Jeremiah 2a: The Early Prophecies.

 Chapter 1 is an introduction to the prophet Jeremiah and the beginning of his long conversation with God about the times that Jeremiah lived through. God called Jeremiah to a task that he had in mind, and he prepared the young man for the long run through desperate and changing circumstances. 

 There is a constant litany of “The word of the LORD came.” It is one thing to hear, or in our case, to read the word of the LORD. It is another to witness to the world what the Lord is saying. Reluctant though Jeremiah was, he received a command: “Go and proclaim.” Not unlike Matthew 28, beginning with Jerusalem. 

 2:1-3.  The word of the LORD came to me, saying: Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the LORD:

I remember the devotion of your youth,   

your love as a bride,

how you followed me in the wilderness,   

in a land not sown.

Israel was holy to the LORD,   

the first fruits of his harvest.

All who ate of it were held guilty;   

disaster came upon them,           

says the LORD.

 Jeremiah is the messenger, though not a trained or talented one yet. No matter. God puts his words in Jeremiah’s mouth. All he has to do is say “Thus says the LORD.” Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Try it then.  

   God speaks first using the analogy of a married couple, bound by a covenant of love. In this way, God tells the people of Judah that they have a relational connection, not a strictly legal contract (Wright, 2014, page 48-49). But, it can become a courtroom matter if Judah is not faithful. After all, marriage has a legal side, and a looming divorce can become very legal. 

 What is God saying? These words look like the fond remembrance of a honeymoon period in a marriage, don't they? The honeymoon follows a covenant declaration and is full of promises and hopes for the future. God remembers that time fondly. But, what specifically does God remember?

 God remembers the desire to be close to one’s lover. After all, Israel was in desperate straits in Egypt, and God saved them from that slavery. Israel was so happy with God that they willingly followed him into the desert wilderness where no one lived and no crops were planted. Who would hang around long enough in a barren wasteland long enough to see if there would be a harvest? If anyone ventured out there at all, they usually passed through quickly. But Israel followed God there with the faith that God would take care of them.     

 This made Israel “the firstfruits of the LORD’s harvest.” What does that mean? All along God is looking for a people who will trust him whole-heartedly; God still is and that is what discipleship in the New Testament is about. Israel was first, we are the harvest. 

 God says that anyone who ate some of these first fruits, that is, anyone who messed with Israel along the way, paid dearly for their interference in God’s plan. That is how a loving groom cares for his loving bride. This is the time to remember…cause it will not last forever.

2:4-6.  Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the LORD:

What wrong did your ancestors find in me   

that they went far from me

and went after worthless things 

and became worthless themselves? 

They did not say,

Where is the LORD,   

who brought us up from the land of Egypt,

who led us in the wilderness,   

in a land of deserts and pits,

in a land of drought and deep darkness,   

in a land that no one passes through,

where no one lives?”

 Those times did not last, as we read in books of Exodus, Joshua, and Judges. God asks whether the ancestors found any wrong or ‘injustice’ (same word) in YHWH that they turned away from him. Or was it the lure of other gods, false gods, the gods of the people of the land that enticed the people to try someone else?

 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah has an interesting word play here. God says the people “went after hebel and became habal.” These are related Hebrew words. Hebel is often translated as worthless idols since it is a noun. Habal is a verb and could be translated ‘to become worthless’. Of course, there are no vowels in Hebrew and so both words are h.b.l. This is also related to an ancient Arabian god Hubal, perhaps a shortened form of Hu-baal, reminding us of the Ba’als we have heard about in the Bible. 

An anthropologist acquaintance of mine writes: “I use idolatry to recognize: conflating things finite with the infinite; ignoring or demeaning anything that might defy sovereign human reason; and viewing as given things fleeting and transient, thereby bestowing sovereignty where none applies” (Khaled Furani, Redeeming Anthropology: A Theological Critique of a Modern Science. 2019. Pages 148-149). He points out the famous phrase from Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities” (1:2), or “hebel habalim,” which represents “the human mind’s confusion as to the aims of a life of devotion” (Furani, page 150).

 And that is what God is charging the people of Israel with. The Israelites forgot God and were drawn to the customs and practices of the people of the land. In the process of making alliances, Israel turned to other gods to worship, and that worship changed their character. They were no longer becoming like YHWH, that is, loving and compassionate, righteous and just, full of mercy and grace. Instead, they became like the Ba’als: deceitful and deceptive, pursuing riches, sex, and power in a selfish disregard of who got hurt along the way. That is the meaning of “They went after worthless things and became worthless themselves.”  They went after hebel and so they became habal. 

 These pursuits cause trouble in society, but the people never put two and two together and wonder what happened to the God to whom they had been devoted. God had done well, the Israelites had taken the blessings and, instead of changing their own character to be like God’s, they wanted more of their own desires.  

 How does it happen that a people will give lip service to YHWH Almighty when they should be giving devotion to him? How can a people claim to be descended from Israel without themselves growing increasingly like God in their character and behavior? Or, how can a people claim to be Christians without themselves growing increasingly like Jesus in their character and behavior? 

 Actually, such a disconnect is distressingly common. People have hubaled themselves, chasing other gods like nationalism, imperialism, or nativism (racism), and then they became like those gods instead of the God who is full of steadfast love and forgiveness for the sinner, who helps the downtrodden, and lifts up the lowly.