Jeremiah 3:1-5, Judah in Divorce Court

Yahweh is continuing Judah’s day in court, bringing charges against her. And it becomes apparent that this is really divorce court. Yahweh is justifying divorcing His people because they have been unfaithful. The law of Moses says, in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, that is a man divorces his wife and she remarries, and her second husband divorces her, or he dies, her first husband cannot remarry her. “The purpose of the law was to curb the husband’s arbitrary use of his right to divorce his wife” (Expositor’s Commentary). Yahweh is not being arbitrary. Judah has been incredibly unfaithful, and Yahweh is questioning whether He can remarry Judah.

^3:1 “If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, may he return to her again? Would not the land be utterly defiled? But you have played the prostitute with many lovers—and would you now return to me?” declares Yahweh.
² “Look up to the hilltops and see. Where have you not been ravished? By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, like thieves in the desert ready to pounce. You have defiled the land with your vile prostitution.
³ That is why the fall rains have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed. ⁴ Have you not now just called to me:

‘My Father, my friend from my youth, ⁵ will you always be angry? Will your indignance continue forever?’

This is what you say, but you continually do all the evil you can.” (Jeremiah 3:1-5)

The metaphor of prostitute to describe Judah’s unfaithfulness to the one true God, her husband, indicates the extent of her unfaithfulness. This is not a one-time fling, or even a faithful marriage to another, but an out and out turning to other gods, worshiping them on every hilltop, lurking for them at every turn.

Yahweh had told His people,

¹⁰ The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. ¹¹ But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. ¹² It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

¹³ So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul— ¹⁴ then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. ¹⁵ I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.

¹⁶ Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. ¹⁷ Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. (Deuteronomy 11:10-17, NIV)

So Judah should have taken the lack of rain as a sign of God’s discipline. But she didn’t. She acted like God was her father and friend from her youth who had no reason to continue His anger. The fact that Judah continued in rampant disobedience to God’s law was proof that she did not really have any regard for Him.

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Discussion Questions:

1. Why do you think God would bring up the issue of the law’s prohibition against remarrying a divorced spouse? What does He want Judah to think?
2. How does Yahweh justify divorcing Judah?
3. What is always the sign of insincere repentance?
4. Is it possible that God would ever “divorce” a true believer? Can a believer lose his salvation?