Jeremiah 2:28
But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah. But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.
Judah had turned from the Lord to gods of its own making, as many as its cities, set up on the high places and even in the temple, trusting them and earthly powers instead of God for help. Those gods are challenged to arise and save in the time of trouble, and their silence exposes them as powerless idols that cannot rescue those who made and worshiped them. God's covenant with His people is a marriage, so seeking other gods and lovers is spiritual adultery and fornication like a wife unfaithful to her husband. That fornication is the unlawful union of the church with the world and with the State, when professed Christians depart from Christ to clamor for worldly help and religious legislation, and carried to the full it makes the great apostate harlot Babylon. Yet the rebuke belongs to God's plea with willing backsliders, calling them to acknowledge their iniquity and return, with the promise that He will heal their backsliding and let them regain their lost connection with Him.
Judah's Worthless Many Gods
Jeremiah 2 exposes Judah turning from God to gods of its own making and to earthly powers instead of looking to the Lord for help. That backsliding lay in turning to many self-made gods that cannot save when trouble comes. The chapter is an example of departure from God into unfaithful union with other powers.
Judah had as many gods as it had cities, and their number matched the number of its cities. The people had placed those numerous false gods on high places and even in the temple. Seeking help from the hills therefore meant relying on false worship instead of the Lord. The verse bids those made gods to look to them for help and challenges them to arise and rescue the people in the time of trouble. That challenge exposes them as powerless idols that cannot save those who made and worshiped them, and it belongs to the declarations against the willing backsliding of Judah whose wickedness is laid bare.
Judah's covenant with God is pictured as a marriage, so that turning to other gods and lovers is spiritual unfaithfulness, fornication and adultery like a wife's adultery and like a wife seeking another lover. The harlot image represents God's people abandoning Him and joining themselves to the nations. That fornication is the unlawful union of God's church with the world or with the State in any way, when the individual Christian or the church turns from her Divine Spouse to seek other lovers in worldly powers and nations. The course at first seems to promise much, with the church imagining the world has drawn nearer to God, but blinded by selfish desires to the pure precepts of God and the warnings of His Word she leans upon Egypt and fails and then turns to Assyria and is spoiled and made naked, going blindly to destruction. The same history of Ephraim and Judah is enacted again when professed Christians are unequally yoked with children of the world in every form and when the church departs from Christ and His commandments to clamor for religious legislation in the Egypts and Assyrias of the present, and this fornication makes the great apostate church the harlot Babylon.
Backsliding and God's Call
Jeremiah 2:28 belongs to the declarations against the willing and wicked backsliding of Judah and Israel, exposing their many self-made gods that cannot save in trouble as part of that backsliding. It exposes the wickedness of His people as worse than the heathen, yet it belongs to His rebuke of Israel for the greatest sins of spiritual unfaithfulness after which He welcomed them back. It is part of His plea to backsliding Judah, showing His feelings toward backsliders.
The verse shows that God calls those who have turned away from Him to return rather than declaring them beyond forgiveness, pleading with them to return. He still called the backsliding people to return even though they had willingly and wickedly departed from God. He will not cause His anger to fall on those who acknowledge their iniquity.
He promised to heal backsliders and to return to them, calling backslidden Judah and Israel to return to Him. The surrounding words show the people turning to the Lord for rescue after serving other gods, when their idols as numerous as their cities are challenged to save them in trouble. His welcoming Israel back to Himself afterward proves that fornication need not permanently separate married persons.
This applies to the possibility of regaining a lost connection with God. God still calls His backsliding married children to come out from the world and be separate and touch not the unclean thing and return to Zion, for destruction waits in the world and life is in God.
God deals with Judah in the verse as a husband deals with an unfaithful wife, confronting His people for breaking the marriage covenant by spiritual unfaithfulness. That confronting justifies separation from the unfaithful party rather than partaking in the wrong. Yet a repentant husband may be taken back by the wife without adultery, proving that fornication need not permanently separate married persons.