AS A WIFE TREACHEROUSLY DEPARTETH

This whole chapter has been well described as ‘an appeal to the heart’, A. Stewart. Equally, it is an appeal from the heart of the Lord Himself. God earnestly pleads with His people to return from their backsliding, vv. 12, 14, 22. Israel had been faith­less and disloyal. They had turned from their God to worthless idols. Yet, in faithful and loyal love, He yearned for their return.

In verse 19, God reminds His people of His desires for them. He recalls His purposes of grace formed at the Exodus, their birth as a nation. He recognized them as His children, indeed His first-born son, Exod. 4. 22. He granted them the best land of all as their inheritance. No other nation had such a beautiful homeland as Canaan. It was the land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands, Ezek. 20. 6, 15. Not only so, He wanted them to enjoy the privilege of invoking Him as their Father. Yet, that demanded their responsibility to be loyal to their God. The Lord expected constancy and devotion from Israel.

Sadly, that loyalty was absent. Not only were Israel the Lord’s children, they were also married to Him, v. 14. At the Exodus, He had taken them as His wife. with tender affection, God recalled their early days of first love, Jer. 2. 2, 3. Now, with deep pathos, the Lord describes His people as a deserting wife. A wife is pledged by solemn covenant to remain joined to her husband, Gen. 2. 24. By forsaking the Lord, Israel had broken that covenant and was guilty of treachery. There had been a tragic breach in the family. God spares us nothing of the pain which this had brought both to Him and to His people. We are exhorted not to grieve the Holy Spirit, Eph. 4. 30. We cannot begin to imagine the grief and distress our backsliding must bring to God.

Yet there was a way back for Israel. The people respond in tearful repentance and the Lord encourages them to return to Him, promising to heal their backslidings. For us too, confes­sion of our sins is all that God expects before He forgives and cleanses, 1 John 1. 9. God is still the One who can graciously heal and restore us.