Jeremiah 2:11

2:11 Has a nation ever changed its gods

(even though they are not really gods at all)?

But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, ¹ 

for a god that cannot help them at all! ² 

Jeremiah 2:27-28

2:27 They say to a wooden idol, ³  ‘You are my father.’

They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ⁴ 

Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ⁵ 

Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves?

Let them save you when you are in trouble.

The sad fact is that ⁶  you have as many gods

as you have towns, Judah.

[2:11]  ¹ tn Heb “have exchanged their glory [i.e., the God in whom they glory].” This is a case of a figure of speech where the attribute of a person or thing is put for the person or thing. Compare the common phrase in Isaiah, the Holy One of Israel, obviously referring to the Lord, the God of Israel.

[2:11]  ² tn Heb “what cannot profit.” The verb is singular and the allusion is likely to Baal. See the translator’s note on 2:8 for the likely pun or wordplay.

[2:27]  ³ tn Heb “wood…stone…”

[2:27]  ⁴ sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”

[2:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”

[2:28]  ⁶ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki, “for, indeed”) contextually.