Jeremiah 2
CHAPTER 2
Jeremiah 2:1-37 . EXPOSTULATION WITH THE JEWS, REMINDING THEM OF THEIR FORMER DEVOTEDNESS, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT FAVOR, AND A DENUNCIATION OF GOD'S COMING JUDGMENTS FOR THEIR IDOLATRY.
Probably in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah ( Jeremiah 1:2 ; compare Jeremiah 3:6 , "also . . . in . . . days of Josiah"). The warning not to rely as they did on Egypt ( Jeremiah 2:18 ), was in accordance with Josiah's policy, who took part with Assyria and Babylon against Egypt ( 2 Kings 23:29 ). Jeremiah, doubtless, supported the reformation begun by Josiah, in the previous year (the twelfth of his reign), and fully carried out in the eighteenth.
2. cry--proclaim.
Jerusalem--the headquarters and center of their idolatry; therefore addressed first.
thee--rather, "I remember in regard to thee" [HENDERSON]; "for thee" [MAURER].
kindness of thy youth--not so much Israel's kindness towards God, as the kindness which Israel experienced from God in their early history (compare Ezekiel 16:8 Ezekiel 16:22 Ezekiel 16:60 , Ezekiel 23:3 Ezekiel 23:8 Ezekiel 23:19 , Hosea 2:15 ). For Israel from the first showed perversity rather than kindness towards God (compare Exodus 14:11 Exodus 14:12 , 15:24 , 32:1-7 , &c.). The greater were God's favors to them from the first, the fouler was their ingratitude in forsaking Him ( Jeremiah 2:3 Jeremiah 2:5 , &c.).
espousals--the intervals between Israel's betrothal to God at the exodus from Egypt, and the formal execution of the marriage contract at Sinai. EWALD takes the "kindness" and "love" to be Israel's towards God at first ( Exodus 19:8 , 24:3 , 35:20-29 , 36:5 , Joshua 24:16-17 ). But compare Deuteronomy 32:16 Deuteronomy 32:17 , Ezekiel 16:5 Ezekiel 16:6 Ezekiel 16:15 Ezekiel 16:22 ("days of thy youth") implies that the love here meant was on God's side, not Israel's.
thou wentest after me in . . . wilderness--the next act of God's love, His leading them in the desert without needing any strange god, such as they since worshipped, to help Him ( Deuteronomy 2:7 , 32:12 ). Jeremiah 2:6 shows it is God's "leading" of them, not their following after God in the wilderness, which is implied.