬‫י‬), but denotes any fall of rain; and the late rain (shortly before harvest) is
mentioned along with it, as in Hos_6:3; Zec_10:1. But affliction made no impression.
The people persisted in its sinful courses with unabashed effrontery; cf. Jer_5:3; Eze_
3:7.
CALVI , "Jeremiah proceeds with his severe reproof, — that the Jews were wholly
given to wickedness, for they had altogether devoted themselves to superstitions,
and also to unlawful alliances, and had in both instances despised God. He now
shews how great and how strong was their obstinacy. Restrained, he says, have been
the rains, there has not been the latter rain; yet the front of a harlot has been thine;
as though he had said, that the Jews had not in any degree been subdued by
punishment. It was a most atrocious wickedness to give no ear to pious warnings,
when the prophets continually cried to them, and endeavored to restore them to the
right way. That they thus hardened themselves against the addresses of the
prophets, was a proof of the greatest impiety. But God tried also to restore them to
himself by punishments, and those very heavy. He punished them with sterility; and
the drought of which the Prophet speaks was no doubt so uncommon, that the Jews
might perceive, had they a particle of a sound mind, that God was at war with them.
It often happens that not a drop of rain fails from heaven; for we see that many
summers are hot and dry: there is no doubt but that God then reminds us of our
sins and exhorts us to repent. But as familiarity makes us to overlook God’s

28. judgments, he sometimes punishes us in a new and unusual manner. I doubt not
then but that the Prophet, by saying, Restrained have been rains from them, refers
to some extraordinary instance of God’s vengeance, whereby the Jews might have
perceived, except they were extremely besotted, that God was opposed to and
displeased with them. (75)
The import of what is said is, — that the Jews had not only run here and there
through a mad impulse, according to their own wills and inclinations, but that they
had also been checked by evident judgments, since God had from heaven openly
shewed himself to be the vindicator of his own glory, and as there had been so great
a drought, that it appeared clear that the curse of the law had been fulfilled towards
them,
“I will make heaven iron to you, and the earth brass.”
(Leviticus 26:19)
As to the latter rain, we have said elsewhere that by this word is meant the rain
which falls just before harvest; and it is called “latter” with reference to the harvest.
For, as there is great heat in those eastern parts, they want rain before the harvest
commences; the extreme heat of the sun would otherwise scorch up the grain.
Hence, they especially look for the latter rain, which comes shortly before harvest —
time. The other rain, in September and October, is called, on account of the sowing
— time, a seasonable rain; for it soaks and moistens the seed, that it may strike
roots and gather rigor and strength. The object is to shew, that God had from
heaven given to the Jews manifest tokens of his displeasure, and yet without any
benefit; for they had the front of a harlot, and felt no shame; that is, they were
moved by no judgments of God, and could not bear to be corrected.
And restrained have been the showers, And the latter rain has not been; Yet the
front of a wanton woman hast thou had, Thou hast refused to be made ashamed.
This last verb is in the Infinitive Huphal. It means in Hiphil, to make ashamed; and
then in Huphal, to be made ashamed. The Targum expresses thus the general sense
of the last line, “Thou hast been unwilling to humble thyself.” The rest of the verse
is rendered almost literally. The Septuagint and the Arabic wander very far from
the Hebrew. The Vulgate is a literal version, and the Syriac is nearly so, only it
connects “wickedness, “in the last verse, with restrained, thus, —
And for thy wickedness have been restrained the dews.
And it is not improbable but that this was the original reading. — Ed.
COKE, "Jeremiah 3:3. Therefore the showers have been withholden— The general
import of this passage is, that though God had begun in some degree to chastise his
people (as he threatened, Leviticus 26:19. Deuteronomy 28:23.) with a view to their
reformation, his chastisement had not produced the desired effect; for they
continued as abandoned as before, without shewing the least sign of shame or

29. remorse. By the showers we are to understand what is otherwise called the former
or first rain, being the first that falls in autumn after a long summer's drought,
which is usually terminated in Judea and the neighbouring countries by heavy
showers which last for some days. In Judaea, according to Dr. Shaw, who, as Mr.
