What is the meaning of Jeremiah 2:13? For My people have committed two evils: • God Himself announces the charge. He is not dealing in mere disappointments but in moral violations. • The phrase “My people” underscores covenant relationship (Jeremiah 2:2; Exodus 19:5-6). Israel’s actions are therefore treason, not simple mistakes. • “Two evils” shows divine precision. Nothing escapes His notice (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 33:13-15). • The context lists countless symptoms—idolatry, injustice, immorality—but God reduces the diagnosis to two root sins that explain every symptom (Jeremiah 2:5, 29). They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, • To “forsake” is willful abandonment. Israel walked away from the very Source of life. • God calls Himself “the fountain of living water,” a picture of continual, pure, self-replenishing supply (Jeremiah 17:13; Psalm 36:9). • Jesus applies the same imagery to Himself: “Whoever drinks of the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:14; cf. John 7:37-38). • Walking away from living water means rejecting: – Sustenance for the soul (Isaiah 55:1-3). – Cleansing from impurity (Ezekiel 36:25-27). – Refreshment in every season (Revelation 22:1-2). and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water. • Cisterns were man-made pits lined with plaster to catch rain. They symbolize self-reliance. • “Their own” highlights deliberate substitution: trading God’s gift for human effort (Proverbs 14:12). • The cisterns are “broken,” leaking away whatever they collect—graphic of idols and self-made philosophies that promise much and deliver nothing (Hosea 10:13; Romans 1:21-23). • Life apart from God always runs empty: – Haggai 1:6: “You eat, but never have enough… you earn wages, but put them in a bag with holes.” – Matthew 7:26-27: building on sand collapses under pressure. • The tragedy is compounded: rejecting the limitless spring, they labor to maintain containers that cannot even preserve stagnant water. summary Jeremiah 2:13 unveils the heart of apostasy: leaving the ever-flowing Lord and substituting Him with leaky, lifeless replacements. The verse calls every generation to cherish the fountain of living water—God Himself—rather than trust in any broken cistern of human making. |
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