God Divorced Israel

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Day 5 – God Divorced Israel

Jeremiah 3:6-8

6 Moreover, the Lord said to me [Jeremiah] in the days of Josiah the king [of Judah], Have you seen what that faithless and backsliding Israel has done--how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and there played the harlot?

7 And I said, After she has done all these things, she will return to Me; but she did not return, and her faithless and treacherous sister Judah saw it.

8 And I saw, even though [Judah knew] that for this very cause of committing adultery (idolatry) I [the Lord] had put faithless Israel away and given her a bill of divorce; yet her faithless and treacherous sister Judah was not afraid, but she also went and played the harlot [following after idols]. AMP

After the death of Solomon, David’s son, the Kingdom of Israel was divided into two Kingdoms. Israel (also called “Ephraim”) with ten tribes lived in the north and Judah with two tribes lived in the south. Israel (Ephraim) never had a king that respected God’s covenant and Judah had but a few kings that brought reform and returned the kingdom to right relationship in covenant with God. Still these reforms were temporary and they lasted only as long as the kings who brought them.

God uses the language of marriage when He speaks of His relationship with Israel. Marriage is a covenant made between a man and woman where the two become one, united in every aspect with and for each other. When Israel went after other gods, YHWH called it adultery, and in the terms of the covenant, the consequence for adultery is divorce. Again according to the terms of covenant, God was required to hand Israel a certificate of divorce.

Yet Divorce is not the end of the story

Romans 3:3-4

God didn't abandon them. Do you think their faithlessness cancels out his faithfulness? Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth.

The unfaithfulness of Israel did not negate the faithfulness of God.

So how is this dilemma resolved?

God who is ever faithful to Israel promises and then delivers a new and better covenant. This is the Covenant of Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 The New Covenant

31 "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,

32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." ESV

The faithfulness of God is reflected in the phrase “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5, Deuteronomy 31:6. Joshua 1:5). This is covenant language indicating that even if we abandon the terms of covenant, God will remain faithful to us. He does not let the guilty go unpunished, but His purpose is to expose our weakness and lack so that we might turn and change our hearts and return to Him in the fullness of His blessing.

1 John 1:9-10

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ESV

We must understand that the purpose of God is always redemptive; He is always looking for our good and benefit. When we abandon Him we are left without all the provisions of the covenant and we find ourselves in “the curse”. It is not so much that God puts the “curse” on us as we ourselves run away from His goodness and find ourselves in the unprotected environment of the desert full of snakes and scorpions. In the parable of the prodigal son, it is told that when the son “came to himself” he decided to return to his father who was looking for him even while he was a long way off (Luke 15:11-32).

God’s purpose in the divorce of Israel was not to abandon them but to get them to see the futility of life outside of His covenant of protection and provision. God longs for our undiluted devotion to Him in covenant relationship just as He is already and at all times giving Himself to us

Matthew 23:37-39 Lament over Jerusalem

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. ESV

The desolation of our lives is often the result of our own unfaithfulness. The lack of our trusting is most often rooted in the deceptions of the enemy and/or deeply entrenched strongholds in our thinking that are contrary His kingdom.

Hosea 6:1-3

1. "Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.

2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.

3 Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn;

he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth." ESV

Discussion Questions:

Day 5 – God Divorced Israel