Jeremiahchapter 3
25 verses · BSBJeremiah book hub →
Speaks with:Jeremiah 3×6Ezekiel 16×5Jeremiah 2×5Jeremiah 31×5Jeremiah 5×2Isaiah 57×2
Summary
Chapter summary
The law forbids a divorced wife's return, yet Jehovah calls: 'Return, thou backsliding Israel.' Faithless Judah is judged worse than backsliding Israel, having watched the north go into exile and learned nothing. Beyond the pleading stands promise: 'I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding' (3:15). The ark will not be missed, for Jerusalem itself shall be called the throne of Jehovah, and all nations gathered to it: Judah and Israel walking together out of the north country into the land given to their fathers, a restoration of Israel as Israel still ahead.
Context
Prophecy · Jeremiah — Jeremiah overview
- A. 1–5 Can a Divorced Wife Return? Israel's Many Lovers
- B. 6–11 Backsliding Israel and Treacherous Judah Compared
- C. 12–18 Return, Backsliding Children — Shepherds After My Heart
- D. 19–25 Behold, We Come Unto Thee: Weeping on the Bare Heights
The outline
A.Can a Divorced Wife Return? Israel's Many Loversvv. 1 to 5
Read vv. 1 to 5 →B.Backsliding Israel and Treacherous Judah Comparedvv. 6 to 11
Read vv. 6 to 11 →C.Return, Backsliding Children — Shepherds After My Heartvv. 12 to 18
Read vv. 12 to 18 →D.Behold, We Come Unto Thee: Weeping on the Bare Heightsvv. 19 to 25
Read vv. 19 to 25 →
The world behind this chapter
Jeremiah 3The history
The chapter opens on a specific piece of law. If a man divorced his wife and she married another man, he was forbidden to take her back, even if the second marriage ended. The land itself was said to be polluted by such a return. Every hearer knew the rule, which is what makes the offer that follows so startling.
The northern kingdom had been finished for roughly a century. Assyria took Samaria in 722 BC, deported the leading families, and settled foreigners in their place. Judah's preachers used the northern ruins the way we use a photograph of a car wreck.
The hilltop shrines are described as bare heights — the wind-scoured summits where the platforms stood, visible for miles. A traveller could see the smoke of them across a valley.
One line would have stopped the room: a promise of days when nobody will mention the ark of the covenant, or miss it, or make another one. The ark was the single most sacred object in the nation, the throne of God's presence in the innermost room of the temple.
What it meant to them
Judah's comfort was comparison. The north had been the wicked half; the south had David's line and the real temple. This chapter takes that away by calling faithless Israel more honest than treacherous Judah — at least the north never pretended to reform.
And the door left open is the shock. The law said a returning wife was impossible. God says come back anyway. First hearers were being told that the way home was not through their record but through God's willingness to break his own precedent.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Jeremiah
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Jeremiah 3. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.