Commentary - Jeremiah 3:6-10

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, the Lord pulls Jeremiah aside to have him consider the tale of two sisters, two whorish sisters. The northern kingdom of Israel had already been judged for her flagrant spiritual adulteries, and God had formally served her divorce papers. The southern kingdom of Judah, her "treacherous sister," saw all of this happen. She witnessed the sin, she witnessed the judgment, and she even went through the motions of a great national reformation under King Josiah. But it was all a sham. God's indictment here is a sharp razor, cutting between the outward appearance of reform and the inward reality of a heart that is still playing the harlot. This is a lesson on the uselessness of repentance in quotation marks, a repentance that is all for show. It is a warning against thinking that God can be fooled by external piety when the heart is still chasing after idols of wood and stone.

The central metaphor is that of the covenant as a marriage. God is the husband, and His people are the bride. Therefore, idolatry is never just a "different religious preference"; it is spiritual adultery. It is a profound betrayal of vows. Jeremiah lays this out in stark, earthy terms to show us the ugliness of our sin and the far greater ugliness of pretending to repent of it while still keeping our idols hidden in the basement. God is not mocked, and a fake repentance is a greater insult to Him than the original, honest rebellion.

Outline

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 6 Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there.

The Lord begins this oracle by setting the historical scene. This is happening "in the days of Josiah the king." This is crucial. Josiah was the great reformer. He found the Book of the Law, tore his clothes, and purged the land of its idols (2 Kings 22-23). On the surface, it was a golden age of repentance. But God is telling Jeremiah to look underneath the new paint. God is not impressed with outward renovations when the foundation is rotten. He asks Jeremiah a rhetorical question, "Have you seen...?" God wants him, and us, to be shrewd observers of the human heart.

What did "faithless Israel" do? The term here is literally "apostasy Israel," or "turn-away Israel." She is defined by her departure. And where did she go? "She went up on every high hill and under every green tree." This is not a travelogue. This is the biblical shorthand for Canaanite idolatry. The pagan fertility cults set up their shrines in these places. This was where the ritual prostitution happened, where they worshiped the creation instead of the Creator. God is not speaking in abstractions. Her sin was a rank, public affair. She was a "harlot there." She made a covenant with Yahweh at Sinai, a marriage vow, and she broke it in the most graphic way possible, giving herself to other gods.

v. 7 I said, ‘After she has done all these things, she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

Here we see the longsuffering of God. Even after Israel had run off and played the whore with every passing deity, God, the faithful husband, still held out hope. "Surely, after this, she will come to her senses. She will return to Me." This is the language of a spurned but loving husband. This is not God being ignorant of the future; it is Him revealing His heart of grace. He gave her every opportunity to repent. He sent prophet after prophet. But the verdict is stark: "she did not return."

And all the while, someone was watching from the sidelines. "Her treacherous sister Judah saw it." Judah is not an innocent bystander. She had a front-row seat to the whole sordid affair. She saw the sin of her sister Israel, she saw the patience of God, and, as we are about to see, she saw the final consequences. The word "treacherous" is key. It speaks of deceit, of betrayal cloaked in a garment of loyalty. Judah's sin, as we will find, is a deeper and more twisted form of rebellion.

v. 8 And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.

The consequences for Israel's harlotry finally came. God says He "sent her away and given her a certificate of divorce." This is a direct reference to the Law of Moses (Deut. 24:1). God's action was not an emotional outburst. It was a formal, legal, covenantal action. The Assyrian captivity was not a geopolitical accident; it was God serving divorce papers on the northern kingdom for her persistent, unrepentant adultery. The marriage covenant with them was formally ended.

Now, what is the only sane reaction to seeing your sister's house foreclosed on because of her reckless behavior? You should fear. You should take a hard look at your own finances. But Judah did not. "Her treacherous sister Judah did not fear." This is the heart of the problem. She saw the judgment of God fall, and she yawned. She was not instructed by it. Instead, she concluded that she could get away with it. And so, "she went and was a harlot also." She walked down the exact same path, knowing full well where it led.

v. 9 So it was, because of the lightness of her harlotry, that she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.

Judah's sin was, in a way, worse because of its casual nature. The text says it was because of the "lightness of her harlotry." For her, this spiritual adultery was no big deal. It was a trifle. She treated her covenant with the living God as something to be discarded as easily as last year's fashion. This casual sin has a profound effect: "she polluted the land." Sin is not a private matter; it is a contagion. It defiles everything it touches. The land itself, which was God's gift, was corrupted by her sin.

And what was the object of her affection? She "committed adultery with stones and trees." Jeremiah uses this language to pour scorn on the whole enterprise of idolatry. Imagine a wife leaving her husband for a mannequin. It is not just infidelity; it is idiocy. To forsake the living God, the fountain of living waters, for inert blocks of wood and carved rocks is the height of folly. This is what all sin is, at its root. It is an exchange of the glory of the immortal God for a cheap substitute.

v. 10 Yet in spite of all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in lying,” declares Yahweh.

This is the capstone of the indictment. After seeing her sister divorced, after participating in the reforms of Josiah, after all the temple cleansings and covenant renewal ceremonies, what was Judah's response? "She did not return to Me with all her heart." God is always after the heart. He is not interested in external compliance that masks an unfaithful heart. A man can show up for dinner every night, but if his heart is with another woman, he is still an adulterer.

Judah's return was a sham. She returned "in lying." Her repentance was a calculated falsehood. She put on the costume of piety. She said all the right words. She went to church, as it were. But it was all pretense. This is the treachery. An open rebel is one thing. A rebel who pretends to be a loyal friend is another thing entirely. This is the sin of the Pharisees, cleaning the outside of the cup while the inside is full of filth. And God declares it for what it is: a lie. This is a sober warning for us. We must never mistake reformation for regeneration. We must never confuse a change of habits with a change of heart. God sees, and He will not be fooled.