Harmer well observes, must have learnt it by inquiries from the inhabitants of the
country, the beginning of ovember is the time of the first descent of rain; though in
other parts of Syria it happens sooner. The latter rain is that which generally comes
about the middle of April; after which it seldom or never rains during the whole
summer. And therefore when at the prayer of Samuel the Lord sent thunder and
rain in the time of wheat harvest, as we read 1 Samuel 12:17-18 such an unusual
phaenomenon, happening immediately according to the prophet's prediction, was
justly considered as an authentic sign of his having spoken by the divine authority.
But we are not to conclude, as some have done, that between the former and latter
rains there was no more rain during the whole winter. The fact is otherwise; for
besides what are sometimes called the second rains, which commonly succeed the
first after an interval of fine weather for a number of days, the winter months are
more or less indiscriminately wet, as may be collected from sundry passages in
Scripture, as well as from the accounts of travellers who have been in those parts.
However, the former and latter, or, as we may call them, the autumnal and vernal
rains are particularly distinguished, because on the regular returns of these the
plentiful harvests essentially depend; the former being absolutely requisite for seed-
time, and the latter for filling the ears of corn before the harvest comes on. I say, the
former for seed-time; for Mr. Harmer very justly reproves those who suppose the
former rain not to come till after sowing, to make the seed take root; for the Arabs
of Barbary, he says, break up their grounds after the first rains in order to sow
wheat; and the sowing of barley, &c. is still later; and at Aleppo too the ploughing
does not commence till after the rainy season is come. And we may fairly presume
the case to be the same in Judea; since after the long dry weather the parched
ground would naturally require some previous moistening, before it could be put in
fit order for receiving the seed. But not only the crops of grain must suffer by the
suspension or failure of either the first or latter rains, or of both; but by the
uncommon lengthening of the summer drought the pasturage would fail for the
cattle, and the fountains and reservoirs, or cisterns of waters, whence the people of
that country had their chief or only supply, would be exhausted and dried up; so
that there would be at least as much danger of perishing by thirst as by famine. See
Harmer's Observations, vol. 1 Chronicles 1 concerning the weather in the holy land.
TRAPP, "Jeremiah 3:3 Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there
hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore’s forehead, thou refusedst to be
ashamed.
Ver. 3. Therefore the showers have been withholden.] Drought and dearth have
ensued upon thy sin. By showers here understand the former rain, called also the
seeds’ rain. [Isaiah 30:23]
And there hath been no latter rain.] That commonly came a little before harvest,

30. and was much desired.
And thou hadst a whore’s forehead.] Quam pudet non esse impudentem; { a} that
can blush no more than a sackbut. We have heard, saith a reverend writer, of
virgins, which at first seemed modest, blushing at the motions of an honest love,
who, being once corrupt and debauched, have grown flexible to easy entreaties to
unchastity, and from thence boldly lascivious, so as to solicit others, so as to
prostitute themselves to all comers, yea, as the casuists complain of some Spanish
brothels, (b) to an unnatural filthiness. The modest beginnings of sin will make way
for immodest proceedings. Let men take heed of that αδιατρεψια, i.e., inverecundia,
shamelessness, that Caligula liked so well in himself, and that the heretics, called
Effrontes, professed. It is a hard thing to have a brazen face and a broken heart.
4 Have you not just called to me:
‘My Father, my friend from my youth,
BAR ES, "Or, Hast thou Not from this time called “me, My Father, thou art the”
husband “of my youth?” i. e., from the time of Josiah’s reforms in his eighteenth year, in
opposition to “of old time” Jer_2:20.
CLARKE, "Wilt thou not - cry unto me, My father - Wilt thou not allow me to
be thy Creator and Preserver, and cease thus to acknowledge idols? See on Jer_2:27
(note).
