This is what the Lord says:
Jeremiah 2:5
“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
and became worthless themselves.
I imagine God saying in exasperation, “What did I do to deserve this?” God had been faithful to his people over and over and yet they continued to slide further away from him. The word “worthless” (idols isn’t in the original) is the Hebrew word hevel (הֶ֖בֶל). Other translations include “vain”, “deluded”, or “empty”. The same root is used as a noun and verb in Hebrew. More literally: “They went/walked after the vain, and they became vain.” The word is more commonly known by its use throughout Ecclesiastes: “Meaningless!” It can be literally translated as “vapor” or “breath”, but is more often used figuratively of something that is short lasting and unsubstantial.
The Lord presents vivid imagery in verse 13:
My people have committed two sins:
Jeremiah 2:13
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
They have rejected the spring/source/fountain of life-giving water in favor of a cistern containing some sludge. Cisterns were pits carved into the rock to collect rainwater to be used through the dry summer. While helpful, they required maintenance. Even at their best, they were no match for clean spring water.
Imagine hiking miles in the hot sun and stumbling across a cold, clear, bubbling stream. Next to it is a pit with mud in the bottom and flies buzzing over it and a film of who-knows-what glistening on the surface. Imagine deciding you’d prefer to dip your hands in the sludge instead of the stream. That’s the imagery here!
Finally, I love the hyperbole of verse 27: “They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’ / and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’” On the surface, this sounds ridiculous. Yet how often do we do the same thing? Perhaps not wood and stone. but silicon (phones and computers and our social standing online) or our physical abilities or our intelligence or our work or our family. That doesn’t mean these things are bad. They are good, but they are not God.
To Ponder…
- What have you given more worth than it deserves?
