And Jehovah said unto me, Backsliding Israel hath shewn herself more just than treacherous Judah.
Josiah was busy reforming Judah when God handed down a shocking verdict: the northern kingdom, exiled long before for open idolatry, came out better than Judah with her temple and her prophets. Why would God rate open sin above careful religion — and what does He do next with the sister He has just called worse?
The verdict has a date. Judah was in the middle of a national reform.
This section is an appeal to Jerusalem, with exhortations to repentance, and warnings about what had happened to Israel. It was given in the days of Josiah, when there had been a reformation, but they had not turned to God with the whole heart: backsliding Israel had justified herself more than treacherous Judah.
Another writer states what that reform was worth.
It is in this chapter that we have the solemn revelation that, as far as the people were concerned, the reformation under Josiah was only hypocrisy.
(Older translations read "has justified herself more than treacherous Judah," and the writers below often use that wording. The sense is comparative: God is not calling Israel innocent.)
Israel's sin was public, and God had already judged it. Judah watched that happen and went the same way. That is why God calls her treacherous.
Israel's uncleanness was notorious, and God had called her back in vain. But Judah was more treacherous still. She despised the warning though she knew better, and sinned even more shamelessly.
The two kingdoms sinned in different ways. One walked out in the open. The other kept up the forms with the heart elsewhere.
Israel as a nation rebelled against God. Judah as a nation kept up the profession, since they held to the house of David and outwardly to the temple and worship of Jehovah. Yet in heart they were as rebellious as the Israelites. God said of them, "This people draws near with their lips, but their heart is far from Me." Judah's hypocrisy was more hateful to God than Israel's open rebellion. God had His remnant in both kingdoms.
The comparison is not about which sin looks worse. It is about what God accepts.
God would rather have reality, even if our souls are at a distance, than unreality and a professed nearness when we are not in it. There was open backsliding and rebellion on the part of the ten tribes. But what did Judah do? "Judah did not fear." "Judah has not returned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretence, says the Lord." There is a great lesson there. The Lord will not have anything but what is real. In King Josiah's day there had been a revival. You would think that they had really turned to the Lord, but it was simply the effect of Josiah's influence. It was only pretence.
This verdict does not close the case. It also weighs what Judah's promises under Josiah were worth.
In Jeremiah 3 we have a pleading of the Lord with them. He shows them that, bad as Israel might have been, Judah — who had held out for a time and gave fair promises under Josiah — would turn out no better. The crisis would surely come; but when a man has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
The call that follows the verdict asks for one thing.
"Only acknowledge your iniquity." There is only one way back, and what is it? Confession. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The call is tender: "Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you."
God aimed this call at exiles who had been gone for a century, and He is not finished with them.
Here is a message to be proclaimed toward the north, calling on backsliding Israel to return. He promises mercy to them. One hundred years before, the house of Israel had gone northward as captives. The Lord knew where they lived and sent them this message of mercy. He knows today where the house of Israel is, the ten tribes, and at some future time the gracious offer given here will be fulfilled in their return.
- Real — God will not accept anything that is not real. Judah's return was only pretence.
- Religion — Judah kept the temple and the worship, and sinned anyway. God found her hypocrisy more hateful than Israel's open rebellion.
- Reform — Josiah's revival was the effect of the king's influence, not a turning of the heart.
- Return — God sends mercy north to exiles He had already judged. His one condition: acknowledge your iniquity.
- Remnant — God had His own in both kingdoms, and the offer of return still waits for a future day.
Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith Jehovah I will not make my face dark upon you; for I am merciful, saith Jehovah; I will not keep [anger] for ever.
God speaks these words to a people already scattered. The northern kingdom had gone north as captives, and God now sends this call after them. So the verse raises two questions. How can God invite back a people He has already judged? And why does He base that invitation on His own character rather than on anything they have done?
(The ESV says "faithless Israel." Older translations say "backsliding Israel." The writers quoted below use that older wording.)
God sends the message in one direction. That direction has a history.
Here is a message to proclaim toward the north, calling on backsliding Israel to return. He promises mercy to them. One hundred years before, the house of Israel had gone northward as captives. The Lord knew where they lived, and He sent them this message of mercy. He knows today where the house of Israel is, the ten tribes. At some future time the gracious offer given here will be completed in their return.
Just before this call, God says that faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. One writer explains that comparison.
Israel's uncleanness was well known, and God had called her back without result. But Judah was even more treacherous. She despised the warning, though she knew better, and sinned even more boldly.
Israel sinned in the open. Judah kept up appearances. God prefers the first.
