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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.

He afterwards adds, Yet I said; God here states, that he had long suspended his judgment before he punished the people of Israel. He then extols here his patience, that he had not immediately visited the Israelites as they deserved, but bore with them and for a long time waited to see whether they could be reclaimed: I said, then, after she had done all these things, Return to me If we read in the third person, the sense will be the same, “I hoped indeed that they would return to the right way, though they had thus fallen away, yea though they had denied me by an impious defection, and had become alienated from the faith and from piety.” But I am more inclined to another view, — that God here records the fact, that he had recalled to himself the ten tribes by his servants the Prophets, though they had by their many crimes provoked his wrath. Here then God shews how perverse the Israelites had been; for he had tried to restore them, if possible, to himself, but had spent all his labor in vain. I thus explain, I said, of the prophetic instruction: “Though then the Israelites had plunged themselves into impieties, I yet ceased not to try whether they could be restored to me.” He intimates, in short, that he had been unlike those husbands, who will not be reconciled to their wives, burning with jealousy, because they see that they had been exposed to so much disgrace. God then shews that though the Israelites had departed from him, he yet sent his prophets, and of his own free will sought reconciliation with them, but that they had refused to return. ⁷⁸⁷⁸     The difficulty at the beginning of the eighth verse may be removed either by adopting ואראה, as in two MSS., and taking the verb to be in Hiphil, or ותרא, as in one MS., as a repetition of the former verb, according to the Syriac It is left out in the Vulgate But it is most suitable to the context to take the verb to be in Hiphil. Then the passage would read thus, —
   6. Hast thou not seen what she did, the apostate Israel? Go did she on every high hill and under every green tree, And play there the harlot:
   7. And I said, after she had done all these things, “To me return;” but she returned not: And see this did the hypocrite, her sister Judah:
   8. And I caused her to see, that on all these accounts, As adultery the apostate Israel would commit, I dismissed her, and gave to her The bill of her divorcement; Yet fear not, did the hypocrite Judah, her sister, But went and played the harlot, even herself.
   “On all these accounts,” or, for all these reasons, refers to several things-the first apostasy — God’s invitation — and Israel’s refusal. God caused Judah to see these things by his prophets, but Judah feared not. The word בגדה, hypocrite, or the perfidious one, is a feminine participle, used as a noun. It is explained in the tenth verse by “feignedly” or falsely. Hypocrites would be the correct rendering. It is rendered by the Septuagint, “faithless — ασύνθετος,” — by the Vulgate, “prevaricatress — praevaricatrix, “and by the Targum, “falsifier” or cheat. — Ed

He then adds, See did she, that is, the whole kingdom of Judah, that, for al1 this, because the rebellious Israel had played the harlot, etc. We shall hereafter find the design of this comparison; for he amplifies the sin of the kingdom of Judah, inasmuch she had time enough to observe what he now relates, and was able to see it at a distance as it were from a watchtower; yet she saw it without any advantage. God then intended to shew how great was the hardness of the Jews, who had seen the defection of the ten tribes, and had seen how severely they had been reproved by the prophets.

⁷⁸ The difficulty at the beginning of the eighth verse may be removed either by adopting ואראה, as in two MSS., and taking the verb to be in Hiphil, or ותרא, as in one MS., as a repetition of the former verb, according to the Syriac It is left out in the Vulgate But it is most suitable to the context to take the verb to be in Hiphil. Then the passage would read thus, — 6. Hast thou not seen what she did, the apostate Israel? Go did she on every high hill and under every green tree, And play there the harlot: 7. And I said, after she had done all these things, “To me return;” but she returned not: And see this did the hypocrite, her sister Judah: 8. And I caused her to see, that on all these accounts, As adultery the apostate Israel would commit, I dismissed her, and gave to her The bill of her divorcement; Yet fear not, did the hypocrite Judah, her sister, But went and played the harlot, even herself. “On all these accounts,” or, for all these reasons, refers to several things-the first apostasy — God’s invitation — and Israel’s refusal. God caused Judah to see these things by his prophets, but Judah feared not. The word בגדה, hypocrite, or the perfidious one, is a feminine participle, used as a noun. It is explained in the tenth verse by “feignedly” or falsely. Hypocrites would be the correct rendering. It is rendered by the Septuagint, “faithless — ασύνθετος,” — by the Vulgate, “prevaricatress — praevaricatrix, “and by the Targum, “falsifier” or cheat. — Ed