Jeremiah 2:5

5 Thus saith the Lord: What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

Jeremiah 2:5 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 2:5

Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in
me
What injustice or injury has been done them? there is no unrighteousness in God, nor can any be done by him; or what unfaithfulness, or want of truth and integrity in performing promises, had they found in him? he never suffers his faithfulness to fail, or any of the good things he has promised. So the Targum,

``what falsehood have your fathers found in my word?''

none at all; God is a covenant keeping God: that they are gone far from me;
from my fear, as the Chaldee paraphrase; from the word and worship, and ways of God: and have walked after vanity;
after idols, the vanities of the Gentiles, ( Jeremiah 14:22 ) : and are become vain?
in their imaginations and in their actions, in their knowledge and in their practice, worshipping idols, as well as guilty of many other sins.

Jeremiah 2:5 In-Context

3 Israel is holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his increase: all they that devour him offend: evils shall come upon them, saith the Lord.

4 Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all ye families of the house of Israel:

5 Thus saith the Lord: What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

6 And they have not said: Where is the Lord, that made us come up out of the land of Egypt? that led us through the desert, through a land uninhabited and unpassable, through a land of drought, and the image of death, through a land wherein no man walked, nor any man dwelt?

7 And I brought you into the land of Carmel, to eat the fruit thereof, and the best things thereof: and when ye entered in, you defiled my land and made my inheritance an abomination.