God, the fountain of living water
Jeremiah 2:9-19
9 Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord,
and I accuse your children’s children.
10 Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has ever been such a thing.
11 Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the Lord,
13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.
14 Is Israel a slave? Is he a home-born servant?
Why then has he become plunder?
15 The lions 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 people of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have broken the crown of your head.
17 Have you not brought this upon yourself
by forsaking the Lord your God, while he led you in the way?
18 What then 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 wickedness will punish you, and your apostasies will convict 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, says the Lord God of hosts.
Some background helps – First a piece of grammar – where the word “Lord” (vs. 9, 12, 17, 19) appears the Hebrew there is YHWH – the name God gave as his name. (We get Yahweh and Jehovah from those 4 consonants.)
Second, the people of Judah (who are also referred to as Israel) had decided that they were not going to be a one-God people – they chose to have a variety of gods that they served. That is the point of vs. 11 and the first part of vs. 13, also repeated in vs. 19. YHWH expects loyalty on the part of those who claim to follow him. Notice the language – “forsaken me” (vs. 13, 17, 19). Forsake is a strong word of abandonment, of rejection, of being turned away from – it is an emotional word. God feels forsaken by the people of Israel who he rescued from Egypt.
Among the reasons the people of Judah turned to other gods was they were afraid of the Babylonians who were coming from the north, in seeking allies against the Babylonians they turned to the Egyptians (vs. 16 Memphis and Tahpanhes are cities in Egypt, vs. 18 the Nile is the great river of Egypt). But the Egyptians proved to be fickle allies who broke the power of Judah’s king (vs. 16) and turned Judah into its puppet (drink the waters of the Nile, vs. 18).
Notice the play on water – in vs. 13 God says he is “the fountain of living water”. Judah, however, had not trusted that water, not trusted God. Judah had ended up with broken water reservoirs (cisterns) and the water had leaked away, or they have drunk water from muddy rivers – both the Nile and the Euphrates were muddy rivers – not clean.
The question to us is: will we be loyal to God? To trust God to be the provider of the living water we need for life.
PRAYER:
God you are the fountain of living water, we confess that we have not trusted you alone, for we have turned to other sources looking for security. Draw us back to yourself and shape us to be people who are loyal to you alone. In Jesus’ name. Amen.