Jeremiah 2:32

Jer 2:32 Can a maid forget her ornaments, [or] a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

Ver. 32. Can a maid forget her ornaments?] Not lightly or easily, as minding them many times more than is meet, and then their ornaments are but the nest of pride; and while they think to gain more credit by their garments than by their graces, they are much mistaken.

Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number,] i.e., Time out of mind, whenas God should be remembered at every breath we draw, since from him we have ζωην και πνοην, "life and breath," as the apostle saith elegantly. {Act 17:25} But into such a dead lethargy hath sin cast most people, that God is forgotten by them, and his service neglected.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jer_2:32

Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?

yet My people have forgotten Me.

The bride and her ornaments: the sin of forgetting God

It is a clear proof of the great love of God to His people that He will not lose their love without earnest expostulation. He loves us too well to suffer us to go on in our iniquity. He will scourge rather than abandon; chide rather than lose.

I. A very grievous sin. My people have forgotten Me days without number.

1. Observe whom they had forgotten: it will help us to see the sin of it. It would not have mattered half as much if they had forgotten their dearest friends--the husband his wife, or the mother her child; but here are favoured men and women who have forgotten their God, their Father, their life, their all. God, the good, the best, who has a chief right to be remembered. There is great evil in our hearts, or it would be so hard to forget God as to be impossible. A friend has gone away from us, and we do not see him; but he has left so many tokens of his goodness that we are reminded of him every day. Is it not so with God? Has He not left us innumerable tokens of His affection for us? Ought we to forget when so many forget-me-nots are round about us? But, supposing that friend has not gone away at all, but is living with us in the house, and enters even into our chamber, what shall we say if we forget one who is constantly with us? No man is so present with his friend as God is with His people.

2. Who were they that forgot God? Not strangers, not heathen; but My people. That is to say, a people not only chosen and redeemed, but brought to know Him, brought into fellowship with Him, brought into relationship with Him, brought absolutely into union with Him,--they have forgotten Me.

3. Observe sadly the space in which they had forgotten: in the case of Israel, it is added, days without number. How long is it since you were in the habit of walking with God? How long is it since you have seen the face of the Well-Beloved? I ventured to put that question once to a professor, and, shaking his head, he replied, Dont ask me that: if you will ask me whether I have been a drunkard, whether I have been dishonest in business, whether I have done any positive action by which I have degraded the Christian name, I can answer you without fear; but if you ask, How long since I have had fellowship with Christ, I cannot--I dare not--answer you.

4. How is God forgotten? What are the manifestations of this offence?

(1) Some professors evidently forget God by their worldliness They have been fattened with the treasures of the world, but their souls have been starved to very skeletons, for they have not fed upon the things of God.

(2) Some have forgotten God by self-seeking. They live unto themselves.

(3) Some, too, show that they forget God by the failure of their trust. They are in trouble, and they are very anxious. Why? Because they have forgotten God, though He has promised to help them.

(4) Alas, there are some who add to this a forgetfulness of God through neglect of private devotion. Prayers are slurred over; drawing near to God becomes a form and a pretence.

(5) And you and I can do it in a very high sense by a breach of communion, by getting out of fellowship with God, by walking contrary to Him, so that He walks contrary to us. It is very bad walking and very bad living when God and ourselves are at cross purposes.

5. If ever we do forget God, it leads to all sorts of mischief. We lose our joy and our comfort; and then we lose our strength and our watchfulness; and then we backslide by little and little; and then, probably, we fall into one sin, and then into another sin, if not into a third more grievous still

II. The chiding question which is the very marrow of the text. Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?

1. I suppose that question is put, first, because there are many trivial things which occupy minds so that they cannot forget them. How sad it is that the grandest things, the best things, should not equally engross our thoughts!

2. If a bride did forget her attire, or a maid did forget her ornaments, it would be very unreasonable behaviour. But how infinitely more unreasonable it is that you and I should forget God. He is our diadem of glory: He is our beauty of holiness. In Christ we are arrayed in raiment of needlework, and our garments are of wrought gold. Can we, shall we forget Him?

3. It would have been a most unseasonable thing for a maid to forget her attire at her wedding. A bride who forgets her attire would be something like the foolish virgins who forgot to take oil in their vessels with their lamps. And, certainly, it is a most unseasonable thing for me and you to forget our God while we are here. Let the soldier, when the arrow is flying from every bush, forget his armour, but let us not forget our God. Let the hungry man, when famine rages through the land, forget his store of bread, but let us not forget the food of our souls, which is our Lord Jesus.

4. Notice the conduct of the maid or the conduct of the bride, with regard to her ornaments.

(1) She labours hard to obtain her ornaments and to gain her attire. Many women in the East save up every coin that they have, and turn all into silver. It is their lifes work to provide themselves with ornaments against the marriage day. While they do this, let us do better: let us store up the thoughts of Christ, and the words of Christ, and the things of Christ, and let us labour to get more and more of Christ, that we may be adorned with Him and made comely in His comeliness.

