Jeremiah 2:5

5 thus hath the LORD said, What iniquity have your fathers found in me that they are gone far from me and have walked after vanity and are become vain?

Jeremiah 2:5 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 2:5

Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in
me
What injustice or injury has been done them? there is no unrighteousness in God, nor can any be done by him; or what unfaithfulness, or want of truth and integrity in performing promises, had they found in him? he never suffers his faithfulness to fail, or any of the good things he has promised. So the Targum,

``what falsehood have your fathers found in my word?''

none at all; God is a covenant keeping God: that they are gone far from me;
from my fear, as the Chaldee paraphrase; from the word and worship, and ways of God: and have walked after vanity;
after idols, the vanities of the Gentiles, ( Jeremiah 14:22 ) : and are become vain?
in their imaginations and in their actions, in their knowledge and in their practice, worshipping idols, as well as guilty of many other sins.

Jeremiah 2:5 In-Context

3 Israel was holiness unto the LORD and the firstfruits of his increase; all that devour him shall be found guilty; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.

4 Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel;

5 thus hath the LORD said, What iniquity have your fathers found in me that they are gone far from me and have walked after vanity and are become vain?

6 Neither did they say, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through and where no man dwelt?

7 And I brought you into a plentiful country to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.