Do Not Rejoice, Israel
1 Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor. 2 The threshing floor and the wine press won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her. 3 They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria. 4 They won’t pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted; for their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into Yahweh’s house. 5 What will you do in the day of solemn assembly, and in the day of the feast of Yahweh? 6 For, behold, when they flee destruction, Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver. Thorns will be in their tents.
A harvest festival is forbidden, and the sentence pronounced is that worship itself will stop working.
The chapter opens by canceling a celebration: don't rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations. The setting is a threshing floor at harvest, and the charge is that the joy has the wrong shape — like the nations, and paid for as the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.
Verse 2 removes the occasion: the threshing floor and the wine press won't feed them. And verse 3 states the exile in the book's characteristic double form — Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria. Both directions at once, which is how the book keeps describing the loss of the land.
Verse 4 is the passage's most searching sentence, and it concerns liturgy rather than territory. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted.
Bread eaten in a house of mourning was ritually defiling. The image says that the worship will still be performed and will contaminate the worshiper, and the reason given is bluntly physical: their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into Yahweh's house. Sacrifice becomes dinner.
Verse 5 asks the question the exile makes unanswerable: what will you do in the day of solemn assembly, and in the day of the feast of Yahweh? A people whose whole calendar was tied to one sanctuary is asked what it intends to do with the calendar.
And verse 6 names a burial place — Memphis will bury them — with nettles and thorns growing over the silver they valued. The nation that fled to Egypt for help is buried by it.
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