God would rather have what is real, even if our souls are far from Him, than what is unreal — a nearness we claim but are not actually in. There was open backsliding and rebellion on the part of the ten tribes. But what did Judah do? "Judah did not fear." "Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD." We get a great lesson there. The Lord will not have anything but what is real.
The term first appears in chapter 2 and then dominates chapter 3. It is not a word of dismissal.
Now here is the first time we get the word "backsliding." You then find the expression again in verses 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, and 22 of Jeremiah 3. It is the characteristic word in the early part of Jeremiah. But the word assumes recovery. It assumes the heart will turn back to God, because that is what the Lord wants. He longs to have us very near Him.
God gives a reason for holding back His anger, and that reason lies in Himself, not in Israel. The chapter opens by showing how far gone the people were.
God, however, is nowhere more Himself than in His mercy and pity toward His fallen people. A man could not take back the wife who had left him for another. Israel had been unfaithful with many lovers, and still the Lord says: return to me. He points out how often and how shamelessly they had been unfaithful, even while they called Him the father and guide of their youth. But whatever they said, they persevered in evil-doing.
The same writer says when that mercy appears.
He shows them that Judah would turn out no better than Israel, bad as Israel had been. Judah had held out for a time and had made fair promises under King Josiah. The crisis would surely come; but when a man has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
The call does not come with a list of conditions. Verse 13 names a single one.
Backslider! He called them then, and told them to come back. Now He calls you back. You might ask, How can I get back? You say: God has spoken to my soul through His Word. I am drinking at broken cisterns. How am I to get back? Listen. "Only acknowledge your guilt." There is only one way back, and what is it? Confession.
Verse 14 supplies the reason underneath verse 12 — He is married to them.
The whole history of Israel as a nation proves that the Lord hates sending His people away. If He did not hate it, He would have renounced Israel long ago, and many times over. They broke His covenant again and again, and so lost every claim on His favour and love. But He bore with them with great patience, for His gifts and His calling are never taken back. In the prophets He kept reminding them that He was joined to them, that He was married to them, and that He could not cast them off.
- Return — the word. "Backsliding" already points to a way back. The name God gives the wanderer leans toward her coming home.
- Return — the cause. The anger is withheld "for I am merciful." The reason sits in God's character, not in Israel's record.
- Return — the condition. One thing only: acknowledge the wrongdoing. Confession, not repair work, is the road back.
- Return — the reach. God aims the message north, at exiles carried away a century before. He knows where they are.
- Return — the ground. He is married to them. That bond, not their faithfulness, is why the call keeps coming.
Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God, and hast turned thy ways hither and thither to the strangers under every green tree; and ye have not hearkened to my voice, saith Jehovah.
God speaks here to Israel, the ten northern tribes. He had already put them away for their unfaithfulness. Now He names the one condition for their return. It is startling how little He asks: an honest owning of what they have done.
This call comes after a long list of charges against the nation. God exposes both kingdoms before He invites either one home.
I need not dwell on the bitter charges of the prophet. The Jews did a double evil. They forsook the Lord, the only source of living waters. They turned instead to cisterns that could hold no water, rushing into idolatry and all its corrupting influences. But in Jeremiah 3 we have a pleading of the Lord with them. He shows them that bad as Israel might have been, Judah would turn out no better. Judah had held out for a time and gave fair promises under Josiah. The crisis would surely come; but when a man has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
Just before this call, God sets the two kingdoms side by side. Israel sinned in the open. Judah made a show of returning, but her heart was not in it. That contrast explains why God asks first for honesty.
God would rather have reality, even though our souls are at a distance, than unreality and a claimed nearness we are not in. There was open backsliding and rebellion on the part of the ten tribes. But what did Judah do? "Judah did not fear." "Judah did not return to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD." There is a great lesson there. The Lord will not have anything but what is real.
The verse points to what they did "under every green tree." That was not a private failure. It covered the whole land.
High places for idol worship dotted the whole land, and in the shade of every green tree the people carried on the detestable practices of the nations. These unholy and unclean rites deserved the name the prophets so often give them: harlotry. It fits in both senses, the spiritual and the literal. What could God do with such a nation but put them away?
The small word "only" carries the weight of the verse. It marks out a single road home, and one that anyone can take.
Backslider! He called them then, and told them to come back. Now He calls you back. You might ask, How can I get back? You say, I feel God has spoken to my soul through His Word, I am drinking at broken cisterns — how am I to get back? Listen. "Only acknowledge your guilt." There is only one way back, and what is it? Confession. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." How tender that call is. There was no break of relationship on God's part.
