The Poisoned Well Text: Jeremiah 2:18-19
Introduction: The Folly of Foreign Faucets
In our day, as in Jeremiah's, the people of God have developed a peculiar taste for foreign water. They have convinced themselves that the water from the old well, the one dug by the patriarchs and consecrated by God Himself, is somehow insufficient. It is too plain, too demanding, too exclusive. And so, they begin to eye the grand aqueducts of Egypt and the mighty rivers of Assyria. They think that a little taste from the Nile will make them sophisticated, and a drink from the Euphrates will make them strong. They believe they can blend the water from Jerusalem with the water from the world's capitals and create a superior beverage.
But God, through His prophet, comes to His people with a diagnosis that is both startling and severe. He tells them that their thirst for foreign waters is not a sign of sophisticated pragmatism, but rather a symptom of profound spiritual adultery. They have left the fountain of living waters to hew out for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. And worse, they have gone on a trek to drink from cisterns that are not just broken, but poisoned. The path to Egypt and the road to Assyria are not roads to security and strength; they are roads to shame and servitude.
This passage is a divine confrontation. God is forcing His bride, Israel, to look at her behavior, to see the sheer irrationality of it. What business do you have going to Egypt? What are you doing on the road to Assyria? These are not just geographical questions; they are theological indictments. God is asking, "Why are you seeking life, satisfaction, and security from the very places that represent bondage and godless power? Why do you believe the water of the world is better than the wine of my covenant?"
And then God delivers the punchline, which is the central principle of all divine judgment in this life. The punishment for sin is not some arbitrary penalty that God invents on the spot. More often than not, the punishment for sin is the sin itself, allowed to run its full and bitter course. God doesn't need to send a lightning bolt from heaven to chastise you for your worldliness. He just has to let you drink your fill from the worldly wells you prefer. He will let you have what you want, and you will find it to be a bitter and chastening draught.
The Text
But now what are you doing on the road to Egypt,
To drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what are you doing on the road to Assyria,
To drink the waters of the River?
Your own evil will chastise you,
And your acts of faithlessness will reprove you;
Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter
For you to forsake Yahweh your God,
And the dread of Me is not in you,” declares Lord Yahweh of hosts.
(Jeremiah 2:18-19 LSB)
The Useless Detour (v. 18)
We begin with God's cross-examination of His people's foreign policy.
"But now what are you doing on the road to Egypt, To drink the waters of the Nile? Or what are you doing on the road to Assyria, To drink the waters of the River?" (Jeremiah 2:18)
God's question is dripping with divine sarcasm. "What are you doing?" It is the question a father asks his son whom he finds trying to fill the car's gas tank with a garden hose. It is an expression of incredulous disbelief. Israel was caught between two superpowers, Egypt to the south and Assyria to the north. Their political strategy was to play one off against the other, to form alliances, to trust in chariots and horses. When Assyria threatened, they would run to Egypt for help. When Egypt looked menacing, they would try to curry favor with Assyria.
But notice the metaphor God uses. It is not about treaties; it is about thirst. "To drink the waters of the Nile... to drink the waters of the River." The Nile was the lifeblood of Egypt, the source of its power and pride. The River is the Euphrates, the heart of the Assyrian and later Babylonian empires. To drink from these rivers was to trust in their strength, to adopt their worldview, to seek sustenance from them. It was an act of idolatrous dependence.
For Israel to go to Egypt for a drink was the height of historical amnesia and covenantal treason. Egypt was the house of bondage from which God had miraculously delivered them. To go back there for a drink was like a rescued slave voluntarily putting the chains back on because he missed the taste of the prison's water. It was a complete repudiation of the Exodus. Assyria was a brutal, pagan empire known for its cruelty. To seek security from them was to seek protection from a ravenous wolf.
This is a permanent temptation for the church. We are always tempted to think that the world's methods, the world's philosophies, and the world's political power are the keys to our success and security. The church goes to the Egypt of secular psychology to fix its marriages. It goes to the Assyria of corporate marketing strategies to grow its numbers. It drinks from the Nile of political compromise and the Euphrates of cultural accommodation. And God asks the same question of us: "What are you doing? Have I not given you living water? Why are you so thirsty for the polluted streams of the world?" Every time we trust in worldly means to accomplish spiritual ends, we are on the road to Egypt.
The In-House Discipline (v. 19a)
In the first part of verse 19, God reveals the mechanism of His judgment. It is not an external force, but an internal consequence.
