- there are 70 faces to 
Post by alon on Aug 6, 2016 12:38:28 GMT -8
Jerimiah 2:4-28, 3:4, Haftara for Par’shah Massei
Israel is in the first part of this chapter likened to a young bride who responded to the love of her husband, the Lord. She was a field, who being carefully cultivated yielded up the first-fruits of the harvest to Him. Why now does she fail to respond to His love?
To answer we need only look into our own hearts. Meyer calls us “marvels of perversity and disappointment,” and he is correct. Even those who believe are often put to 
by contemporary heathens who, with their slavish attention to the minute details of their worship as well as their conduct all too often show us to be less than devout.
The root of this evil in us as well as Yisro’el is identified in vs 31:
Jeremiah 2:31c (CJB) Why do my people say, ‘We’re free to roam, we will no longer come to you’?
We like to be our own gods; to define our religion and worship ourselves in a way which pleases us. We are the masters of our own lives, and so we must first make our god to serve us.
Yet God has been good to us. We are all here blessed in so many ways, and in return we have forgotten Him “days beyond numbering.”
Jeremiah 2:32 (CJB) Does a girl forget her jewellery, or a bride her wedding sash? Yet my people have forgotten me, days beyond numbering.
Our haftarah is part of a divorce proceeding by Elohim against the kingdom of Yisro’el. The marriage metaphor is a common one used in scripture to portray the relationship of Adonai and His people. This is in the form of the saddest thing which can happen in that relationship, a courtroom statement as the husband seeks divorce. Anyone who has went through this knows how bitter it can be. But the people had been unfaithful, mixing worship of YHVH El Elyon- The Lord, the Most High God, with pagan practices of worship.
Verses 4-13 expose the apostasy of a nation.
Jeremiah 2:4-5a (ESV) Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord:
This is a ‘call to attention.’ It was often used before public announcements or presentations.
5b “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me,
and went after worthlessness,
and became worthless?
This is of course a rhetorical question, as YHVH Tsedekenu- The Lord Our Righteousness is blameless.
6 They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that none passes through,
where no man dwells?’
7 And I brought you into a plentiful land
to enjoy its fruits and its good things.
But when you came in, you defiled my land
and made my heritage an abomination.
Yisro’el did not remember their God, nor all He had done for them.
8 The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the shepherds [rulers] transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal
and went after things that do not profit.
Their rulers and religious leaders had led them astray. Be careful who you choose to follow.
9 “Therefore I still contend with you,
declares the Lord,
and with your children's children I will contend.
10 For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see,
or send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has been such a thing.
No pagan gods had done as much for their people, and yet Yisro’el, and not too far behind them Yehuda were turning to pagan worship themselves.
11 Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for that which does not profit.
In verses 5-11, God claims to have been abandoned by His own people, despite having freed them and led them out of Egypt. He supplied their needs through a long wilderness experience, then took them into the promised land. However He was clear that moral purity and proper worship of Him alone would be required in order to maintain purity of the land. Immorality and apostasy defile, and since Elohim Kedoshim, a Holy God, cannot abide in defilement, he would leave the nation to be punished by her foes.
Verses 12-28 enumerate the specific charges of Elohim Shophtim Ba’aretz- God Who Judges in the Earth, against Yisro’el. Both political and religious violations, which are understood to be closely related, are brought against her.
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the Lord,
13a for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
John 7:38 (CJB) Whoever puts his trust in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being!”
This they had forsaken to play the harlot with Egypt.
13b and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Their idolatry is portrayed as drinking polluted waters at bottom of a manmade cistern (idols and false worship) which had cracked. I’ve maintained cisterns and well pumps. When either a well casing or cistern cracks, you get not only ground water contamination, but with it fungus, bacteria and pollutants. It gets nasty. This is how El Rai- God Who Sees Us looks at our forms of worship polluted with pagan practices, customs and holidays.
14 “Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant?
Why then has he become a prey?
15 The lions {Assyrians} have roared against him;
they have roared loudly.
They have made his land a waste;
his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant.
16 Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have shaved [Heb grazed] the crown of your head.
Memphis was the capital of ancient Egypt. Taphanes was a Nile Delta city which was fortified by Pharaoh Psammetichus I. He and later his son Neco allied with the Assyrians against Babylonia. Neco killed Melech Yosiah in 609 BCE, which brought to an end Yehudah’s efforts at gaining their independence from Assyria. Yisro’el however first became a slave to Egypt and Assyria. This Elohim compares to a return to bondage in Egypt and service to their pagan gods.