GILL, "Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me,.... These words are either a
confirmation and proof of that impudence with which these people are charged; for had
they not been impudent, or had not a forehead like a whorish woman; or were they truly
ashamed, they would have cried to the Lord henceforward; called upon him; claimed
their relation to him; and owned his favours in time past: or, if they had not been
impudent, they would not have dared from this time to have called God their Father and
their guide, when they had so wickedly sinned against him; so that this is a charge of
hypocrisy and deceit, calling God their Father and guide, when they were at the same
time worshipping idols: or rather they are expressive of the wondrous grace and
goodness of God towards this people, that had so highly offended him, yet he
expostulates with them, puts words into their mouths to return unto him with, saying:

31. my father; I have sinned against thee, and am not worthy of the relation, yet receive me
as a returning prodigal:
thou art the guide of my youth; or, "hast been": I acknowledge the favours I have
received in time past, which is an aggravation of my sin; reject me not, but receive me
graciously into thy favour; see Hos_14:2, so the Targum interprets the words as a
prayer,
"wilt thou not from this time pray before me, saying, thou art my Lord, my Redeemer,
which art of old?''
or else they point to them their duty, what they ought to do from henceforward; that
seeing the Lord had withheld from them the former and latter rain for their idolatry, it
became them to return to him by repentance; and to call upon him, who had been their
Father and their guide in time past, to have mercy on them, and avert his judgments
from them.
JAMISO ,"from this time — not referring, as Michaelis thinks, to the reformation
begun the year before, that is, the twelfth of Josiah; it means - now at once, now at last.
me — contrasted with the “stock” whom they had heretofore called on as “father”
(Jer_2:27; Luk_15:18).
thou art — rather, “thou wast.”
guide of ... youth — that is, husband (Jer_2:2; Pro_2:17; Hos_2:7, Hos_2:15).
Husband and father are the two most endearing of ties.
K&D 4-5, "Henceforward, forsooth, it calls upon its God, and expects that His wrath
will abate; but this calling on Him is but lip-service, for it goes on in its sins, amends not
its life. ‫ּוא‬‫ל‬ ֲ‫,ה‬ nonne, has usually the force of a confident assurance, introducing in the
form of a question that which is held not to be in the least doubtful. ‫ה‬ ָ ַ‫ע‬ ֵ‫,מ‬ henceforward,
the antithesis to ‫ם‬ ָ‫ּול‬‫ע‬ ֵ‫,מ‬ Jer_2:20, Jer_2:27, is rightly referred by Chr. B. Mich. to the
time of the reformation in public worship, begun by Josiah in the twelfth year of his
reign, and finally completed in the eighteenth year, 2 Chron 34:3-33. Clearly we cannot
suppose a reference to distress and anxiety excited by the drought; since, in Jer_3:3, it is
expressly said that this had made no impression on the people. On ‫י‬ ִ‫ב‬ፎ, cf. Jer_2:27. ‫וּף‬ ፍ
‫י‬ ַ‫ר‬ ֻ‫ע‬ְ‫נ‬ (cf. Pro_2:17), the familiar friend of my youth, is the dear beloved God, i.e., Jahveh,
who has espoused Israel when it was a young nation (Jer_2:2). Of Him it expects that
He will not bear a grudge for ever. ‫ר‬ ַ‫ט‬ָ‫,נ‬ guard, then like τηρεሏν, cherish ill-will, keep up,
used of anger; see on Lev_19:18; Psa_103:9, etc. A like meaning has ‫ּר‬‫מ‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ִ‫,י‬ to which ‫ף‬ፍ,
iram, is to be supplied from the context; cf. Amo_1:11. - Thus the people speaks, but it
does evil. ‫י‬ ְ ְ‫ר‬ ַ ִ , like ‫י‬ ְ‫את‬ ָ‫ר‬ ָ‫ק‬ in Jer_3:4, is 2nd pers. fem.; see in Jer_2:20. Hitz. connects
‫י‬ ְ ְ‫ר‬ ַ ִ so closely with ‫י‬ ִ‫שׂ‬ ֲ‫ע‬ ַ ַ‫ו‬ as to make ‫ּות‬‫ע‬ ָ‫ר‬ ָ‫ה‬ the object to the former verb also: thou hast
spoken and done the evil; but this is plainly contrary to the context. "Thou speakest"
refers to the people's saying quoted in the first half of the verse: Will God be angry for
ever? What they do is the contradiction of what they thus say. If the people wishes that

32. God be angry no more, it must give over its evil life. ‫ּות‬‫ע‬ ָ‫ר‬ ָ‫,ה‬ not calamity, but misdeeds, as
in Jer_2:33. ‫ל‬ ַ‫וּכ‬ , thou hast managed it, properly mastered, i.e., carried it through; cf.
