Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Jeremiah · About this commentary
Return, Backsliding Israel
Jeremiah 3:1-13
1 “They say, ‘If a man puts away his wife, and she goes from him, and becomes another man’s, should he return to her again?’ Wouldn’t that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers; yet return again to me,” says Yahweh. · WEB
A law that forbids a divorced wife's return is quoted and then overruled by the God who gave it, and the northern kingdom already carried off is called home before Judah is.
The chapter opens by citing case law. If a man divorces his wife and she marries another, he may not take her back; the land would be polluted Deuteronomy 24:1–4. The application is obvious and the argument appears to be closing. Judah has not gone to one other man but to many, so the legal position is beyond hope. Then the sentence turns on a single word — yet return again to me — and the God who wrote the statute sets it aside in his own case.
This is the hinge of the chapter and it must not be softened into sentiment. The law is not declared unjust or repealed. It stands, and the chapter goes on to admit that Israel was genuinely divorced under it. What happens is that Yahweh declines to stand on his rights. Nothing in the passage explains how that is legally possible, and the book does not pretend to. It states the invitation and leaves the ground of it unstated. The gap stays open until a covenant is announced that deals with sin by forgiving it and remembering it no more Jeremiah 31:34.
The evidence against the invitation is then laid out honestly. Every bare height has been used. The land has been polluted. The rains have been withheld and produced no change of mind: You have had a prostitute's forehead and you refused to be ashamed. And the religion continues throughout. The address My Father, you are the guide of my youth is still on their lips while the conduct is unaltered. Verse 5 catches the tone precisely. They ask whether he will keep his anger forever, in the voice of people who expect the answer no and have no intention of changing either way.
At this point the chapter introduces two sisters, and the comparison is the sharpest thing in it. Backsliding Israel went after other gods and was sent away with a certificate of divorce. The northern kingdom's fall is read as a formal act with a legal document. Treacherous Judah watched the whole proceeding and did the same. The verdict is stated plainly: Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. The nation with the temple, the Davidic king and the reforming monarch is ranked below the nation whose sins are a matter of history. Judah sinned with the evidence in front of it.
One clause explains how a reform can leave a country unchanged. Judah returned, but only in pretense. That was written during the days of Josiah, when the high places were being pulled down and the book of the law had been found 2 Kings 23:24–25. A genuine reformation was in progress at the level of policy, and the diagnosis underneath it was that nothing had moved.
So the call goes north, toward territory whose population had been deported a century earlier and whose case was closed. Return, you backsliding Israel... I will not look in anger on you, for I am merciful. And the terms are almost nothing. Only acknowledge your iniquity. Not restitution, not a probation, not a demonstration, but an admission of what is already true. The chapter has spent twelve verses proving that this is the one thing Judah will not do.
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