Why does the Lord ask Jeremiah if he has seen what faithless Israel has done on the hills and under every tree?
In this section of prose (Jeremiah 3:6–11) the Lord speaks to Jeremiah. The theme of repentance is still central. This section, and the rest of Jeremiah 3:1–25, reminds the reader that there is so much more at stake than just Judah’s need to repent. Judah is what remains of the Lord’s covenant people after the northern tribes of Israel had been defeated by Assyria in 722 BC, as the Lord poured out his judgment on them. But from the beginning the Lord’s covenant with Israel has implications for the whole world. The Lord had not just committed himself to blessing Israel, but to restoring his blessing to all nations through Israel (Genesis 12:1–3). This bigger picture of the Lord’s covenant with Israel gives the context for the call to Judah to return
to the Lord.
The question the Lord asks Jeremiah about faithless Israel
(Jeremiah 3:6) is placed by Jeremiah in the historical context of Josiah’s rule. The Lord asks Jeremiah if he has seen what that faithless one, Israel
had done in the past to bring about the Assyrian invasion, how Israel in the north had turned to worship other gods on every hill and under every green tree.
The verb went up
has the Hebrew participle holeka (going
), implying that this was habitual and ongoing behaviour.1 The fact that the Lord asks this as a question and does not simply state what happened does not mean that Jeremiah is unaware of Israel’s unfaithfulness, but rather magnifies the depth of the unfaithfulness. The Lord refers to northern Israel as meshuvah, that faithless one.
The same description is used in Jeremiah 3:8, Jeremiah 3:12. Northern Israel’s faithlessness is being personified as the behaviour of an unfaithful bride.2 In fact, she had played the whore.
6 The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?