17 Have you not brought this upon yourself
by forsaking the Lord your God,
when he led you in the way?
18 And now what do you gain by going to Egypt
to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
19 Your evil will chastise you,
and your apostasy will reprove you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter
for you to forsake the Lord your God;
the fear of me is not in you,
declares the Lord God of hosts.
We are often allowed to choose our own road to punishment. The US is seeing this right now, I believe, in our current administration and possibly the next.
20 “For long ago I broke your yoke
and burst your bonds;
but you said, ‘I will not serve.’
Yes, on every high hill
and under every green tree
you bowed down like a sleeper.
Life was made comparatively easy for us, as it was for Yisro’el. And we, like them have become lazy. But worse, the reference here to “every high hill and every green tree” is a reference to the places pagans preferred to place their alters. Worship in the nations of the West has grown so apostate, so far from what YHVH Elohe Abothekem- The Lord God of Your (Our) Fathers told us was how we were to do it, it is indistinguishable from paganism.
21 Yet I planted you a choice vine,
wholly of pure seed.
How then have you turned degenerate
and become a wild vine?
22 Though you wash yourself with lye
and use much soap,
the stain of your guilt is still before me,
declares the Lord God.
We can’t run wild, worshiping as we want, and wash away our own guilt. And we can’t deny our guilt before YHVH Kanna Shemo- The Lord Whose Name is Jealouse. How many times do we hear “It’s ok to worship at Easter sunrise services or kneel at an alter with a Christmas tree on it, because MY intent is to worship God!” Since when do we get to tell Elohim how we will worship Him?
Lev 10:1 (KJV) And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.
These men changed just one little part of the ritual. Remember how that worked out?
Num 26:61 (KJV) And Nadab and Abihu died, when they offered strange fire before the LORD.
He goes on:
23 How can you say, ‘I am not unclean,
I have not gone after the Baals’?
Look at your way in the valley;
know what you have done—
a restless young camel running here and there,
“Your way” is your halacha, how you walk with and serve the Lord.
24 a wild donkey used to the wilderness,
in her heat sniffing the wind!
Who can restrain her lust?
None who seek her need weary themselves;
in her month they will find her.
They are like animals in heat, eager to accept other gods in place of their husband the Lord; other ways of worship than those proscribed by the very God they claim to worship! The churches today, like Yisro’el before them lust after sin.
25 Keep your feet from going unshod
and your throat from thirst.
But you said, ‘It is hopeless,
for I have loved foreigners,
and after them I will go.’
Hopeless. Why try to seek the truth and go after that? They say “hopeless,” but I think they mean ‘easier.’ It is just easier to keep doing what we are. It is just easier to make our own rules. It is just easier to say “I GOT GRACE” than to actually do what we are told!
26 “As a thief is shamed when caught,
so the house of Israel shall be shamed:
they, their kings, their officials,
their priests, and their prophets,
I have literally put to men with Masters of Divinity degrees simply by saying “Read that to me in context” and then showing them where it says exactly the opposite of what they are telling me it says. I’m no genius, but it really is just that simple. El Emunah- The Faithful God was clear in His instructions to us, both in the TNK and in the B’rith Chadashah (OT and Renewed Covenant/NT).
27 who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’
and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their back to me,
and not their face.
But in the time of their trouble they say,
‘Arise and save us!’
28 But where are your gods
that you made for yourself?
Let them arise, if they can save you,
in your time of trouble;
for as many as your cities
are your gods, O Judah.
Isn’t that always the way it is? We turn on our God, then when our false gods cannot save us we cry out for God to come to our rescue, when what we should be doing is throwing ourselves before Him in repentance and begging forgiveness. But part of repentance, in fact the first part, is understanding and admitting what we are doing that is wrong. And I will tell you plainly that when we worship false doctrines of God and keep pagan feasts like worship of Semiramis (whose sign was the fish and the dove), or the birth of the son Tammuz nine months after the feast of Ishtar (Easter and Christmas), we thus share in the sins of Nimrod. As individuals, if we stay on this path we stand to be judged and share his fate. And as a nation, I think we are poised to share the fate of Yisro’el in this haftarah.
Dan C
Resources: JPS Study Tnk, Wiersbe, Meyer, Unger, Rav S, my father and others
