Bible Strands
Jeremiah 2:32
Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks through Jeremiah to Israel, confronting their declaration that He has become a wilderness and that they will no longer approach Him. This occurs mid-lawsuit as God dismantles their claimed autonomy.
The words — The Hebrew verb תִּשְׁכַּח (tishkach) translates literally as "will she forget," applied to a bride's adornments עֶדְיָהּ ('edyah) and קִשְּׁרֶיהָ (kishereha). The text establishes a rhetorical baseline by contrasting natural human care for valued possessions with Israel's spiritual neglect.
The thread — The motif of covenant forgetfulness appears in Psalm 106:21, Jeremiah 13:25, and Jeremiah 2:11, where Israel's abandonment of God is consistently recorded as a repeated breach of remembered obligation.
Why it lands — The passage states that Israel has forgotten God for יָמִים (days) without number, a duration exceeding the care a bride shows her wedding attire. It requires the reader to acknowledge that abandoning a known covenant relationship defies basic human attachment and demands accountability.
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
Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.
Cross-references
- Psalms 106:21 They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt,
- Jeremiah 13:25 This is your lot, the portion I have measured to you,” declares the LORD, “because you have forgotten Me and trusted in falsehood.
- Jeremiah 2:11 Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.
- Jeremiah 3:21 A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the LORD their God.
- Isaiah 17:10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots and set out cuttings from exotic vines—
- Psalms 9:17 The wicked will return to Sheol—all the nations who forget God.
- Isaiah 61:10 I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom wears a priestly headdress, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
- Hosea 8:14 Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; Judah has multiplied its fortified cities. But I will send fire upon their cities, and it will consume their citadels.
- Jeremiah 13:10 These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all.
- Jeremiah 18:15 Yet My people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to worthless idols that make them stumble in their ways, leaving the ancient roads to walk on rutted bypaths instead of on the highway.