Jeremiah 2:14

14 [Is] Israel a slave? Or {a slave born in a house}? Why 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, and shudder; be utterly desolate," {declares} Yahweh.

13 "For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, [the] source of living water, to hew out for themselves cisterns, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

14 [Is] Israel a slave? Or {a slave born in a house}? Why has he become plunder?

15 [The] young lions have roared against him, they have {raised} their voices. And they have made his land as horror; his cities are destroyed, {without} an inhabitant.

16 Moreover, people of Memphis and Tahpanhes will {shave} your skull.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "born of a house"