TEXT [Commentary]

  III.   God’s Judgment on Judah and Israel (2:4-16)

A.   Judgment against Judah (2:4-5)

4 This is what the LORD says:

“The people of Judah have sinned again and again,

and I will not let them go unpunished!

They have rejected the instruction of the LORD,

refusing to obey his decrees.

They have been led astray by the same lies

that deceived their ancestors.

5 So I will send down fire on Judah,

and all the fortresses of Jerusalem will be destroyed.”

NOTES

2:4 Judah. This became the name of the southern kingdom after the split of the Hebrew united monarchy upon the death of Solomon (c. 930 BC). The kingdom of Judah was comprised of those Hebrew tribes that settled south of Jerusalem (essentially Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon, although the remnants of the Danites who chose not to migrate to the north still occupied territory to the west of Judah, cf. Josh 19:47; Judg 1:34; 13:1). God preserved the kingdom of Judah for the sake of his servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, where his Temple resided (1 Kgs 11:34-39). The kingdom of Judah endured as a geo-political entity from c. 930–587 BC, when the Babylonians conquered the nation and annexed the territory into their empire (cf. 2 Kgs 25:1-21).

the instruction of the LORD. The word “instruction” (torah [TH8451, ZH9368]) refers to the covenant instruction Moses received from Yahweh at Mount Sinai (cf. Exod 19–24). The name “LORD” (yhwh [TH3068, ZH3378]) is the covenant name for God, and his laws are “the embodiment of justice and righteousness and may be equated with the knowledge of God” (Smith and Page 1995:89).

2:5 Jerusalem. This was the capital city of Judah and the location of Yahweh’s Temple, the place where God established his name (Deut 12:11; 14:23). God loves Jerusalem because his presence resides there symbolically, as associated with the Ark of the Covenant housed in the Temple (Pss 9:11; 74:2; 76:2; 87:2). But his love for the city would not stay his judgment of the people of Judah for their rebellion against him.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The prophet’s indictment of Judah moves beyond crimes committed against humanity to open rebellion against God by rejecting the “instruction of the LORD” (2:4). Spurning the law of God is a breach of covenant and a rejection of his authority (NIDOTTE 3.708-709). Refusal to listen to the Lord and obey his commands provided grounds to invoke the covenant curses against Israel as Yahweh’s treacherous vassal (Deut 28:15, 45). By contrast, God is faithful to his covenant with Israel, so much so that “faithfulness” is one of the defining attributes of the Godhead (Deut 7:9; 32:4; Pss 111:5; 145:13; Isa 30:18). The reference to the “same lies that deceived their ancestors” (2:4) is an oblique reference to idolatry according to Hubbard (1989:138). Alternately, Andersen and Freedman, based on the parallels with Isaiah 30:9-12, identify Judah’s crime as a rejection of the prophetic message itself by “the contrary acceptance of false prophecies” (1989:299). Thus, to silence God’s prophets “is to reject Yahweh himself” (Andersen and Freedman 1989:300; cf. 2:12; 7:12-13). In either case, Judah’s rejection of the laws of the Lord was comparable to the atrocities committed by the nations, and the consequences would be equally similar—divine judgment (2:5; cf. Smith and Page 1995:59).