Bible Strands
Jeremiah 3:2
“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord speaks through Jeremiah to Judah, following a legal analogy about divorce and remarriage in verse 1, to confront the nation’s ongoing spiritual unfaithfulness. The words — `שֻׁכַּ֔בְתְּ (shu.kab.te)` translates literally as “have you been lain with,” directly naming the physical act of prostitution that the text uses to describe the land’s defilement. The thread — The motif of defiling the land appears in Jeremiah 2:7, while the imagery of high places connects to Jeremiah 2:20. The text’s reference to sitting at a specific location parallels Genesis 38:14, where Tamar sits at the entrance to Enaim on the way to Timnah to disguise herself. Why it lands — The verse demands that the reader acknowledge the widespread nature of the unfaithfulness and recognize the refusal to feel shame. It requires a direct confrontation with the reality that spiritual corruption has left no place untouched.
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
Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.
Cross-references
- Genesis 38:14 she removed her widow’s garments, covered her face with a veil to disguise herself, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that although Shelah had grown up, she had not been given to him as a wife.
- Jeremiah 2:7 I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land and made My inheritance detestable.
- Jeremiah 2:20 “For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute.
- Ezekiel 8:4 And there I saw the glory of the God of Israel, like the vision I had seen in the plain.
- Ezekiel 16:24 you built yourself a mound and made yourself a lofty shrine in every public square.
- Deuteronomy 12:2 Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
- Jeremiah 3:1 “If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers—and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD.
- 1 Kings 11:3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines—and his wives turned his heart away.
- 2 Kings 23:13 The king also desecrated the high places east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Corruption, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
- Proverbs 7:11 She is loud and defiant; her feet do not remain at home.