Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith Jehovah I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
Jeremiah's second chapter opens with a memory, not a charge. God sends the prophet to remind Jerusalem how they once loved Him, and that opening raises a question: why does God answer a failing people by looking back at love?
The verse is often read as God recalling His own faithfulness. One writer insists the sense runs the other way — this is the record of what His people once felt for Him.
The Lord remembers the kind of relationship in which we know ourselves to be. In Jeremiah 2 He says, "Go, speak in the ears of Jerusalem, I remember you, the love of your betrothal." This is not God's love to Israel, unfailing as that proved to be. It is Israel's love to God — when they thought God worth following for Himself, when they had nothing else beside.
God could have pointed to the rich land He later gave them. He names the empty place instead.
What a thing it was for God to say to Israel, "I have not forgotten what you were to Me in the days of your youth, when the heart first turned to Me." … They got much of this world's goods in Canaan by following God. They got cities that they had not built, wells that they had not dug, palm trees that they had not planted, and the like. All these things were the consequences of following God; but He does not mention these. But "you went after Me in the wilderness, which was a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought, and the shadow of death, a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt." You went after Me in the wilderness, where there was nothing to set your affections on but Myself. I Myself was the whole and sole object of your affections. This is what God remembered.
Those forty years were also full of complaint and rebellion, and God missed none of it. Yet this is the period He selects as their finest.
In the worst days He most graciously remembers the best. Here is a striking thing. What the Lord calls here "the love of your betrothal" — the first love — is the love Israel showed during their stay in the wilderness, the "land that was not sown." Did He not hear the murmurs? Did He not see His people's rebellion during those forty years? Surely He did. But He saw this also, and it is what had great value in His eyes: that they, despite everything, went after Him. How? By following the cloud which was the symbol of His presence. When it moved they moved, never going before it or stopping behind.
"Espousals" is the language of an engaged bride. A writer connects the phrase to the same love the Lord looks for in the church, and explains that "first" here is a matter of quality rather than date.
"First love" is not first in time, but first in quality. It is the best — Luke 15 uses the same word for the "best robe." Nothing but the best will suit the Lord. Who will dare to offer Him less than the best? … Paul said to another church, "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ." First love is the love of betrothal, and this love is most precious to the Lord.
Judah under Josiah had a national reformation, and God still was not satisfied with it — because the reform did not reach the affections.
He looked beneath the surface. He looked for reality, for tenderness of conscience, for subjection of heart to His word; and He found them not. "The kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal" were missing. God will never be satisfied with anything short of thoroughness.
One writer turns the verse on the reader.
I love to see the affection of soul, and the energy, and fervency, that mark a young convert. You old, cold, critical Christian, do you think your heart is as fresh as it was in the first two weeks after you were saved? Oh, you say, I know a great deal more now. Is the simple love of Jesus, the delight in Jesus, the practical holiness, and the desire to be anything and everything for Jesus, the same as it was then? You may have forgotten that early thrill of affection, but God has not forgotten.
The wording of the parallel warning in Revelation matters, he adds:
It is not "lost your first love." I do not think that is a scriptural thought. It is, "left your first love." Something has come in that has eclipsed Me, and all your affection for Me and interest in Me has gone, and you can get on without Me now — but there was a time when you could not.
- Remembered. God's first word to a failing people is not the charge sheet but the memory of when they loved Him.
- Remembered love. He treasures their love to Him — the days they thought Him worth following for His own sake, with nothing else.
- Remembered place. He names the wilderness, not the settled land. There He alone was the object of their affections. The gifts came later, and He does not mention them.
- Remembered best. He heard every murmur of those forty years. He still calls that time their finest, because they moved when the cloud moved.
- Remembered still. You may have forgotten your first weeks of love. God has not — and the question stands: is your heart as fresh now as it was then?
Israel was holiness unto Jehovah, the first-fruits of his increase all that devour him are guilty; evil shall come upon them, saith Jehovah.
