Ravages of Sin
"Two evils
have My people done: they have forsaken Me, the source of living waters; They
have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water!" (Jeremiah 2:13)
In
addition to the crisis of foreign invasion, chapter 14 of the book of Jeremiah
recounts the catastrophe of a great famine. Droughts and food shortages were
common from time to time throughout the ancient world, but the prophet bewails
the effects of a famine which was evidently quite severe, and particularly
bad-timed, coinciding as it did with grave military threats.
Read
all of chapter 14 to get the complete picture: false prophets were promising
that no famine or war would come, even in spite of the people's sinfulness. But
Jeremiah and the true prophets had announced that the Word of the Lord had
foreseen the coming of these adversities because of the people's iniquities.
And
come they did! The people were faced with the unmasked reality of the fruits of
their wickedness. Drought is so visibly awful, when life-giving water is dried
up, and food sources quickly become scarce. We can recall the Lord's complaint
voiced in Jeremiah 2:13 that "Two evils have My people done: they have
forsaken Me, the source of living waters; They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns, that hold no water!" So now, the people physically
experience the famine which parallels the spiritual dryness their sins have
caused.