This word came in the days of Josiah, when the nation had turned back to God and blessing had returned. Even then, God did not drop the call to confess.
The historical books of the Old Testament show us how the merciful Lord renewed His blessing whenever the people returned to Him. But if we read the prophets, we see how God searches deeply. He judges the evil that must not remain after the blessing has returned. In the time of Josiah we see a good return of the people towards God, and abundant blessing with it. Even so, at the Lord's command, Jeremiah still says to the people, "Acknowledge your guilt."
What follows the call is a promise far larger than a return from exile. It looks to a day still ahead.
Nothing can be more distinct than this prediction, and nothing more gracious. Here we clearly have God's grace stepping in for the whole people in the last days. That is after both the Assyrian captivity, which had already happened, and the Babylonian one that was about to happen. After all that, God would recall His people — not part of them, but all of them. He would recall Israel, and He would recall Judah. He would bring them both back into the land. He would bless them there so richly that all the ancient blessing they had known, even what was known under David and Solomon, would fade beside the brighter glory of the whole united people. From that time they would never depart from the Lord again.
- Bottom — God lays every charge first. Then, when a person has sunk to the lowest, He appears in His grace.
- Real — God prefers honest distance to pretended nearness. Judah's return was only "in pretense," and He will not have anything but what is real.
- Only — God asks one thing, and anyone can give it: own the sin. Confession is the single road back.
- Deep — Even a real revival does not cancel this word. God still judges the evil that remains after blessing returns.
- Beyond — On the far side of confession is more than pardon. God brings His whole people home, and they never depart from Him again.
Return, backsliding children, saith Jehovah; for I am a husband unto you, and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
The Lord calls a runaway people home, on the ground of a bond He still holds. Two questions press: what is that bond, and who are the "one from a city and two from a family" He promises to bring to Zion?
The chapter first sets out Israel's failure. What makes the appeal remarkable is its timing.
I need not dwell on the bitter charges of the prophet. The Jews did a double evil. They forsook the Lord, the only source of living waters. They turned instead to cisterns that could hold no water, running to idolatry and all its corrupting influences. But in Jeremiah 3 we have a pleading of the Lord with them. He shows them that Judah would turn out no better than Israel. Judah had held out for a time and gave fair promises under Josiah. The crisis would surely come; but when a man has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
Another writer sees the same order: judgment first, then grace.
Once judgment has fallen on Israel, God can let His heart flow out in the testimony of grace. This must give a place to Judah as well, since the two are to be united.
The ESV gives God's reason as "for I am your master." The writers here quote older translations, which read "I am a husband to you" or "I am married to you." Either way, God holds Israel in a bond her unfaithfulness did not dissolve — and Isaiah uses the same language.
The Jewish body was so married — "for I am married to you, says Jehovah" (Jer. 3:14; Isa. 54:4-6). "For your Maker is your husband; Jehovah has called you as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth when you were refused, says your God."
One writer uses this verse to mark a difference between what Israel had with the Lord and what the church has now.
The prophet Jeremiah addressed Israel as married to Jehovah (ch. 3:14). But the Church is only promised in marriage; the wedding is still ahead.
The call is to return, and the verse just before names what returning involves.
Backslider! He called them then, and told them to come back. Now He calls you back. You might ask, How can I get back?... Listen: "Only acknowledge your iniquity" (Jer. 3:13). There is only one way back, and what is it? Confession. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). What a tender call it is.
"One from a city and two from a family" sounds like a thin harvest. God picks them out one by one, yet what He gathers is a whole nation restored.
Nothing can be more distinct than this prediction, nor more gracious. Here God's grace steps in for the whole people in the latter day. That is after the Assyrian captivity, which had already happened, and after the Babylonian one, which was still to come. After all that, God would recall His people — not part of them, but the whole of them. He would recall Israel and He would recall Judah. He would bring them both back into the land. He would bless them there so richly that even the ancient blessing they once had — the ark of the covenant, and all that was known under David and Solomon — would pass away. It would be completely outshone by the brighter glory of the whole united people in the latter day. And from that time they would never leave the Lord again.
One writer places the fulfilment of this promise ahead of us, not behind.
The call which follows is a call to return and confess to the One who is married to them. It looks on to a future day. Then the ark of the covenant of the Lord will be outshone by a greater glory, and the true King will reign... This has never yet taken place, as we know. It supposes the return of our Lord Jesus Christ to Israel as David's greater Son. Their conscience will be truly reached then, and they will return to the One they had forsaken and forgotten.