1Sa_26:25; 1Ki_22:22. The form is 2nd pers. fem., with the fem. ending dropped on
account of the Vav consec. at the end of the discourse, cf. Ew. §191, b. So long as this is
the behaviour of the people, God cannot withdraw His anger.
CALVI , "God, after having set forth the wickedness of his people, and severely
reproved them as they deserved, now kindly invites them to repentance, Wilt thou
not say to me hereafter, he says, My Father! Some incorrectly render the words,
“Wilt thou say to me, My Father,” as though God would reject what they said: and
they give the meaning, — that the Jews would act dishonestly in thus glorying in
God’s name, from whom they were so alienated. But very different is the meaning of
the Prophet: for God mitigates the severity of the reproof which we have observed,
and shews that he would be ready to be reconciled to them, if they repented: nay, he
waits not for their repentance, but of his own accord meets and allures these
perfidious apostates: “What!” says God, “shall there be no more any union between
us?” For God expresses here the feeling of one grieving and lamenting, when he saw
the people perishing; and he seems anxious, if possible, to restore them.
It is with this design that he asks, “Will they not again call on me as their Father
and the guide of their youth?” And by this periphrastic way of speaking, he
intimates that he was the husband of that people; for most tender is that love which
a youth has for a young virgin in the flower of her age. God, then, makes use now of
this comparison, and says, that he still remembered the love which he had
manifested towards his people. In short, he shews here that pardon was ready, if the
people sought reconciliation; and he confirms the same thing when he adds —
TRAPP, "Jeremiah 3:4 Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou
[art] the guide of my youth?
Ver. 4. Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me?] And is not this extreme
impudence? Hast thou a face thus to collogue? Hypocritis nihil impudentius;
hypocrites are impudent flatterers; they would, if they could, cheat God of his
heaven.
Thou art the guide of my youth,] i.e., My dear husband. [Proverbs 2:17] Fair words
are light cheap, and may make fools fain; but God is not to be so courted and
complimented.

33. 5 will you always be angry?
Will your wrath continue forever?’
This is how you talk,
but you do all the evil you can.”
BAR ES, "Rather, “Will he, the young husband,” retain, “keep up His anger
forever!” These words should be joined to Jer_3:4.
Behold ... - Rather, “Behold, thou hast spoken” thus, but thou hast “done evil things”
persistently. The King James Version translates as if Judah’s words and deeds were both
evil. Really her words were fair, but her deeds proved them to be false.
And here ends the prophecy, most interesting as showing what was the general nature
of Jeremiah’s exhortations to his countrymen, during the 14 years of Josiah’s reign. He
sets before them God and Israel united by a covenant of marriage, to the conditions of
which Yahweh is ever true, while Israel practices with zest every form of idolatry.
Therefore, the divine blessing is withheld. It is an honest and manly warning, and the
great lesson it teaches us is, that with God nothing avails but a real and heartfelt
repentance followed by a life of holiness and sincere devotion to His service.
Jer. 3:6–4:4 - “The Call to Repentance”
The former prophecy ended with the denunciation of God’s perpetual anger because of
Israel’s obstinate persistence in sin. Now there is an invitation to repentance, and the
assurance of forgiveness. The argument is as follows: Israel had been guilty of apostasy,
and therefore God bad put her away. Unwarned by this example her more guilty sister
Judah persists in the same sins Jer_3:6-11. Israel therefore is invited to, return to the
marriage-covenant by repentance Jer_3:12-14, in which case she and Judah, accepted
upon the like condition, shall become joint members of a spiritual theocracy. Jer_3:15-
18. The repentance which God requires must be real Jer. 3:19–4:4.
CLARKE, "Will he reserve his anger for ever? - Why should not wrath be
continued against thee, as thou continuest transgression against the Lord?
GILL, "Will he reserve his anger for ever?.... These words may be considered as a
continuation of the speech put into their mouths to make to the Lord and plead with
him, as well as what follows:
will he keep it to the end? that is, his anger: no; he will not: this is not according to
the nature of God; he retains not his anger for ever, Mic_7:18, though, according to
some versions, this is to be understood of the sins of these people being reserved and