Lack of Water
A broken cistern dug by hand in the hot and barren southern corridor of Honduras, adjacent to Iglesia El Camino de La Vida in Tegucigalpita
If Chapter 1 permitted us to deep dive into Jeremiah’s call to ministry, this second chapter will help us understand what exactly the brother was called to do. Stop here and read all 37 verses. Do not pass go.
Done already? Are you sure you read it? I’m sure you did. We’ll re-read it together. Skim the chapter again and look for the idea of “water”. You’ll see desert, drought, wilderness, trees, fruitfulness, plenty, living waters, cisterns, rivers, washing, thirsty throats, and other imagery that bring us back to the crescendo of this chapter. The theme of the chapter is seen repeatedly, powerfully mixing metaphors. But let’s put the key theme in front of us.
“for my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
With verse 13 in front of us, what we are seeing is the LORD’s clear indictment of His people. The entire chapter spells out the details of their offenses, but we can distill these down to a couple of simple ideas. God calls into view His covenant relationship with Israel (Judah really, in this case), with Him being the husband and Judah being His bride. The unfolding allegations show Him as a rightfully jealous husband who expects to be loved with passion and exclusivity. As a husband, God is grieved when He is not fully trusted as the rightful provider and protector. Essentially, I would say God expected:
The Devotion of His people
The Dependence of His people
The Devotion of His People
Before we dig (yep- that was an intentional word choice) into this theme of water and the lack thereof, we need to be reminded that throughout Scripture (and especially in Jeremiah), God often used the marriage relationship to describe His relationship with His people. The water metaphors we’ll look at in this post underscore the prevalent use of the covenant relationship.
“Thus says the LORD, I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown”
This recollection of Judah’s devotion quickly fades as God indicts His people for unfaithfulness. God’s people gave up devotion for two-timing Him. They become adulterous through the practice of idolatry. Chapter 3 of Jeremiah explains how Judah is actually behaving in an even worse way than the people of Israel. See, Israel full on walked away from God. But, Judah pretended to worship God. The temple was a regular part of life in Jerusalem. At the same time, the high places of pagan sensuality were an accepted part of life. The syncretism was seen and hated by God. Check out Jeremiah 3:6-11 and see how Judah basically pretended all was good with them and God while violating the exclusivity of their covenant with God.
Forsake. What a word. Forsake all others.
Fast forward to verse 13. God accuses His people of ‘forsaking’ the streams of living water. This is what one commentary refers to as ‘dumb’. Understatement. A stream of unending, pure, living water… and they forsook it. Picked up camp, and went away looking for something better. Something else to satisfy them and quench their thirst. Skipping ahead to chapter 17, the LORD makes it clear that forsaking the fountain of living water, in addition to being ‘dumb’, is a serious offense that carries with it punishment.
“O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water.”
Walking away from the LORD in a spiritual sense is a capital offense. That’s what Jer. 17:13 means. Written in the earth. Turned back to dirt. Forsaken by God.
It should not take us long to understand the New Covenant parallels, and how these metaphors, indictments, and even the sentence due for forsaking the living water escort us to the foot of the cross. Jesus Christ proclaimed in John 4 to the woman at the well that He alone offers to take us to the source of living water*. (Please know that the stream of living water refers not to God the Son, but to God the Spirit. The living water represents the presence of God’s Holy Spirit)
“Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
If Christ then offers us this spring of living water, we would be not only foolish to reject it, but we’d also be under a sentence of death. To forsake Him is to be put to shame and to face the wrath of a Holy God who lovingly offers us faithfulness, forgiveness, and eternal life.
So then to forsake Christ and to ignore His invitation to drink living water would subject us to punishment, but Christ also offered to be forsaken in our place. To pay the due penalty with his faithfulness in our stead. Oh, the depths of His mercy! Christ was forsaken so that we might be forgiven.
You can see how all of Scripture points to this reality through the prayer in Psalm 22, emphasis on verses 1-5. A cursory exposition of this text helps to explain how Christ served the sentence for our forsaking Him.
The Dependence of His people
The second allegation after forsaking the fountain of living water is that of digging their own cisterns to hold water. In the best case, cisterns would hold a limited supply of water that would either stagnate or run out. The LORD here described cisterns that were broken, and would allow the water to leak out. This imagery would have also been particularly vivid in the historical context. Jerusalem was encircled by the Babylonian war machine. Perhaps early on in the Babylonian siege, the residents of Jerusalem trusted in the famed subterranean aqueduct built by King Hezekiah during the siege of Assyria instead of trusting God. As the stranglehold tightened, the people tried to look to numerous false sources of hope.
“For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
The people listened to counterfeit prophets with false message of hope. They prayed and sacrificed to invented gods. And they sent to foreign powers to propose military alliances against the armies of Babylon. This second chapter of Jeremiah highlights the indictment of misplaced trust by getting VERY specific. Judah tried to trust in military aid from Egypt and Assyria.
And now what 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?
The chapter concludes with:
How much you go about,
changing your way!
You shall be put to shame by Egypt
as you were put to shame by Assyria.
From it too you will come away
with your hands on your head,
for the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust,
and you will not prosper by them.
The book of Jeremiah abruptly debunks everything in which God’s people falsely hoped. And He leaves them with their ONLY hope. God alone is worthy of our complete trust and dependence. Believer, beware. The LORD will reject anything or anyone that, in His stead, we place our trust in. We will not prosper by these things.
May our devotion be to Him alone. May our dependence be in Him alone.