Jeremiah 2:13

“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13

I think much of Jeremiah so far has opened my eyes to how God has been hurt relationally speaking by Judah/Israel/His people. There are many sentiments of betrayal, and rightful blame placing. I think God held Judah to a greater accountability because they new the living God.

In God we owe our total existence, and everything He has done to sustain us right down to the air we breath. Everything good, everything we get is out of His generosity. I am entitled to nothing. God therefore is indeed the "spring of living water."

Contextually Jr 2:13 is a metaphor that God uses to hint at Himself being the self-sustaining spiritual source of eternity. The spring of living water is the substance Judah needed to be filled and satisfied. It is naturally flowing, you just have to seek it out. my translation calls it a fountain.

Here are some quotes that illustrate God's holy anger against His children:
-Jr2:7b "you made My inheritance detestable."
-Jr2:8 "The experts of the law no longer knew Me."
-Jr2:11 "Yet my people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols."
-Jr2:19 "think it over and see how evil and bitter it is for you to abandon the Lord your God and to have no fear of Me."
-Jr2:32 "My people have forgotten Me."
-Jr2:36 "how unstable you are, constantly changing your ways."
-In Verses 20-28 God assigns five images to describe Judah: 1 a beast broke from its yoke. 2 choice grapes that lose their quality. 3 a stain that won't go away. 4 a young camel unable to walk straight. 5 a horny donkey in heat.

Judah in defiance of crediting God as the life source, abandoned their favor and their revelation as God's people. Instead they worked at finding their own spiritual water source as the metaphor implies. They dug for themselves cisterns (a well or a sort of storage space for water):
1 Judah made many cisterns instead of one spring of Living Water.
2 Judah dug and labored to find the right spot, instead of knowing where to go.
3 Judah dug to the desired depth, instead of going to God for abundance of water.
4 Judah fortified the walls to keep their cistern from collapsing. Yet God calls them cracked and cannot hold water.

And so all philosophies, all other gods outside of Jesus Christ are merely cisterns -made, measured, and crumbling; by myth, by man, by deception, by Satan. Jesus Himself said hundreds of years later that He is the giver of Living Water in John 4:10.

I know this to be too true. My own attempts to look at other people's cisterns and try and make my own have left me ruined and godless. Faith in Jesus and His atonement for me through crucifixion brought me to the fountain of Living Water and I drank and am quenched daily.

The Truth of Scripture, in Christ destroyed my leaky, crumbling cistern and removed my eyes on gazing at others' cisterns. Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ who is mighty to save. The words of God through Jeremiah struck me deeply -about who I was, who God is and His righteous indignation toward Judah and all who "lift their souls to another."