- Bond — the appeal rests on a tie God still owns. He speaks as a husband to a wife who left Him, and her unfaithfulness did not cancel it.
- Bottom — the call comes after the failure is complete: when a person has sunk to the lowest, God appears in His grace.
- Confession — there is one way back. Own the sin, and God forgives and cleanses.
- Gathering — He takes them one from a city and two from a family. Yet the whole people come to Zion, never to leave again.
- Fulfilment — none of this has happened yet. Writers point to the return of Christ as David's greater Son, when Israel's conscience answers at last.
And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
Jeremiah 3 shows God pleading with a people who had left Him for idols. In the middle of that appeal He promises them shepherds of His own giving, which raises two questions: what makes a shepherd "after God's own heart," and when does this promise come true?
God does not make this promise to people who have cleaned themselves up. He ties it to an invitation to come back, and one writer names the single condition:
Notice how beautifully He works with these backsliding ten tribes to bring them back... "Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you... and I will give you pastors according to my heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." Backslider! He called them then, and told them to come back. Now He calls you back. You might ask, How can I get back?... Listen. "Only acknowledge your iniquity." There is only one way back, and what is it? Confession.
The word translated "pastors" is not a church title. It is a working word about food, and in Jeremiah it names men who had already failed at the job:
In the Old Testament the word is raah, "to feed," and refers to those who should have helped God's people. They, like all others, had failed; they had destroyed and scattered the sheep... In the New Testament it is poimēn, which is applied to Christ Himself as the good Shepherd. The pastor is one of the gifts in the church, Ephesians 4:11. He is gifted to help the saints one by one. He enters into their trials and difficulties, and brings the word to instruct and comfort them, or to challenge and counsel them if needed.
Jeremiah traces that failure through his whole book. That is why the promise of new shepherds matters:
After speaking of the ignorance of the priests, Jeremiah adds, "The pastors also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal." He tells us, "The pastors have become brutish and have not sought the Lord." ... The Lord says, "My people have been like lost sheep, and their shepherds have caused them to go astray."
The measure of these shepherds is God's own heart, not their skill or office. One writer links the phrase to the charge Jesus gave Peter after his failure, and to what Peter later told other leaders:
The pastors promised to Israel for the last days, who "shall feed them with knowledge and understanding" (Jer. 3:15), are described as being after God's "own heart." Compare those words with the parting charge the Great Shepherd of the sheep gave to Peter, the fallen but now "converted" son of Jonas (John 21:15-17; Luke 22:32). Compare them too with what that same Peter, as a mature apostle, later told his fellow elders in the Church (1 Peter 5:1-4).
"Feed" is the test. One writer draws a sharp line between feeding and mere talk:
A pastor is one who feeds the sheep of Christ. He is not one who stands up and talks a great deal of airy stuff about the higher criticism of Scripture, and usually leads his hearers away into a mist of darkness where they cannot follow him... A teacher of that sort is certainly no pastor. The pastor that Christ gives is one who feeds the hearts of His saints with the bread and water of life.
Neglecting that work is no small thing:
The pastor is a gift Christ gave when He went up on high. He is placed in the body of Christ as a joint that supplies it. So he is responsible for using this gift, like a talent entrusted to him; Eph. 4:11. Woe to the pastor who does not feed!
One writer reads the promise as grace for a day still ahead, later than both captivities:
Nothing could be more distinct than this prediction, nor more gracious. Here we have God's grace stepping in for the whole people in the latter day. That is after the Assyrian captivity, which had already happened, and after the Babylonian one, which was still to come. After all that, God would recall His people — not part of them, but the whole of them.
Behind the shepherds God gives stands the Shepherd Himself:
He foretells the day when the Lord Himself will recover His scattered people, and "gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock." Of the seed of David, the shepherd king, he tells us, One will be raised up, and in His days "Israel shall dwell safely." The believer knows this Shepherd now, and receives eternal life from Him before He returns to gather Israel.
- Return — God ties the promise of good shepherds to a call to come back. The one condition is confession: "Only acknowledge your iniquity."
- Failure — Israel's own shepherds — older versions call them "pastors" — sinned, grew brutish, and led God's people astray.
- Gift — God gives what failed men could not: shepherds measured by His own heart. Christ's charge to Peter, and Peter's charge to elders, echo the same standard.
- Food — The test is feeding hearts with the bread and water of life, not talk that leaves hearers in a mist.
- Fulfilment — Writers see grace for the whole nation in a day still to come, resting on the Shepherd of David's line whom believers know already.