(2) When the Eastern woman has with great difficulty obtained her ornaments and her attire, then she thinks a great deal of them: she preserves them with much care; she will, if possible, prevent a thief from taking away a ring or gem; she locks them up carefully. Oh, that we did store up every bit we get of our Lords loves and put it by to keep it, never losing any pearl that we find, or any ring that we fashion by experience.

(3) How joyfully the Eastern woman puts on her jewels, puts on her attire. She has these things to wear them. I am ashamed of those Christians who are ashamed of Christ. They have jewels: I hope they have; but they are very chary of ever showing them.

III. A few words of call to repentance, if we have in any measure forgotten God. I am sure, first, that our God does not deserve to be treated so. You use no other friend so ill. Have you forgotten? Will not the time past suffice for that? A half a minutes forgetfulness of God is half a minute too long. Let it not come to be days without number. But, if the number be ever so small, let us weep to think we should have forgotten Him at all. Think, if He had forgotten you--forgotten you in your merriest moment, ay, in your holiest moment, what would have been your portion? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Forgetfulness

The Almighty entered this grave charge against His ancient favoured nation, My people have forgotten Me days without number.

I. The same charge lies with too great force against all Christendom. The true secret of this lurks in the obstinate ungodliness of the carnal mind. This hinders the recollection of God in the following modes--

1. In habitual inattention to Divine truth, when presented to the mind. Some try to excuse their ignorance of God and His inspired Word, pleading, I have such a bad memory, when the memory is quite good enough, if Divine truths were once welt lodged in it by due attention. No memory, however excellent, can retain that which was never allowed to make an impression (Heb_2:1).

2. In neglect of reflection on Divine truth read or heard. Where there is little meditation on God and His Word, it is vain to expect a rich experience, or a solid religious character.

3. In the occupation of the mind with comparative trifles. Filling our measures with chaff, we leave no room for good and solid grain. The maid thinks of her ornaments, and the bride of her attire. The young--and not they only, but many to whom increasing years have brought no wisdom--fill their thoughts and conversation with the fashions, the amusements, and entertainments of the season; and so can have, in their foolishly occupied minds, no grave recollection of that God with whom they have to do. It was a judicious answer of Themistocles to Simonides, who had offered to teach him the art of memory, Rather teach me the art of forgetfulness; for the things which I would not I remember, and cannot forget the things I would.

4. In excess of worldly cares. There are grave anxieties regarding success in business, or the attainment of a coveted position, that so press upon the soul as to preclude the earnest recollection of religious truth. Hence it happens that shrewd men, who easily remember whatever affects the markets, cannot remember how to buy the truth; and readily quoting the stock and share lists of commercial enterprise, cannot accurately quote the verses of the blessed Word of God.

II. To show the evil of forgetfulness, let it be considered how much a religiously stored memory tells on the development of the Christian mind and formation of the Christian character. It constitutes knowledge, it deepens repentance, it fortifies faith, it supplies comfort, and moves continual thankfulness. (D. Fraser, M. A.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:32 For centuries, the Israelites had forgotten the Lord, their husband (13:25; Ps 106:21; Hos 8:14).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Oriental women greatly pride themselves on their ornaments (compare Isa 61:10).

attire--girdles for the breast.

forgotten me-- (Jer 13:25; Hos 8:14).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 32. Can a maid forget her ornaments] This people has not so much attachment to me as young females have to their dress and ornaments. They never forget them; and even when arrived at old age, look with pleasure on the dress and ornaments which they have worn in their youth.

Days without number.] That is, for many years; during the whole reign of Manasses, which was fifty-five years, the land was deluged with idolatry, from which the reform by good King Josiah his grandson had not yet purified it.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

God here confirms what is said in the last verse, and would make his people ashamed, because they valued him less than girls are wont to value their ornaments. The necklaces of young women are indeed nothing but mere trifles, and yet we see that girls are so taken with them through a foolish passion, that they value such trinkets more than their very life. “How then is it, “says God, “that my people have forgotten me? Is there to be found any such ornament? Can anything be found among the most valuable jewels and the most precious stones which can be compared with me?”

God shews by this comparison how perverted the minds of the Jews were, when they renounced and rejected a benefit so invaluable as to have God as their Father, and to be prosperous under his dominion; for nothing necessary for a blessed life had been wanting to them as long as they continued the recipients of that paternal favor, which God had manifested towards them, and wished to shew to them to the end. As then they had found God to have been so bountiful, must they not have been more than mad, when they willfully rejected his favor? while yet young women commonly set their thoughts and affections strongly and permanently on such trifles as are of no value. But the Prophet designedly used this similitude, that he might introduce what is contained in the next verse: his object was to compare the Jews to adulterous women, who being led away by unbridled lust, follow wanton lovers. As then he intended to bring this charge against the Jews, he spoke expressly of the ornaments of young women; and hence it follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(32) Or a bride her attire.—The word is rendered “headbands” in Isa_3:20, but here it probably means the “girdle” which formed the special distinction of the wife as contrasted with the maiden. Such a girdle, like the marriage ring with us, would be treasured by the bride all her life long. Even the outward memorial of her union with her husband would be dear to her. But Israel had forgotten her lord and husband Himself.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

