And they said not, Where is Jehovah, that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and of pits, in a land of drought and of the shadow of death, in a land that no one passeth through, and where no man dwelleth?
God's charge in this chapter is not that Israel argued with Him but that they stopped asking after Him. The hardships listed here — desert, pits, drought, deep darkness, empty land — mark the road He led them along. Not one of them looked back to ask where He was.
God points to a change in them, not in Himself. One writer hears in the verse the plea of a God who has not changed:
What a touching plea for the Lord to bring before His people. Had He changed since that day? Ah no, there was no change on His side. They had lost His presence, and they were not even aware of the loss. "They did not say, 'Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt?'" They had forgotten both the grace of the Lord and the kindness of the Lord.
The ESV says "deep darkness" where older versions say "the shadow of death." One writer explains what the word carries, in Psalm 23 and here:
The word here translated shadow of death means darkness, or dangers that may threaten death. It does not mean physical death itself. We find it used in the same sense elsewhere in the book of Psalms 44:19; 107:10, 14; so also Isa. 9:2; Jer. 2:6.
Jeremiah is not inventing this description. His wording reaches back to the books of Moses. One writer uses this to show the law already existed, and already had its name, before anyone found the book:
Both testify to the existence of the Law. Jeremiah 2:8 says, "Those who handle the law do not know me." Jeremiah 8:8 says, "How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us'?" So before anyone found the book, "The Law" existed and was called "The Law of the Lord." … Here are allusions, in sense or in word or both, to Deuteronomy 8:15; Numbers 14:7-8; Leviticus 18:25-28; Numbers 35:33-34.
The emptiness of the route is itself the argument. No one crosses a land with no water, no road and no people unless God goes with them. Gideon later drew his courage from that memory:
They were in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, and God brought them safely through. That was the very proof that God was with them. They went on badly enough. They went back in heart to Egypt, and Dathan and Abiram despised Him. Still, their being there in the wilderness proved that they cared for the Lord enough to follow Him. And the Lord here complains … that no heart looked back to that time. Now Gideon did plead in this way. His faith was in the Lord who brought them out of Egypt, and this was the secret of his strength. For God said to him, "Go, in this your might."
God names the barren road on purpose. The reason is what that road left them with:
"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. He overlooks all failure. The condition God notices is that He Himself was everything to them. This is what marks a heart when it is first converted to God — the Lord is everything to it.
One writer follows where that forgetting led, and says the same charge now falls harder:
They had not thought about His faithfulness. He had led them out of Egypt, through the desert and the shadows of death. They forgot it, and when Jehovah brought them to the land of promise they defiled the land. Priests, pastors and prophets had turned away. … Their folly and ingratitude were worse than that of the heathen nations. Such was the failure of the favoured nation. The failure of Christendom is even greater. Think of the greater display of God's love in the gift of His Son, and the greater blessing and deliverance.
- Where — The whole verse turns on a question never asked. Forgetting is not open rebellion. Israel just stopped asking after the God who led them out.
- Wilderness — The desert, drought and deep darkness did not prove God was absent. They proved He was there, for no one crosses such a land alone.
- Wanted — God remembers the wilderness because there He alone held their affection. That is the mark of a heart just turned to Him.
- Weight — Jeremiah echoes the books of Moses, so the charge uses words Israel already had in their hands.
- Warning — Priests, pastors and prophets turned away with the people. Commentators press the point: a greater deliverance in Christ leaves us more to remember, not less.
And I brought you into a fruitful land, to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof; and ye entered and defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.
This whole section is God's appeal to a people who no longer felt what He had done for them. One writer asks whether the fault could possibly lie with God.
Nothing is more moving than the Lord's appeal. He reminds them of the promise they made and the devotion they gave to Jehovah at the start of their history. Was it wrong in the Lord that their fathers walked after emptiness? Were they not ignorant by choice? They did not feel His goodness in bringing them out of the furnace of Egypt, through the dreary desert, and into His good land. And that land they had made defiled and an abomination.
God does not call it their land. Israel had won the territory by fighting, but the deeper title was never theirs to hold.
We must keep in mind that Israel had the land of their possession from Jehovah. No doubt they drove out or subdued the Canaanites. As men would say, they held it by right of conquest. But a deeper fact lay underneath the victories of Joshua. God gave them strength to put down the most corrupt race then on the face of the earth. Those people had pushed into a land that He had, from the first, marked out and promised to the fathers.
We need not be surprised at the language, for when God chooses for His people, He always chooses the best.
The defiling was idol worship, spread over the whole countryside, and it broke a promise they had made at Mount Sinai.
God had rescued them from Egypt, and they had promised, at Sinai, not to transgress. Sadly, they set up the golden calf before the law even reached the camp. The long list of later idolatries showed how they had broken the covenant. "High places" for idol worship dotted the whole land. In the shade of every green tree the people practised the abominations of the pagan nations.
The rot was not only among the people. The next verse names the religious leaders too.
He had brought them out of Egypt, and He had brought them into Canaan. But somehow they had lost all touch with God, and had fallen into gross idolatry... Such was the low state in Israel. Priests, pastors, prophets, and people had alike forgotten the Lord. We have here what you may call downright backsliding in heart. There are many believers in such a state today, sadly!
Why does plenty so often end in ruin? One writer points to the gap between the gift and the Giver.
They felt their own importance, and forgot the Lord; they had the blessing, and did not want the Lord of the blessing. And is this not true of the church of God? We bring in self, which is only a broken cistern, and depart from Him who is the living fountain and power of blessing.
