Jeremiah 1-29: Marriage as a symbol

This week in Come Follow Me we covered Jeremiah 1-29. What impressed me about Jeremiah this week?  It seems to me that Jeremiah's dominant image is marital infidelity. Repeatedly Jeremiah states that Israel has gone chasing after harlots. Some of his images are way past PG rating.  He compares Israel to a "fed horse in the morning, everyone neighing after his neighbor's wife." (5:8) Elsewhere he says that "she has gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot." (3:6)  It is no wonder Jesus said, "a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign" (Matt 16:4).  I don't think he was talking about personal adultery, but the kind of national adultery through idolatry described in Jeremiah.

I asked myself this week why the marriage relationship is used over and over to describe the relationship between God and his people. Often in this imagery God is the groom and Israel is the bride, but in Jeremiah, Israel is portrayed as the husband in some places, and the wife in others.  What was a marriage contract like in ancient Israel and how is that like the covenant relationship between the Lord and his people?   

As in most ancient cultures, men held the dominate place of power in a marriage. Men could be married to more than one wife, but women could only be married to one man. Men could have a wife killed for adultery but not visa-versa. It seems a bit lopsided, but there were benefits for the woman. A husband was responsible to care and provide for all his wives and children. Both husbands and wives had essential roles in the maintenance of the household and the ideal marriage was full of love and, if Song of Solomon is to be considered, passion. Marriage and family relationships were foundational to the whole culture. Family ties were stronger than any other kinds of social connections.

If we think symbolically and God is the husband, he is bound to take care of love his wife, Israel.  He is married to her for life as long as she is faithful to him and is obligated to take care of their children as well.  If God is the wife, she brings prosperity and increase to her husband, the House of Israel.  They serve and maintain her by performing temple worship and in return she makes their life pleasant and fruitful. 

It is interesting that the author of Jeremiah thinks of God as both the husband and the wife.  It shows a kind of respect for gender roles I wasn't really expecting to find in the Old Testament. 

ps

I try to read one chapter in Hebrew from the assigned Come Follow Me reading each week.  I must admit that I didn't make it to the end of my weekly chapter several times in the last five weeks while we were reading Isaiah.  This week, however, I decided to read Jeremiah 1, and was surprised when I zipped through the first 10 verses without having to look up definitions very often.  I guess, even in Hebrew, Isaiah is pretty hard going