Jeremiah 2:20

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.

For of

And thou saidst

1 Samuel 12:10

When upon

Ezekiel 20:28

Playing

General references

2 Kings 12:3

Proverbs 7:12

Isaiah 57:7

Bible References

For of

‘It shall come about on that day,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘that I will break the yoke off your neck and I will tear off your bonds and force apart your shackles; and strangers will no longer make slaves of the people [of Israel].

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand (power) of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a land [that is] good and spacious, to a land flowing with milk and honey [a land of plenty]—to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves; and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk upright [with heads held high as free men].

But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron [smelting] furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people for His own possession, as [you are] this day.

And you shall remember and thoughtfully consider that you were [once] a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore, I am commanding you these things today.

For You will break the yoke of Israel’s burden and the staff (goad) on their shoulders,
The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian.

So it will be in that day, that the burden of the Assyrian will be removed from your shoulders and his yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because of the fat.

to break the Assyrian in My land, and on My mountains I will trample him underfoot. Then the Assyrian’s yoke will be removed from them (the people of Judah) and his burden removed from their shoulder.

“Now, I will break his yoke [of taxation] off you,
And I will tear off your shackles.”

And thou saidst

All the people answered together and said, “We will do everything that the Lord has spoken.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.

Then Moses came and told the people everything that the Lord had said and all the ordinances. And all the people answered with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”

You, Moses, go near and listen to everything that the Lord our God says; then speak to us everything that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will listen and do it.’

Today you have [openly] declared the Lord to be your God, and that you will walk [that is, live each and every day] in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments, and His judgments (precepts), and listen to His voice.

They answered Joshua, saying, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.

The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and we will listen to and obey His voice.”

They cried out to the Lord, saying, ‘We have sinned because we have abandoned (rejected) the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth; but now rescue us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve You.’

When upon

Moreover, the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king [of Judah], “Have you seen what that faithless Israel has done—how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there she was a prostitute?

You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green [leafy] tree.

Jeroboam held a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar; he did this in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

For they provoked Him to [righteous] anger with their high places [devoted to idol worship]
And moved Him to jealousy with their carved images [by denying Him the love, worship, and obedience that is rightfully and uniquely His].

Who inflame yourselves [with lust in pagan rites] among the oaks (terebinth trees),
Under every green and leafy tree,
Who slaughter the children [in sacrifice] in the ravines
Under the clefts of the rocks?

that you built yourself an altar for prostitution and made yourself a high place [for ritual prostitution] in every square [of Jerusalem].

For when I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, they saw every high hill and every dark and leafy tree [as a place for idol worship], and there they offered their sacrifices and there they presented their offering that provoked My anger; there also they made their sweet-smelling aroma and there poured out their drink offerings.

Playing

That is to say, “If a man divorces his wife
And she goes [away] from him
And becomes another man’s [wife],
Will he return to her again? [Of course not!]
Will not that land [where such a thing happened] be completely desecrated?
But you [rebelled against Me and you] are a prostitute with many lovers;
Yet you turn to Me.” says the Lord.

—for you shall not worship any other god; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His]—

You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and the hills and under every green [leafy] tree.

How the faithful city has become a prostitute [idolatrous, despicable],
She who was full of justice!
Right standing with God once lodged in her,
But now murderers.

“But you trusted in and relied on your beauty and prostituted yourself [in idolatry and its debauched rituals] because of your fame, and you poured out your immoralities on every [willing] passer-by and your beauty was his [as you worshiped the idols of the Gentile nations].

“Oholah played the prostitute while she was Mine; and she adored and lusted after her lovers (allies), the Assyrians, her neighbors,

“For their mother has played the prostitute;
She who conceived them has acted shamefully,
For she said, ‘I will pursue my lovers
Who give me my food and my water,
My wool and my flax, my oil and my [refreshing] drinks.’

And I said to her, “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the prostitute nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you [until you have proved your faithfulness].”

General references

Only the high places were not removed; the people were still sacrificing and burning incense [to the Lord] on the high places [rather than at the temple].

At times she was in the streets, at times in the market places,
Lurking and setting her ambush at every corner.

“Upon a high and lofty mountain
You have [openly and shamelessly] made your [idolatrous and adulterous] bed;
Even there you went up to offer sacrifice [to idols, in spiritual unfaithfulness to Me].