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Unfaithful Israel

If a man divorces his wife

and she goes from him

and becomes another man’s wife,

will he return to her?

Would not such a land be greatly polluted?

You have played the whore with many lovers;

and would you return to me?

says the L ord.

Look up to the bare heights, and see!

Where have you not been lain with?

By the waysides you have sat waiting for lovers,

like a nomad in the wilderness.

You have polluted the land

with your whoring and wickedness.

Therefore the showers have been withheld,

and the spring rain has not come;

yet you have the forehead of a whore,

you refuse to be ashamed.

Have you not just now called to me,

“My Father, you are the friend of my youth—

will he be angry forever,

will he be indignant to the end?”

This is how you have spoken,

but you have done all the evil that you could.

A Call to Repentance

⁶ The L ord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and played the whore there? ⁷And I thought, “After she has done all this she will return to me”; but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it. ⁸She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. ⁹Because she took her whoredom so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. ¹⁰Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense, says the L ord.

¹¹ Then the L ord said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah. ¹²Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say:

Return, faithless Israel,

says the L ord.

I will not look on you in anger,

for I am merciful,

says the L ord;

I will not be angry forever.

Only acknowledge your guilt,

that you have rebelled against the L ord your God,

and scattered your favors among strangers under every green tree,

and have not obeyed my voice,

says the L ord.

Return, O faithless children,

says the L ord,

for I am your master;

I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,

and I will bring you to Zion.

¹⁵ I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the L ord, they shall no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the L ord.” It shall not come to mind, or be remembered, or missed; nor shall another one be made. ¹⁷At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the L ord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the L ord in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will. ¹⁸In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your ancestors for a heritage.

I thought

how I would set you among my children,

and give you a pleasant land,

the most beautiful heritage of all the nations.

And I thought you would call me, My Father,

and would not turn from following me.

Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband,

so you have been faithless to me, O house of Israel,

says the L ord.

A voice on the bare heights is heard,

the plaintive weeping of Israel’s children,

because they have perverted their way,

they have forgotten the L ord their God:

Return, O faithless children,

I will heal your faithlessness.

“Here we come to you;

for you are the L ord our God.

Truly the hills are a delusion,

the orgies on the mountains.

Truly in the L ord our God

is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴ “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our ancestors had labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. ²⁵Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us; for we have sinned against the L ord our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of the L ord our God.”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

What I have stated becomes now more evident, — that the case of the Israelites is here set before the Jews, that the perverse, whom God had spared, might know that the same punishment impended over them, except they returned in due time to him: for the Prophet declares, that the Israelites were weeping and in tears, because they had departed from their God, and violated their faith pledged to him. For what purpose did he do this? That the Jews, who indulged themselves in their own pleasures, might be awakened, and be convinced, that except they anticipated God’s judgments, the same tears and the same weeping were prepared for them. The Israelites, indeed, did not as yet thus weep and shew signs of true repentance; for the Prophet does not here commend their feeling or their piety, but intimates, that they were thus severely afflicted, because they had forsaken their God.

A voice, he says, was heard on high places, ‘that is, It was everywhere sufficiently known how cruelly the Israelites were oppressed by their enemies. Now they cried, then they called themselves the most wretched of men: why was this lamentation? Because they had perverted their ways It is, then, the same as though he had said, — that it was a monstrous perverseness in the Jews, that being warned by the punishment of their brethren, they did not repent: for the calamity which happened to the Israelites filled all men with terror. That kingdom had, indeed, flourished for a long time; but the land had been emptied of its inhabitants, and was occupied by wild beasts, until some were sent from Persia and other parts in the East to cultivate it. How could a land so pleasant and so fruitful have become like a desert? Even because God had so predicted:

“Ye have neglected,” he says, “my Sabbaths, and your land shall rest, and it shall no more be wearied by you.”
(Leviticus 26:34, 35.)

It was an awful sight; and nations, far and wide, were able to see how great must have been the impiety of that people, on whom God had taken such dreadful vengeance. Were not the Jews, who had this solitude before their eyes, and this devastation of the land, extremely stupid in overlooking all this?

We now see the design of the Prophet, when he says, A voice on high places was heard, as though the Israelites cried on the tops of mountains. And he adds, the weeping of the supplications, etc.: but he does not mean, that they were prayers which arose from faith; but simply that they were such lamentations as betokened misery and wretchedness. In giving a reason, the Prophet mentions not what the Israelites confessed, but only shews the cause why they so deeply deplored their calamities; it was, because they had perverted their ways, and forgotten Jehovah their God ⁹⁴⁹⁴     The verse may be thus rendered, —
   21. A voice on the high places! Heard is the weeping, the supplications Of the people of Israel; Because they had perverted their way, Had forgotten Jehovah their God.
   Instead of “high places,” Blayney has “plains;” but there is no satisfactory reason for the change. As the verb in Hebrew commonly precedes its nominative, the construction adopted above is the most suitable to the character of the language. — Ed. He afterwards adds —

⁹⁴ The verse may be thus rendered, — 21. A voice on the high places! Heard is the weeping, the supplications Of the people of Israel; Because they had perverted their way, Had forgotten Jehovah their God. Instead of “high places,” Blayney has “plains;” but there is no satisfactory reason for the change. As the verb in Hebrew commonly precedes its nominative, the construction adopted above is the most suitable to the character of the language. — Ed.