Jeremiah 2:5

5 thus says Yahweh, What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have 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 [was] holiness to Yahweh, the first fruits of his increase: all who devour him shall be held guilty; evil shall come on them, says Yahweh.

4 Hear you the word of Yahweh, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel:

5 thus says Yahweh, What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

6 Neither said they, Where is Yahweh who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that none passed through, and where no man lived?

7 I brought you into a plentiful land, to eat the fruit of it and the goodness of it; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.