Jeremiah 2:25, commentary and pictures

God calls to backslidden Judah and Israel after their willing departure from Him, portraying them as an unfaithful wife and declaring their awful backsliding. He warns them to stop wearing themselves out running after foreign gods worshiped on hills and under trees, even to Milcom and Chemosh and Baal and Ashtoreth. Their answer that there is no hope is a settled, deliberate refusal to return, insisting that because they love strangers they will keep going after them. The same is true when a people espoused to the Lord as His pure bride and chaste virgin turns to worldly powers and earthly rulers for help and joins itself to them, for union between the church and the world or State is fornication and adultery against God that brings confusion and blind destruction. Yet estrangement is not beyond restoration, for God as a wronged husband can take back the untrue companion upon repentance, so there is hope for backsliders, but there is no hope unless those joined to idols and corrupt alliances turn from them at once and forever.

Backslidden Israel's Stubborn Refusal

Jeremiah 2:25 belongs to God's appeal to backslidden Judah and Israel after their willing and wicked departure from Him, in which they are portrayed as an unfaithful wife, and it stands among Jeremiah's declarations about their awful backsliding. The command to withhold the foot from being unshod and the throat from thirst is God's warning to wayward Israel to stop exhausting itself in idolatrous pursuit and to stop pursuing foreign gods. Though so warned, Judah refused to turn from idolatry and insisted that it would follow those foreign gods.

Israel's answer, There is no hope, expresses a settled, deliberate and persistent refusal to return, insisting that because they have loved strangers they will keep going after them despite God's call to turn back. Judah had pursued foreign lovers and, despite the warning to stop, declared there was no hope, persisting in unfaithfulness rather than returning to God. Refusing restraint and correction despite the consequences, the people clung to corrupt attachments and refused to break away from them.

The strangers are false gods worshiped on every high hill and mountain and under green trees. Israel first built altars to Jehovah upon the high places, then fellowshipped with false worship, then built altars to Milcom and Chemosh and Baal and Ashtoreth and a multitude of gods, till altars to false gods stood in the very house of Jehovah. Looking to the hills and to the mountains for help was worshiping those false gods and hoping for help from them.

Church Unfaithful to God

Jeremiah 2:25 presents a people espoused to the Lord turning from the instruction of her Divine Spouse to seek other lovers. She is His pure, unsullied bride, lawfully united to Him alone as a wife married to the Lord and espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ. The Jewish church, so espoused, rejected restraint and continued to pursue foreign lovers, becoming unfaithful by an unlawful attachment to the world and by forbidden ties with it. Even when called to withhold and turn, backsliding Israel loved strangers and insisted on going after them.

Those other lovers and strangers are worldly powers and nations and what is foreign to God. God's people turn from Him to the nations of the world for help and for love and follow them, joining themselves to earthly rulers with their idolatry, errors, and power. In doing so they act like an unfaithful woman and become a harlot.

That course, union between the church and the world, or between the church and the State in any way, is departing from God and is fornication and adultery against Him. Blinded by selfish desires to His precepts and warnings, she imagines that nearness to the world brings the world nearer to God. But her alliance with worldly powers brings confusion, and she goes blindly to destruction.

Hope and Required Turning

The chapter is a plea to those who have slipped away, showing that hope remains for them and that a fall into backsliding does not in itself place a person beyond forgiveness. It belongs to God's appeal after a willing and wicked departure, pictured as the unfaithfulness of a wife, with the pursuit of strangers marking deliberate persistence in going away even while He calls to turn back. That estrangement is not beyond restoration.

God deals with His people as a wronged marriage partner deals with an untrue companion, being justified in separating from them while they live in violation of the covenant. He can receive them again when they repent without violating the seventh commandment. The refusal of restraint and the resolve to keep following foreign gods despite the consequences belong to the record of unfaithfulness, yet the larger account shows Him welcoming Israel back even after grave sins. That welcome does not make such sins safe to excuse or overlook.

Applied to those bound to corrupt alliances or idols, the declaration of no hope because of love for strangers describes a life that refuses to break away and insists on continuing to follow them. For such there is no hope unless the attachments are turned from at once and forever.