God's first message through Jeremiah does not open with charges. It opens with memory. Before the long list of Israel's sins, He recalls what she once was to Him: set apart, and the first of His harvest. So how can God call a nation holy when its record was full of failure? And what happens to those who attack a people He has claimed?
(The quotes below use an older translation: "holiness to the Lord" where the ESV has "holy to the LORD.")
Everything painful in Jeremiah flows from one wound. The first message names it before it names any sin.
Jeremiah 2 is the first recorded word to the people. It gives the first thought which filled the heart of the Lord, the main reason, as we have said, for all the sorrow. — Those who once loved Him had forsaken Him. He could not forget the kindness of their early years when they first went after Him. He remembered their love as a bride. But now He complains again and again: they have "gone far from Me"; they have "forsaken Me"; they have "turned their back to Me"; they have "forgotten Me."
The phrase was not invented for this verse. Aaron, Israel's first high priest, wore it on a gold plate on his head. How could a people who complained so much carry that title?
A blue cord fastened the "plate of the holy crown" to the turban on Aaron's head, and on it were the words "Holiness to the Lord" (Ex. 39:30-31). From Jeremiah 2 we learn that this was how the Lord viewed His people when He brought them out of Egypt. When we consider all the murmurings of Israel, and their rebellion time after time against God, we might wonder how God could see anything holy about them. Yet He was able to view them in this way, as He showed through Balaam (Num. 23:21). God could see what Israel would be for Him under the new covenant, secured through the precious blood of Jesus. In that day the inscription on the horses will be "Holiness to the Lord" (Zech. 14:20).
A firstfruit is never the whole crop. Calling Israel the first of the harvest points past Israel, and it explains the warning attached to the title.
He had separated Israel to belong to Him, to be a holy nation, the first fruits of His increase, which probably means that God would call other nations to know Him through Israel. He was their protector, and He would hold guilty those who tried to devour them.
A New Testament writer quotes this line and turns it into an argument about Israel's future.
By the word "firstfruit" I understand the apostle to mean the nation of Israel in its first calling and honour. As it is written: "Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of his harvest" (Jer. 2:3)... But the Lord's blessing had gone, and Israel had become an empty and dishonoured vine (Ps. 80). Yet the Shepherd of Israel and the Stone of their help still remained in His purpose... So the apostle argues that the final destiny of the nation will be worthy of its first calling... The nation is itself the creation of God's promise. Grace is the true source of Israel.
Anyone who ate of this firstfruit incurred guilt. The reason is not arbitrary. It follows from whom God has joined Himself to.
From the moment God is in Israel He identifies Himself with His people. In consequence of this the nations are treated according as they treated Israel... The moment they touch Israel, they touch the apple of His eye.
Israel's freshness lasted a season. One writer presses the same test on any long-time believer.
Eight hundred and fifty years had passed since that people, obeying God, turned their back on Egypt and its meat pots and came out to the Lord. They were holiness to the Lord then. They were then a separate people for the Lord, the third verse tells us. I love to see the affection of soul, and the energy, and fervency, that mark a young convert. Why, you old, cold, critical Christian, do you think your heart is as fresh as it was the first two weeks after you were saved? Oh, you say, I know a great deal more now. Is the simple love of Jesus, the delight in Jesus, the practical holiness, and the desire to be anything, and everything, for Jesus, the same as it was then?
- Remembered — God's first word through Jeremiah is not an accusation. It is a memory of early love, and the sorrow of the whole book grows out of it.
- Holy — The high priest wore "Holiness to the Lord" on his crown. God gave the same name to a people full of complaints, because He saw what they would yet be to Him.
- First — Firstfruits means a harvest is still coming. God set Israel apart for Himself so that other nations might come to know Him through her.
- Guarded — God identifies Himself with His people. Those who devour them touch the apple of His eye, and disaster falls on them.
- Fresh? — The same test lands on us. God remembers the love, energy and practical holiness of the first days, and He looks for them still.