"Your own evil will chastise you, And your acts of faithlessness will reprove you..." (Jeremiah 2:19a LSB)
This is a profound principle. God has woven the consequences of sin into the fabric of the sin itself. The punishment for adultery is not merely a divine frown; it is the wreckage of your family, the destruction of trust, the hollowing out of your own soul. The punishment for drunkenness is not just a demerit in a heavenly ledger; it is the hangover, the addiction, the ruined relationships, the liver failure. God's judgments are often a simple matter of Him taking His hands off and letting us have what we want. He lets sin run its course.
Your own evil will become the rod that beats you. Your backslidings, your acts of turning away, will themselves be the things that rebuke and correct you. You want to drink from the Nile? Fine. You will get the crocodiles and the diseases that come with it. You want to trust in Assyria? Go ahead. They will become your masters and your taskmasters. The very thing you run to for security will become the source of your insecurity.
This is God's universe, and it runs according to His rules. It is like a moral law of gravity. If you step off a cliff, gravity does not decide to punish you. The fall itself is the punishment inherent in the act. In the same way, when we forsake God, the resulting emptiness, bitterness, and bondage are not an added penalty; they are the natural, inevitable fruit of the choice itself. God is telling Israel, "You are preparing your own punishment. You are mixing your own bitter medicine. I don't have to discipline you; your own choices will."
The Bitter Realization (v. 19b)
The purpose of this self-inflicted chastisement is to bring about a moment of clarity, a bitter but necessary education.
"...Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter For you to forsake Yahweh your God, And the dread of Me is not in you,” declares Lord Yahweh of hosts." (Jeremiah 2:19b LSB)
The discipline is pedagogical. It is designed to teach a lesson that could not be learned through sermons alone. God wants them to "know and see." He wants them to experience the consequences so that they understand the nature of their sin in their bones. He wants them to taste the bitterness of the waters of the Nile so they will finally realize that forsaking Him is not just "evil" in an abstract, theological sense, but "bitter" in a deeply personal, experiential sense.
Sin always promises sweetness but delivers bitterness. The world's rivers look sparkling and refreshing from a distance, but they are brackish and foul when you actually drink them. The core sin is identified here: "to forsake Yahweh your God." This is the root of all the other problems. The trips to Egypt and Assyria are just symptoms of a heart that has already left its first love.
And why did they forsake Him? The final clause gives the ultimate reason: "And the dread of Me is not in you." The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Conversely, the absence of the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all folly. When men cease to tremble before the living God, they will inevitably begin to tremble before mortal men. When you no longer fear God, you will fear the Assyrians. When you no longer dread Yahweh, you will start dreading Pharaoh. You will trade the wholesome, cleansing fear of God for the slavish, paranoid fear of man.
They had lost their sense of awe. God had become common to them. His covenant was a piece of paper, not a blood oath. His presence was a ritual, not a consuming fire. And so, because the dread of Yahweh of hosts, the Lord of the armies of heaven, was not in them, they went looking for security from the tin-pot armies of Egypt and Assyria. They exchanged the fear of the Creator for the fear of the creature, which is the essence of idolatry.
Conclusion: Returning to the Fountain
The message of this passage rings down through the centuries to us. The church in the West is on the road to Egypt. We are enamored with worldly solutions, political saviors, and cultural acceptance. We have been drinking deeply from the Nile of secularism and the Euphrates of pragmatism, and we are finding the water to be bitter. Our own evils are chastising us. Our faithlessness is reproving us. We are seeing the bitter fruit of forsaking the Lord our God.
The solution is not to try to find a cleaner river in the world. The solution is not to try to filter the waters of the Nile. The solution is to repent. It is to "know and see" that our wandering has been evil and bitter. It is to turn around on the road and head back to Jerusalem, back to the fountain of living waters that we forsook.
And the beginning of that repentance is the recovery of the fear of God. We must pray that God would restore to us a holy dread of His majesty, His power, and His holiness. When we fear God properly, we will fear nothing else. When the dread of Yahweh of hosts is in us, the threats of our modern-day Egypts and Assyrias will be seen for what they are: the impotent posturing of creatures before their sovereign Creator.
The good news of the gospel is that for all our adulterous journeys to foreign rivers, there is a way back. Christ is that way. He drank the ultimate cup of bitterness on the cross, the cup of God's wrath against our covenant-breaking, so that we could be invited back to the fountain of grace. He is the living water. And He invites all who are thirsty from drinking the world's poison to come to Him and drink freely, without cost, and to find that His water is not bitter, but is a wellspring of life eternal.