The general flow of thought in this early part of Jeremiah's message is from Israel's early devotion to Yahweh (vv. 2-3) to her departure from Him (vv. 4-13) to the tragic results of her unfaithfulness (vv. 14-19). In this second pericope the irrationality of Israel's apostasy stands out.
2:4 Jeremiah appealed to all the Israelites in his audience to hear what God had to say to them.70
2:5 The Lord wanted to know what He had done to provoke His people to leave Him and pursue other gods that left them empty.71
2:6 The Israelites had not even asked themselves where the Lord who had redeemed them in the Exodus and preserved them through the wilderness was. They totally disregarded Him.
2:7 The Lord had brought His people into a fruitful land and had given them its produce and wealth, but they had defiled His land with their sins and made it an abomination with their idolatry.
2:8 The leaders of the people were no better than the ordinary citizens. The priests, rulers, and (false) prophets all failed to direct the people to Yahweh and, instead, led them away from Him into unprofitable pursuits.72The priests should have encouraged the people to be faithful to the covenant and should have kept the sacrificial system pure. The governmental rulers (lit. shepherds) should have directed the people to the Lord rather than away from Him. And many professing prophets, instead of bringing messages from the Lord, brought alleged directions from Baal and followed vain pursuits.
"The reference to Baal here and elsewhere in the prophecy is to idols in general."73
"Surely this has something to do with the message we must speak to our post-Christian world. We must treat men with love, we must treat them and talk to them humanly. But we must not tone down our message: the religious leaders of our day too are leading people astray."74
