Jeremiah 2:13

2:13 “Do so because my people have committed a double wrong:

they have rejected me,

the fountain of life-giving water, ¹ 

and they have dug cisterns for themselves,

cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”

Jeremiah 2:1

The Lord Recalls Israel’s Earlier Faithfulness

2:1 The Lord spoke to me. He said:

Jeremiah 28:9

28:9 So if a prophet prophesied ²  peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”

Jeremiah 28:2

28:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ³  says, ‘I will break the yoke of servitude ⁴  to the king of Babylon.

Jeremiah 7:19-20

7:19 But I am not really the one being troubled!” ⁵  says the Lord. “Rather they are bringing trouble on themselves to their own shame! ⁶  7:20 So,” the Lord God ⁷  says, “my raging fury will be poured out on this land. ⁸  It will be poured out on human beings and animals, on trees and crops. ⁹  And it will burn like a fire which cannot be extinguished.”

¹ tn It is difficult to decide whether to translate “fresh, running water” which the Hebrew term for “living water” often refers to (e.g., Gen 26:19; Lev 14:5), or “life-giving water” which the idiom “fountain of life” as source of life and vitality often refers to (e.g., Ps 36:9; Prov 13:14; 14:27). The contrast with cisterns, which collected and held rain water, suggests “fresh, running water,” but the reality underlying the metaphor contrasts the Lord, the source of life, health, and vitality, with useless idols that cannot do anything.

² tn The verbs in this verse are to be interpreted as iterative imperfects in past time rather than as futures because of the explicit contrast that is drawn in the two verses by the emphatic syntactical construction of the two verses. Both verses begin with a casus pendens construction to throw the two verses into contrast: Heb “The prophets who were before me and you from ancient times, they prophesied…The prophet who prophesied peace, when the word of that prophet came true, that prophet was known that the Lord truly sent him.”

³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for the explanation of this title.

⁴ sn See the study note on 27:2 for this figure. Hananiah is given the same title “the prophet” as Jeremiah throughout the chapter and claims to speak with the same authority (compare v. 2a with 27:21a). He even speaks like the true prophet; the verb form “I will break” is in the “prophetic perfect” emphasizing certitude. His message here is a contradiction of Jeremiah’s message recorded in the preceding chapter (compare especially v. 3 with 27:16, 19-22 and v. 4 with 22:24-28). The people and the priests are thus confronted with a choice of whom to believe. Who is the “true” prophet and who is the “false” one? Only fulfillment of their prophecies will prove which is which (see Deut 18:21-22).

⁵ tn Heb “Is it I whom they provoke?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer which is made explicit in the translation.

⁶ tn Heb “Is it not themselves to their own shame?” The rhetorical question expects a positive answer which is made explicit in the translation.

⁷ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

⁸ tn Heb “this place.” Some see this as a reference to the temple but the context has been talking about what goes on in the towns of Judah and Jerusalem and the words that follow, meant as a further explanation, are applied to the whole land.

⁹ tn Heb “the trees of/in the field and the fruit of/in the ground.”