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Israel had broken covenant with God. In the rupture of this bond was ruptured also the bond which bound society together. Fearful wickedness was the result.

I. THE BOND BROKEN WITH GOD. (Ver. 7.)

1. The primal sin. "They, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant." Our first parents were placed under arrangements involving in them the essentials of a covenant. Through breach of this covenant came "death into our world, and all our woe."

2. Israel's sin. God made a covenant with Israel at Sinai. It was a covenant of Law, yet it had mercy in the heart of it. It required obedience, but it embraced provision for the removal of guilt. It asked from Israel only the pure will and the steadfast heart. It conveyed to them the highest privileges, and conferred on them the greatest blessings. Yet they shamefully broke it. They trampled their compact underfoot. They traversed in every direction the Law which God had given them.

3. Our own sin. God has a covenant made with us in the very constitution of our nature. There is that within us which binds us to God and to the practice of goodness. We find ourselves within the bond of this covenant. Its obligations be upon us. Yet we have broken it. We have gone astray. Sin is the breach of this covenant. In committing sin, we know that we, violating law, are guilty of unfaithfulness to God, and are doing violence to our own nature.

II. THE BOND BROKEN WITH MAN. (Vers. 8, 9.) The result of breach of covenant with God is seen in the open throwing off of all regard from ordinary moral obligations. The principle of love being dethroned - and love soon dies out in the soul that has cast out love to God - self-will, egoism, greed, evil principles of various kinds, usurp its place, and rule the conduct. These verses, accordingly, hold up a picture of utter lawlessness and disorder. Violence filled the cities; the very priests took part in highway robberies and murders. Society without God is like an arch from which the keystone is removed. It falls in ruins. It is like a system of planets without a central sun - unable to maintain its independence. It becomes a scene of confusion, a chaos.

III. INIQUITY MOST SHAMEFUL AMONG THOSE WHO HAVE KNOWN GOD. (Ver. 10.) This was the aggravation of Israel's sin. They had known God, yet were now in this deplorable and desperate condition. Their knowledge of God made their sin "an horrible thing" - "an abomination." Specially hateful to God were the impurities of their worship. He would punish them with special severity on account of their special relation to him (cf. Amos 3:2). Judgment shall begin at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17).

IV. A SIDE-WORD TO JUDAH. (Ver. 11.) In the judgments that were about to fall - having, however, for their object, not Israel's destruction, but her salvation; the turning of her captivity - Judah might be sure that she would not escape. God had set a harvest for her also. What applies to one sinner applies mutatis mutandis to another. - J.O.

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KJV: But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me.

WEB: But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me, there.