Yeremia 2:20

The Lord Expresses His Exasperation at Judah’s Persistent Idolatry

2:20 “Indeed, ¹  long ago you threw off my authority

and refused to be subject to me. ² 

You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ ³ 

Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill

and under every green tree,

like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers. ⁴ 

Yeremia 2:25

2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out

and your throats become dry. ⁵ 

But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me

because I love those foreign gods ⁶  and want to pursue them!’

Yeremia 2:27

2:27 They say to a wooden idol, ⁷  ‘You are my father.’

They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ⁸ 

Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ⁹ 

Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

[2:20]  ¹ tn Or “For.” The Hebrew particle (כִּי, ki) here introduces the evidence that they had no respect for him.

[2:20]  ² tn Heb “you broke your yoke…tore off your yoke ropes.” The metaphor is that of a recalcitrant ox or heifer which has broken free from its master.

[2:20]  ³ tc The MT of this verse has two examples of the old second feminine singular perfect, שָׁבַרְתִּי (shavarti) and נִתַּקְתִּי (nittaqti), which the Masoretes mistook for first singulars leading to the proposal to read אֶעֱבוֹר (’e’evor, “I will not transgress”) for אֶעֱבֹד (’e’evod, “I will not serve”). The latter understanding of the forms is accepted in KJV but rejected by almost all modern English versions as being less appropriate to the context than the reading accepted in the translation given here.

[2:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “you sprawled as a prostitute on….” The translation reflects the meaning of the metaphor.

[2:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”

[2:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”

[2:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “wood…stone…”

[2:27]  ⁸ sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”

[2:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”