Context No. 3329 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Jeremiah 2:1-16: in context

1The LORD’s word came to me, saying, 2“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘The LORD says, “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, your love as a bride, how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. 3Israel was holiness to the LORD, the first fruits of his increase. All who devour him will be held guilty. Evil will come on them,”’ says the LORD.” 4Hear the LORD’s word, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel! 5The LORD says, “What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity, and have become worthless? 6They didn’t say, ‘Where is the LORD 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 no one passed through, and where no man lived?’ 7I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. 8The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is the LORD?’ and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed things that do not profit. 9“Therefore I will yet contend with you,” says the LORD, “and I will contend with your children’s children. 10For pass over to the islands of Kittim, and see. Send to Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there has been such a thing. 11Has a nation changed its gods, which really are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which doesn’t profit. 12“Be astonished, you heavens, at this and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate,” says the LORD. 13“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut out cisterns for themselves: broken cisterns that can’t hold water. 14Is Israel a slave? Is he born into slavery? Why has he become a captive? 15The young lions have roared at him and raised their voices. They have made his land waste. His cities are burned up, without inhabitant. 16The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.

God speaks with the ache of a wounded love. He remembers the devotion of Israel's youth, her bridal love, how she followed him through the wilderness in a land not sown. And then the heartbreak: they left him. God names the wrong in an image of piercing clarity: my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and cut out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

To leave God is to leave a fresh, flowing spring for a cracked tank that holds nothing. It is not only sin; it is folly, trading the fountain of life for empty, leaking substitutes we labor to dig ourselves. Every idol, every false hope we hew out on our own, is a broken cistern; it cannot hold what only the living spring can give. The tragedy God laments is not merely that his people disobeyed, but that they exchanged the source of life itself for things that leave them thirsty. He is the fountain; the alternatives are all broken jars.

Have I forsaken the spring of living water for broken cisterns of my own making, and will I return to the fountain that alone can satisfy?

Sources

Jeremiah 2:13: "They have forsaken me, the spring of living waters, and cut out cisterns for themselves: broken cisterns that can't hold water."
Jeremiah 2:2: "I remember for you the kindness of your youth, your love as a bride, how you went after me in the wilderness."
John 4:14: "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again."