Bible Strands
Jeremiah 2:21
I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine?
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Judah, recounting His initial planting of them as a choice vine before confronting their present idolatry and broken covenant.
The words — The verb נֶהְפַּכְתְּ (neh.Pakht) denotes a self-directed transformation, while שֹׂרֵק (so.Rek) and אֱמֶת ('e.Met) describe the original planting as a choice vine sown with reliable seed.
The thread — This agricultural metaphor parallels Isaiah 5:4, which questions what more was done for a vineyard that yielded wild grapes, and anticipates Jesus’ identification as the true vine in John 15:1.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that spiritual degradation originates from deliberate self-alienation rather than external failure, requiring acknowledgment of guilt before any cleansing.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?
Cross-references
- Isaiah 5:4 What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit?
- Exodus 15:17 You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance—the place, O LORD, You have prepared for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, Your hands have established.
- John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard.
- Psalms 44:2 With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.
- Psalms 80:8 You uprooted a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and transplanted it.
- Deuteronomy 4:37 Because He loved your fathers, He chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt by His presence and great power,
- Genesis 26:3 Stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.
- Deuteronomy 32:32 But their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.
- Mark 12:1 Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a wine vat, and built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey.
- Luke 20:9 Then He proceeded to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it out to some tenants, and went away for a long time.