Discovery BoxJeremiah 2:11-13 
Context2:11 Has a nation ever changed its gods
(even though they are not really gods at all)?
But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, 1
for a god that cannot help them at all! 2
2:12 Be amazed at this, O heavens! 3
Be shocked and utterly dumbfounded,”
says the Lord.
2:13 “Do so because my people have committed a double wrong:
they have rejected me,
the fountain of life-giving water, 4
and they have dug cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”
Jeremiah 2:27-28
Context2:27 They say to a wooden idol, 5 ‘You are my father.’
They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ 6
Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. 7
Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’
2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves?
Let them save you when you are in trouble.
The sad fact is that 8 you have as many gods
as you have towns, Judah.
1 tn Heb “have exchanged their glory [i.e., the God in whom they glory].” This is a case of a figure of speech where the attribute of a person or thing is put for the person or thing. Compare the common phrase in Isaiah, the Holy One of Israel, obviously referring to the
2 tn Heb “what cannot profit.” The verb is singular and the allusion is likely to Baal. See the translator’s note on 2:8 for the likely pun or wordplay.
3 sn In earlier literature the heavens (and the earth) were called on to witness Israel’s commitment to the covenant (Deut 30:12) and were called to serve as witnesses to Israel’s fidelity or infidelity to it (Isa 1:2; Mic 6:1).
4 tn It is difficult to decide whether to translate “fresh, running water” which the Hebrew term for “living water” often refers to (e.g., Gen 26:19; Lev 14:5), or “life-giving water” which the idiom “fountain of life” as source of life and vitality often refers to (e.g., Ps 36:9; Prov 13:14; 14:27). The contrast with cisterns, which collected and held rain water, suggests “fresh, running water,” but the reality underlying the metaphor contrasts the
5 tn Heb “wood…stone…”
6 sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”
7 tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”
8 tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki, “for, indeed”) contextually.
