Israel deserved judgment, and this pericope shows why. Jeremiah presented a series of pictures of the nation's irresponsibility and corruption.
2:29 The Lord wanted to know why His people were angry with Him. The difficulties they were experiencing were the result of their transgressions of His law.
2:30 But the Lord's discipline had not produced repentance (cf. Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34; Acts 7:52). Even the younger generation refused to learn from their chastening. If this oracle dates from the time of Josiah, as seems probable, the younger generation, of which Jeremiah was a part, would have seen the fruit of King Manasseh's apostasy and should have turned from it.
"In the secular realm when a great king visited an erring vassal with some kind of punishment the vassal would come to heel, at least in the normal case. But in the case of Israel the divine visitation in some form of judgment was in vain. The people would not accept correction. Rather, they turned on Yahweh's representatives and spokesmen the prophets and destroyed them [cf. 26:20-23; 2 Kings 21:16; Neh. 9:26]."87
2:31 The Lord called all the people alive in Judah then to pay attention and give heed to His word to them (cf. Matt. 3:7; 12:43; 23:33; Luke 3:7). He had not been as ungiving as a wilderness nor as benighting as darkness to them. They had no reason to feel free to abandon Him.
2:32 Young girls rarely forget their first jewelry, and brides hardly ever forget what their wedding dress (lit. sash) looked like. But God's people had forgotten their greatest treasure and their glory long ago (cf. Deut. 8:11, 19; 32:18; Ps. 78:11; 106:13, 21; Isa. 17:10).
2:33 Ironically, like an unfaithful wife Israel had prepared herself to seek a new lover. Her behavior had given ideas of unfaithfulness to other nations that did not even know the Lord. As a prostitute, Israel could teach even the heathen harlots a few tricks.
". . . it was true then as now, that the pagan has nothing to teach the hardened apostate, nor the outright unbeliever the religious double-thinker."88
2:34a In her unfaithfulness, Israel had gone so far as putting innocent people to death (cf. 26:20-23; 1 Kings 21:16; Neh. 9:26). If these people had done something worthy of death, such as breaking into a house, such bloodshed would have been tolerable (cf. Exod. 22:2-3)
"Wicked behaviour always involves innocent people to some extent, as Christ demonstrated in bearing the sins of humanity (cf. 1 Pet. 2:20-24)."89
2:34b-35 In spite of all this guilt, Israel still claimed to be innocent and hoped that Yahweh's anger against her would subside. But the Lord promised to bring her to judgment because she falsely claimed to be not guilty.
2:36 Israel was wrong to change her ways, from following the Lord faithfully to pursuing idols, so often. The Lord would bring the hopes of the pro-Egyptian party to nothing. He had already used Assyria, which other Judeans trusted in, to overrun and take captive the Northern Kingdom (in 722 B.C.).
2:37 From Jerusalem (cf. v. 2) God's people would depart in grief and captivity, with their hands on their heads, because Yahweh had rejected the nations in whom Israel trusted and by whom she hoped to prosper (cf. 2 Sam. 13:19). He wanted them to trust and prosper in Him.
Throughout this oracle Jeremiah presented Israel's covenant unfaithfulness to God from two perspective: religious and political. Yahweh's people had abandoned exclusive faith in their covenant God and had committed spiritual adultery by participating in the Baal fertility cult. Nationally they had ceased to recognize Yahweh's sovereignty over them and had turned to Egypt and Assyria for security.90
