Jeremiah 2:14

14 Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant? Why then has he become plunder?

Jeremiah 2:14 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 2:14

Is Israel a servant?
&c.] That he does not abide in the house, in his own land, but is carried captive, becomes subject to others, and is used as a slave; so the Targum,

``as a servant;''

is he not the Lord's first born? are not the people of Israel called the children of the living God? how come they then to be treated not as children, as free men, but as servants? this cannot be owing to any breach of covenant or promise on God's part, or to the failure of the blessing of national adoption bestowed on them; but to some sin or sins of theirs, which have brought them into this miserable condition: is he a home born slave?
or born in the house, of the handmaid, and so in the power of the master of the family in whose house he was born, ( Exodus 21:4 ) or the sense is, either Israel is a servant, or a son of the family
^F4, as some render the words; not the former, being not only the son of a free woman, but Jehovah's firstborn; if the latter, why is he spoiled?
why is he delivered up to the spoilers? as the Targum; why should he be given up into the hands of the Babylonians, and become their prey? is it usual for fathers to suffer their children, or those born in their house, to be so used? some reason must be given for it.

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 (tyb dyly) "filius familias", Munster.

Jeremiah 2:14 In-Context

12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord,

13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

14 Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant? Why then has he become plunder?

15 The lions have roared against him, they have roared loudly. They have made his land a waste; his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant.

16 Moreover, the people of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.