All my springs are in Thee. (Psa. lxxxvii. 7).-(4)

by Charles H. Welch

#4. “Broken cisterns” (Jer. ii. 13).


“With Thee is the fountain of life”, said the Psalmist, and this blessed confession formed the basis of our last meditation together. This, sadly, was not the universal attitude of Israel; had it been, they would never have departed so wickedly from their God, nor would they have crucified the Lord of glory.

“My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer. ii. 13).

The chapter opens with a remembrance of “the love of thine espousals”, when “Israel was holiness unto the Lord” (Jer. ii. 1-3). The chapter ends with Israel as a “gad about” (Jer. ii. 36), a maid that has “forgotten her ornaments”, a “bride that has forgotten her attire”, “trimming” her way to seek illicit love (Jer. ii. 32, 33). Israel’s departure from the Lord is often likened to the sin of adultery and it is with such a figure that Jer. iii. opens.

“What iniquity”, said the Lord, “have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity and become vain?” (Jer. ii. 5).

Here are the “two evils” of verse 13. Israel went away from the Lord, the Fountains of living waters, “they followed after vanity”, likened to the hewing out for themselves cisterns; “they became vain”, for these cisterns could hold no water. So the charge is made throughout the chapter. We will not load the page with verse enumeration—the reader can follow better without—but here are the charges: “They are gone far from Me.” They did not say “Where is the Lord that brought us up out of Egypt?” “They walked after vanity”, “they walked after things that do not profit”, “Thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God when He led thee in the way”. Israel had not only hewn cisterns, instead of turning to the Lord as the Fountain of living waters, but, to change the figure without changing the fact, they had gone down to Egypt “to drink the waters of Sihor”. The Sihor, or Shihor, is a river of Egypt, probably on the southern boundary of Canaan, whose name means “turbid”, or “slimy”. It was to this that Israel turned rather than drink of the Fountain of life. Or, again, the prophet demands, “What hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?” Such is the sad context of this record to departure. Let us now come a little closer to the actual passage. Reduced to its barest simplicity the structure is:

A | ii. 1-3. Espousals.
    B | ii. 4-37. Remonstrance and Pleading.
A | iii. 1-11. Adultery.

Lifting out verses 11-18 from a great mass of detail we observe that it falls into the following disposition of subject-matter:--

Jeremiah ii. 11 - 18.
A | 11. | a | Changed gods.
                b | Yet no gods?
             a | Changed glory.
                b | For no profit?
    B | 12. Be astonished; horribly afraid; very desolate.
        C | 13. Two evils. | c | Forsaken Me, the Fountain.
                                        d | Hewed cisterns, no water.
A | 14. | a | Is Israel a servant?
                b | Is he a homeborn slave?
    B | 15, 16. Roar, yell, waste.
        C | 17, 18. Two evils. | c | The Lord. Forsaken.
                                              d | Water of Egypt in Assyria.

Until we acquaint ourselves with the statement of scripture on the subject, the question of “profit” appears to be somewhat remote as a spiritual motive, yet we observe that it finds a place in the Divine argument. Israel are said to have walked after Baal and those things that “do not profit” (Jer. ii. 8), and, in verse 11, “My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit”. So in chapter vii. verse 8 we read, “Behold ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit” and, again, in xxiii. 32, lying prophets “shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord”. It is right to ask, “What is the profit?” It is wrong to spend our money for that which is not bread and our strength for nought. The Saviour enforces the same question of profit in Matt. xvi. 26 and again and again Ecclesiastes asks, “What profit” is there in all the labour that man does “under the sun”? It could certainly not be deemed a profitable undertaking that forsook the Fountain of living waters, only to find that the cisterns hewn with such vast labour were useless.

“Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit” (Jer. ii. 11).

The reader is urged by the prophet to go over to the isles of Chittim, (probably Cyprus and the north coast line of the Mediterranean), or travel to Kedar, in Arabia: in other words, whether he goes West or East he will not discover such a senseless thing as Israel had done. Israel had followed in the way of the darkened heathen, “changed their glory”, (see Rom. i. 23), and corrupted themselves. Apart from the great labour involved in hewing cisterns out of the rock, the profitlessness of such labour is exposed by the fact that, when hewn, they were found to be “broken” and could “hold no water”. The spiritual teaching behind these figures may be seen when we find the same word, “to hold”, translated “comprehend” in Isa. xl. 12, and “abide” in Joel ii. 11 and Mal. iii. 2. The power of the living God cannot be contained by any man-made medium. The ONE Mediator is Christ; He alone is the Channel through which infinite power and Divine life can pass to man, without harm or fear. In view of the two evils here brought to light let us the more take to ourselves the language of faith:

“Lord, to Whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.”

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 34, page 29).

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