Jeremiah 2:35

Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(35) Yet thou sayest . . .—Once again we have the equivocating plea of the accused. She takes up the word that had been used by the accuser: “You speak of the innocents; I, too, am innocent. His anger has turned away from me. Here, as in Jeremiah 2:33, there is an implied reference to the partial reformation under Josiah. The accuser retorts, and renews his pleadings against her. Confession might have led to forgiveness, but this denial of guilt excluded it, and was the token of a fatal blindness (comp. 1John 1:8).

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 2:35-36. Yet thou sayest — Or interrogatively, Darest thou say? Hast thou the impudence to affirm it? Because I am innocent — Clear of this whole charge; surely his anger shall turn from me — Shall not break out against me, Isaiah 5:25. Behold, I will plead with thee — I will proceed in my judgment against thee; because thou sayest, I have not sinned — Because thou continuest to justify thyself, as if I had no cause to be angry with thee. Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? — That is, thy actions. Why hast thou recourse to so many different expedients for relief? Why dost thou seek auxiliaries anywhere rather than cleave to me? Or act like those adulterous women, whose love is never fixed, but sometimes set on one, sometimes on another. This is rendered by the Vulgate, “How vile art thou become, changing or repeating thy ways!” Continuing still to seek new succours from strangers, though thou hast been so often deceived! Egypt now shall fail thee, as Assyria has done before. Blaney renders this last clause, “By means of Egypt also shalt thou be put to shame, even as thou hast been put to shame by Assyria.” “The people of Judah,” he observes, “seem to have courted the assistance of foreign nations, by a sinful compliance with their idolatrous customs. But this measure had already failed them, and they had been disappointed in their expectations from Assyria in the time of King Ahaz, who, as we read 2 Chronicles 28:16-21, called upon the king of Assyria to help him in his need; but he distressed him only, instead of helping him. In the same manner, also, it is here prophesied they would be served by the Egyptians, whose alliance would only disappoint them, and make them ashamed of having trusted to so ineffectual a support; and it turned out accordingly.” See Jeremiah 37:7-8.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:29-37 The nation had not been wrought upon by the judgements of God, but sought to justify themselves. The world is, to those who make it their home and their portion, a wilderness and a land of darkness; but those who dwell in God, have the lines fallen to them in pleasant places. Here is the language of presumptuous sinners. The Jews had long thrown off serious thoughts of God. How many days of our lives pass without suitable remembrance of him! The Lord was displeased with their confidences, and would not prosper them therein. Men employ all their ingenuity, but cannot find happiness in the way of sin, or excuse for it. They may shift from one sin to another, but none ever hardened himself against God, or turned from him, and prospered.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Because I am innocent - Rather, But "I am innocent," or, "I am acquitted." Those blood-stains cannot be upon my skirts, because now, in king Josiah's days, the idolatry of Manasseh has been put away.

Shall turn from me - Or, has turned away "from me."

Plead - Or, enter into judgment.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

35. (Jer 2:23, 29).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Yet thou sayest; or interrogatively, Darest thou say? hast thou the impudence to affirm it?

Innocent; clear of this whole charge. Shall turn; shall not break out against me, Isaiah 5:25.

I will plead with thee; I will proceed in my judgment against thee, Jeremiah 2:9 Jeremiah 25:31. Or it is a soft expression, wherein he shows that he will not act like a tyrant, carried on rashly and furiously; but as a judge, regularly and righteously, Ezekiel 20:35; and it shows that he will convince her.

Because thou sayest, I have not sinned; because thou dost justify thyself, as if I had no cause to be angry with thee. God is not angry with her so much because she hath sinned, as because she will not acknowledge her sin.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Yet thou sayest, because I am innocent,.... Or, "that I am innocent"; though guilty of such flagrant and notorious crimes, acting like the adulterous woman, Proverbs 30:20 to whom the Jews are all along compared in this chapter; which shows the hardness of their hearts, and their impudence in sinning:

surely his anger shall turn from me; the anger of God, since innocent; or, "let his anger be turned from me", as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; pleading for the removing of judgments upon the foot of innocency, which is pretended:

behold, I will plead with thee; enter into judgment with thee, and examine the case closely and thoroughly:

because thou sayest, I have not sinned; it would have been much better to have acknowledged sin, and pleaded for mercy, than to insist upon innocence, when the proof was so evident; nothing can be got by entering into judgment with God, upon such a foundation; and to sin, and deny it, is an aggravation of it: the denial of sin is a double sin, as the wise man says, whom Kimchi cites.

Geneva Study Bible

Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

35. Israel protests that her innocence is proved by her prosperity, which marks Jehovah’s favour. He replies that judgement awaits her for her denial of guilt.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 35. - Because. This "because" is misleading; there is no argument, but the statement of a supposed fact. The particle so rendered merely serves to introduce the speech of the Jews (like ὅτι). Shall turn; rather, hath turned. Judah had so long been undisturbed by any foreign power, that the people fancied the promises of Deuteronomy were being fulfilled, and that they, on their part, had pleased God by their formal obedience (comp. 2 Kings 22:17). I will plead with thee. Here, as in some other passages (e.g. Isaiah 66:16; Ezekiel 38:22), the word includes the sense of punishing. Jeremiah 2:35

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Yet withal the people holds itself to be guiltless, and deludes itself with the belief that God's wrath has turned away from it, because it has for long enjoyed peace, and because the judgment of devastation of the land by enemies, threatened by the earlier prophets, had not immediately received its fulfilment. For this self-righteous confidence in its innocence, God will contend with His people (אותך for אתּך as in Jeremiah 1:16).