Jeremiah — Chapter 2
Synopsis: God's complaint against Israel: He was Israel's husband-God; she forsook Him for idols like an adulterous wife. The dispute follows a sustained metaphor: God as loving Husband, Israel as faithless wife/harlot. Lapide notes the chapter is full of pathos (quasi continuum pathos) — God's grief at Israel's betrayal. Applicable to all sinners who forsake God for created pleasures.
Verse 2
I have remembered thee, pitying thy youth, and the love of thy espousals, when thou followedst me in the desert, in a land that is not sown. The idyllic early fidelity of Israel in the wilderness — the honeymoon period of the divine-human covenant. Lapide: the desert period (before Canaan's seductions) was Israel's time of closest trust in God, a period of spiritual simplicity.
Verse 13
For my people have done two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. The famous double accusation: (1) forsaking the living fountain (= God); (2) digging cracked cisterns that cannot hold water (= idols and worldly pleasures). John 7:38 and 4:14 echo this 'fountain of living water' imagery. Lapide: the sinner's fundamental choice is this — the inexhaustible living spring vs. the leaky man-made cistern.
Verse 27
Saying to a stock: Thou art my father: and to a stone: Thou hast begotten me: they have turned their back to me, and not their face. The ultimate absurdity of idolatry: calling a wooden stock 'father' and a stone 'who begot me.' Lapide: idolatry is the logical inversion of all natural order — it gives to the creature what belongs to the Creator.