32. attire] sash, and so rendered by R.V. in Isa_3:20. The exact meaning is unknown, but it was plainly an indispensable part of a bride’s costume.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love?.... To seek the love, and gain the affections and esteem, of the idolatrous nations; as a lascivious woman dresses herself out in the best manner to excite the lust and move the affections of her lovers; and as Jezebel, who painted her face, and tired her head, Kg2 9:30 or dressed it in the best manner, where the same word is used as here; so the Targum,

"why dost thou make thy way beautiful, to procure loves (or lovers) to be joined to the people?''

or the sense is, why art thou so diligent and industrious to make thy way, which is exceeding bad, look a good one, by sacrifices and ceremonies, oblations and ablutions, in order to seek and obtain my love and favour, which is all in vain? it is not to be gained by such methods:

therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways; the wicked idolatrous nations, to whom they joined themselves; these they taught their ways of sacrificing, their rites, ceremonies, and superstitions; or, as Jarchi interprets it, thou hast taught thyself the worst way among them all; that is, thou hast used thyself to it: there is a double reading in this clause. The Cetib, or writing, is "I have taught"; as if they were the words of God, saying, "wherefore I have taught"; or, "will teach"; that is, by punishing thee;

that thy ways are evil; or, as Kimchi explains it,

"I have taught thee by thy ways that they are evil, and evil shall come unto thee because of them.''

The Keri, or reading, is "thou hast taught"; which is confirmed by the Targum; and is followed by the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and other versions. It is by some rendered, "seeing thou hast taught others thy evil ways" (p); not content to sin themselves, but taught others to do so, and yet would be thought good.

(p) "Quandoquidem etiam (alios) malas docuisti vias tuas", Noldius, p. 507. vid. No. 1998.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

A bride treasures all her life the girdle, which first indicated that she was a married woman, just as brides now treasure the wedding ring; but Israel, Yahweh’s bride Jer 2:2, cherishes no fond memorials of past affection.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Can a maid forget her ornaments? how seldom is it, and how unlikely, that a maid should forget her ornaments!

Or a bride her attire? whether it belongs to the head, or the breast, or arms, whether bracelets or jewels, wherever worn, is not worth the disputing; but understand those rich jewels which the bridegroom was wont to present his bride with, partly for a general obligation, and partly of particular signification, and all of them ornamental, whatever may render her amiable in the eyes of her bridegroom; virgins, and especially brides, will not usually neglect any thing that may make them comely.

Have forgotten me, viz. in the neglect of my worship; me, who was not only their defence, but their glory, Jer 2:11, &c., that for which other nations honoured them, Psa 148:14; Eze 16:10-14.

Days without number, i.e. for a long time past, time out of mind, or, as the Hebrew, days of which there is no number.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

32. More tenderly does God appeal to them in the comparison of this verse.

Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire — This last term means a sash or girdle which a bride puts on on her wedding-day, answering somewhat in significance and preciousness to the marriage ring.

So God is his people’s best adornment and choicest treasure, and yet they have turned away from him.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Or a bride her attire. The prophet perhaps means the magnificently adorned girdle which the bride wore on her wedding day. (Isa_49:18) But the word only occurs again in Isa_3:20, and its precise signification is uncertain.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A maid - How unlikely is it, that a maid should forget her ornaments? A bride - Those jewels which the bridegroom was wont to present his bride with. Forgotten - In the neglect of my worship; me, who was not only their defense, but their glory.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Will a virgin forget her jewelry, a bride her veils

The words "will" and "forget" are understood to be part of the second phrase also. AT: "Will a virgin forget her jewelry, and will a bride forget her veils" (See: Ellipsis)

Will a virgin forget her jewelry, a bride her veils?

God uses this question to introduce the idea of remembering things that are important to someone. AT: "You know that a virgin would never forget to put on her jewelry, and a bride would never forget to put on her veils." (See: Rhetorical Question)

days without number

"a very long time"

How well you make your way to look for love

God appears to be praising his people for looking for love, but this is irony. He was showing that he was angry with them for being unfaithful to him. (See: Irony)

to look for love

God speaks of his people worshiping other gods as if they were a woman who is unfaithful to her husband and is looking for other men to love her. (See: Metaphor)

You have even taught your ways to wicked women

God speaks of how unfaithful his people are to him as though they were even teaching prostitutes how to be unfaithful to their husbands and find other men to be their lovers. (See: Irony)

The blood that was the life of innocent, poor people has been found on your clothes

Blood on their clothes was evidence that they had killed people. AT: "The blood of innocent, poor people on your clothes shows that you are guilty of killing them" or "You are guilty of killing poor and innocent people" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

The blood that was the life

"The blood that represents the life"

These people were not discovered in acts of burglary

If they found people in an act of burglary, this might have been an excuse for killing them. But the people that they murdered were innocent. This can be translated in active form. AT: "You did not discover these people stealing things" or "But you killed them even though they were not even stealing anything" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

virgin

bride

veil

love

evil

blood

innocent

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.