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| JEREMIAH |
| Explanatory Footnotes |
| 2:13 An Astounding Trade Jeremiah piles image on top of image, searching for a way to express the astounding fact that Israelites had traded the living God for the idols of their neighbors. Here he compares the deed to exchanging a spring of living water for a leaky cistern. In verse 20 he graphically compares idolatry to sexual promiscuity. In an interesting twist, Jesus offered "living water" to a sexually promiscuous Samaritan woman in John 4:10. 3:10 A Superficial Change King Josiah, one of the few good kings in Judah's history, led a massive religious reform (see 2 Kings 22 and 23). While Josiah was unquestionably sincere, Jeremiah saw that the nation's return to God wasn't. Jeremiah's accusation was borne out after King Josiah's death: Judah returned quickly to her former ways. 4:23 Return to the Void Jeremiah used words from Genesis 1:2 to describe the effect of the Israelites' sin. It was as though the Israelites were carrying the earth back to the chaos before creation, destroying all the beauty and order God had made. 5:1 Search for an Honest Person In Genesis 18:22-33, Abraham tried to convince God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if as many as ten righteous people could be found. God agreed, but evidently the ten did not exist. Here, God offers to forgive Jerusalem if a single honest person can be found. God's people had sunk to Sodom's level (23:14). 7:11 A Den of Robbers Israelites of Jeremiah's time felt they were safe from invasion as long as they had the temple. After all, they thought, God would not let his home be destroyed (7:4). But the Lord, through Jeremiah, said that the temple had become "a den of robbers" and would be demolished. In Jeremiah's lifetime this |