Jeremiah 3:11

(Verse 11.) And the Lord said to me: He has justified his soul, the one who turned away from Israel, by the comparison of the one who acted treacherously in Judah. Israel is more just, he said, in comparison to Judah: because she perished immediately in the beginning, while the other could be corrected by her sufferings. Let us observe that the new heresy is compared to the old, in which Israel is said to be justified in comparison to Judah.

The very wording of the passage that has been read has something obscure in it, which must first be understood; and after this, if God grants it, we shall come to know his mystical intent. Now he wants us to know this: that, as is written in the books of Kingdoms, the people were divided in the times of Rehoboam into the kingdom of the ten tribes under Jeroboam and into that of the two tribes under Rehoboam; and those under Jeroboam were called Israel, but those under Rehoboam Judah. And this division of the people has remained, so far as concerns the historical record, down to the present; for we know of no historical account that has gathered Israel and Judah together into one. Now Israel sinned first and more grievously — the people under Jeroboam and his successors — and sinned so much beyond Judah that they were condemned by Providence to become captives "into Assyria," as the Scripture says, "unto this day." After this the sons of Judah also sinned and were condemned to captivity into Babylon, not "unto this day" as Israel, but for "seventy years," concerning which Jeremiah prophesied, and which Daniel also mentioned. If we understand these things as spoken with reference to that people of that time, look at the words of the prophet, whether they do not indicate something of this sort. For he accuses, as it were, the sins of Israel, and says that, when so many sins had been committed by Israel, the congregation of Judah, having heard of their transgressions and in what manner I made them come to be in captivity, was not instructed but added to its sins, so that, because of this addition of sins when compared with the sins of Israel, righteousness was found in Israel over against Judah. Then, upon these things, the prophet is commanded to prophesy, since Judah had become worse than Israel, in order that after its sins it might turn back. […]

): Israel has justified herself more than Judah, that is, she is not so bad as Judah is. This comparative justification will stand Israel in little stead; what will it avail us to say, We are not so bad as others, when yet we are not really good ourselves? But it will serve as an aggravation of the sin of Judah, which was in two respects worse than that of Israel:-- 1.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

Great encouragements are given to these backsliders to return and repent, and promises made of great mercy which God had in store for them, and which he would prepare them for by bringing them home to himself,

Hath justified herself - Judah had had the benefit of the warning given by Israel’s example. Both abandon Yahweh’s service for idolatry, but Israel is simply “apostate,” Judah is also false. The verse is important, (1) as accounting for the destruction of Jerusalem so soon after the pious reign of Josiah. Manasseh’s crimes had defiled the land, but it was by rejecting the reforms of Josiah that the people finally profaned it, and sealed their doom: (2) As showing that it is not by the acts of its government that a nation stands or falls.