Scripture Daily

Context No. 3299 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 3:6-10: in context

6Moreover, the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has played the prostitute there. 7I said after she had done all these things, ‘She will return to me;’ but she didn’t return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8I saw when, for this very cause, that backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet treacherous Judah, her sister, had no fear, but she also went and played the prostitute. 9Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood. 10Yet for all this her treacherous sister, Judah, has not returned to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,” says the LORD.

God speaks of Israel and Judah as two sisters, using the painful image of marital unfaithfulness to describe their idolatry, chasing after other gods as a spouse might betray a marriage. Israel had been so unfaithful that God sent her away; and one might expect her sister Judah to take warning. But Judah did not. She saw, and learned nothing, and when at last she did return, it was not with her whole heart but only in pretense.

The indictment lands on that last word: pretense. A half-hearted, feigned return is exposed by the God who sees the heart. Judah went through the outward motions of coming back to God while her heart was not truly in it, and God was not deceived. It is possible to perform repentance, to say the words and keep the forms, while inwardly holding back. But God desires a whole-hearted return, not a show of one. He would rather have honest brokenness than a polished performance, and he knows the difference.

When I return to God, is it with my whole heart, or only in pretense, going through the motions while my heart holds back?

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