Jeremiah 3:1

God posed the question to His people of what happens in a divorce. The answer to His rhetorical question is: "No, if a husband divorces his wife, and she goes to live with (or remarries) another man, he will not return to (or remarry) her." [Note: The Septuagint has the question being, "Will the woman return to her first husband." But there is inferior support for this translation.] The Mosaic Law prohibited such a thing (cf. Deuteronomy 24:1-4). If Judah was a wife and Yahweh was her husband, He would not normally "return" to her. The Israelites believed that sin and evil in the people had repercussions on the land and polluted it (cf. Jeremiah 3:2; Jeremiah 3:9; Leviticus 18:25; Leviticus 18:28; Leviticus 19:29; Deuteronomy 24:4; Hosea 4:2-3; Amos 4:6-10). "Return" is a key word in this sermon, as it is in the whole book. There are three specific commands to "Return" in this section (Jeremiah 3:12; Jeremiah 3:14; Jeremiah 3:22), as well as numerous other occurrences of the word and its relatives. "Return," for example, appears nine times in the NASB (Jeremiah 3:1; Jeremiah 3:7 [twice], 10, 12, 14, 22, Jeremiah 4:1 [twice]) and "turn" twice (Jeremiah 3:1; Jeremiah 3:19).

A second figure compares Israel to a harlot with many lovers. She was worse than a divorced wife. Would such a woman expect her husband to receive her back if she returned to him? No. The people of Judah had no reasonable expectation that Yahweh would receive her back-even if she repented (cf. Hosea 2:14 to Hosea 3:3). [Note: See Joe M. Sprinkle, "Old Testament Perspectives on Divorce and Remarriage," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 40:4 (December 1997):542-43.]