The same danger is put plainly as a question every reader can ask of himself:
Are we not likely to forget the Lord our God, to rest in His gifts instead of Himself? Sadly, we cannot deny it. We rest in the stream, instead of getting up to the Fountain.
The land was a good place for people to live. Whether it became a place for God to live is another question.
God certainly made that land a place where the chosen people could live, for it was a good land, flowing with milk and honey. But they did not make it a place where God could live... But when Israel failed and Canaan became an abomination God was not defeated... God could only secure people for Himself, as He wanted, by bringing them into this wonderful relationship with Himself. Knowing Him as Father, their hearts would be satisfied, and so they would be secured for ever for God's own satisfaction.
Another writer sets Israel's inheritance beside the one Christians hold now:
Every Israelite knew what it was to have an inheritance. As a nation, their inheritance was the land of Canaan. They received it. But sadly it was later corrupted, defiled by idolatry, and lost. Their Christian inheritance is just the opposite: "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading" (1 Peter 1:4).
- Given — God chose the plentiful land and handed it over. When He chooses for His people, He always chooses the best.
- Owned — He calls it "My land," "My heritage"; conquest gave Israel possession, but never title.
- Defiled — idol worship on every high hill and under every green tree turned the gift into an abomination. Priests, prophets and people alike joined in.
- Diagnosed — they had the blessing and did not want the Lord of the blessing. Self is a broken cistern; He is the living fountain.
- Answered — God was not defeated. He brings people to know Him as Father, and the inheritance He gives is imperishable, undefiled and unfading.
The priests said not, Where is Jehovah? and they that handled the law knew me not; and the shepherds transgressed against me; and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after [things that] do not profit.
The verse names four groups: priests, teachers of the law, shepherds and prophets. Each one failed God in the same way. Their sin is not loud rebellion. It is a missing question — nobody among Israel's leaders asked where the Lord was. (The ESV says "shepherds" here; older translations say "pastors," and some of the writers below comment on that word.)
Israel's drift starts earlier in the chapter. They kept God's gifts and lost their appetite for God Himself.
They felt their own importance, and forgot the Lord; they had the blessing, and did not want the Lord of the blessing (v. 6-8). And is this not true of the church of God? We bring in self, which is only a broken cistern, and turn away from Him, who is the living fountain and power of blessing.
The priests never asked, "Where is the Lord?" One writer points to Gideon, a man who did ask.
Is the Lord changed? Is He worth less now than when you went after Him in the wilderness? No; but we have got far from Him, and have gone after empty things, and have become empty… So it was with Gideon; Judges 6. He remembered what God had been to Israel in the days when He first took them as His bride. He said, "Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?" And the Lord looked at him and said, "Go in this your might." Gideon's memory of what God was to Israel in those early days was the secret of his strength. In Gideon was a soul near enough to God to say, "Where is the Lord?"
The men who handled God's law did not know Him. They boasted in the temple and in the law instead.
Hypocrites may "enter in at these gates to worship the Lord," trusting in lying words: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" (Jer. 7:4). But such sayings did not take the place of inward reality before God. It only made their case worse. "Those who handle the law did not know Me," says the Lord (Jer. 2:8). God had entrusted them with "the oracles of God" (Rom. 3:2), and they said, "We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us" (Jer. 8:8). Yet again we hear an answering echo in Romans: "You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law" (Rom. 2:23).
The failure ran from the leaders down to the people — and it still happens.
He had brought them out of Egypt, and He had brought them into Canaan. But somehow they had lost all touch with God, and had fallen into open idol worship… That was how low Israel had sunk. Priests, pastors, prophets, and people had alike forgotten the Lord. We have here what you may call downright backsliding in heart. There are many believers in such a state today, alas!
The word behind "pastors" is about food, not office.
The word for pastor is "raah," meaning "to feed." Translators render it "pastor" only in Jeremiah; elsewhere they usually render it "shepherd"… It appears to cover all those who care for and feed the flock of God.
Instead of feeding the flock, these men ruined it.
They trampled the vineyard of the Lord, and made His pleasant portion desolate, so that it mourned to Him (Jer. 12:10-11). The Lord says, "My people have been lost sheep, and their shepherds (pastors) have led them astray" (Jer. 50:6). He pronounces woe on these scattering, selfish pastors (Jer. 23:1-2).
Not every prophet of that time was false. The ones in this verse spoke by Baal, chased what brings no profit, and still used the Lord's name.
The worst of them, though moving among God's people, "prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit" (Jer. 2:8); "The prophets prophesy falsely" (Jer. 5:31), and yet they used the Lord's name, though He "did not send them" (Jer. 14:15).
The prophet who exposes these leaders also points ahead — to shepherds God will give, and to one Shepherd.
It is refreshing and cheering to find Jeremiah speaking of the time when the Lord will give pastors after His own heart, "who will feed you with knowledge and understanding" (Jer. 3:15)… He also tells of One from David's line, the shepherd king, who will be raised up, and in His days "Israel will dwell securely" (Jer. 23:5-6); the believer knows this Shepherd now, and receives eternal life from Him before He returns to gather Israel.
- The question — "Where is the Lord?" is the test. Gideon asked it, and God sent him out in strength. The priests stopped asking, and the nation collapsed.
- The gift kept, the Giver dropped — Israel had the blessing but no longer wanted the Lord of the blessing.
- Handling is not knowing — men can carry the law, quote the temple, and still not know God; the boast makes the case worse, not better.
- Feeders who starve the flock — "pastor" means to feed; these shepherds scattered the flock instead, and the Lord pronounces woe on them.
- God's answer — He promises shepherds after His own heart who feed with knowledge and understanding, and one Shepherd, of David's line, whom believers know now.