Jeremiah 2:36
Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria. Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.
Jeremiah 2:36 rebukes Judah for constantly changing its course by turning from one foreign power to another for help and support instead of following the way marked out for it. Trust in Egypt will end in shame, disappointment and humiliation, just as trust in Assyria had already brought shame and ruin. Seeking salvation and refuge among the nations instead of relying on the Lord is backsliding and covenant betrayal, like a bride becoming a harlot and a wife abandoning her husband through unlawful attachment to earthly powers. Union of God's church with the world or the State for strength, counsel and security is that same fornication and adultery against her lawful husband. Yet the rebuke is an appeal in which God pleads with backsliders to return, showing that hope remains and backsliding will be healed.
Judah's Changing Alliances
The question exposes restless shifting of direction, with Judah repeatedly abandoning the path laid out for it in order to seek help and support from one foreign power after another. That changing of course is not mere diplomacy but departure from the way marked out by God, turning from one nation to another for strength instead of holding to Him. The repeated seeking of aid from other nations is therefore presented as the very proof of backsliding, even while the same chapter holds out hope because God still pleads with those who have turned away.
Trust placed in Egypt will end in shame, disappointment, and humiliation, exactly as trust placed in Assyria had already done. Reliance on Egypt will fail, for reliance on Assyria had already brought ruin and shame, so the new expectation will be confounded like the old. This belongs with the portrayal of Israel as an unfaithful wife, showing covenant betrayal in which turning to the nations is like a woman abandoning her husband.
Merely exchanging one human ally for another does not bring God's people back to Him. Turning from God to political powers for security does not lead to safety but to destruction. This rebuke stands among declarations concerning Judah's terrible backsliding uttered before the Babylonian captivity.
Backsliding as Spiritual Adultery
Seeking salvation and refuge among the nations instead of in the Lord is backsliding and covenant betrayal, set alongside the picture in Jeremiah 3 of Israel as an unfaithful wife whom God still calls to return and promises to heal. The rebuke belongs to God's charge of unfaithfulness, for repeated turning to other nations for help brings shame, as reliance on Assyria had already brought shame. Departing from God and joining with earthly powers is spiritual unfaithfulness, and the specific changing of the way toward Egypt that ends in shame as with Assyria belongs to that picture.
That turning to the nations is like a bride becoming a harlot through unlawful attachment and alliance with earthly powers, like a woman abandoning her husband, and it brings confusion. Judah's turning from one nation to another for support and being shamed by Egypt as by Assyria is joined to the unfaithfulness of the Jewish church espoused to God. When the church looks to earthly powers instead of God it becomes a harlot, and the daughter of Zion's turn from God to the nations is that harlotry.
Egypt and Assyria are types of civil powers, so going down to Egypt to strengthen herself in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt, and going to Assyria, instead of looking to the Holy One of Israel, is a backslidden church taking counsel not of God and a covering not of His Spirit, to add sin to sin. Union of God's church with the world or with the State for strength, counsel, and help instead of seeking the Lord is fornication and adultery against her lawful husband. Looking to the nations for help meant looking to the hills and the mountains for help, which meant looking to the worship of false gods and hoping for help from false gods.
That looking to false gods measures how far backsliding went, from first building altars to Jehovah upon the high places and becoming accustomed to false worship, to fellowship with heathen worshipers, to building altars to Milcom and Chemosh and Baal and Ashtoreth and a multitude of gods, till at last altars to false gods were erected in the very house of Jehovah. The strength of Pharaoh and trust in the shadow of Egypt will become shame and confusion, for Egyptians are men and not God, and when the Lord stretches out His hand both he that helps and he that is helped shall fall and fail together. The account of the Jewish church as espoused to the Lord becoming unfaithful through unlawful connection with the world is compared with the professed church's worldly union and supplies part of the imagery behind Babylon as a harlot.
Warning and Call to Return
The chapter lays bare the wickedness of God's people as worse than that of the heathen, yet it is an appeal in which God pleads with backsliders to return, showing that hope remains and that backsliding will be healed. Repeatedly changing course and seeking help from other nations will bring shame, for Judah will be disappointed by Egypt just as it was by Assyria. A backslider can be redeemed, for Christ has already redeemed the world by giving Himself, His honor, His glory, and His life, and God says to the sinner Turn and to the backslider Return. Sin cherished separates from God, but he who gives up all sin and returns to God with all the heart, though it be the thousandth time, will find a loving Father who will not cause anger to fall and will heal backslidings when iniquity is acknowledged.
Israel's repeated search for help from worldly powers would bring shame, for reliance on Egypt would fail as reliance on Assyria had already brought ruin. Turning from God to political powers for security leads not to safety but to destruction, and the same warning applies to a church joining itself to the world or the State for security. The rebuke of gadding about to change the way forbids seeking a change of place in the belief that different circumstances would make one more useful for the cause or more spiritual. Duty is to do what one can wherever one is, for the missionary spirit is as truly shown at home as in a foreign land, and one who finds nothing to do where he is would fail in a broader field. What matters and what angels record is not where one is but what one is, so the need when tempted to seek a change of place is a change of heart.
Restless going about stands condemned. That condemnation reaches activity away from home. It is brought to bear on a woman with young children lest she neglect her family responsibilities.