[13] Jer. i. 5. “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee; and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” In the same manner as God is said to sanctify Jeremiah as a prophet before he was, whom he had elected to be such, for he said he foreknew the elect or saints, and children and heirs of life. Exod. xxiii. 12, 17.
[282] Jer. ii. 2, 3. “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.” Israel was holiness to the Lord, and the first-fruits of his increase. See ver. 21. “Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed.’’ Ps. lxviii. 14. This has not respect to that generation that went out of Egypt, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, that were a very corrupt generation, but the generation of their children spoken of Numb. xiv. 31. “But your little ones which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.” So Deut. i. 39. It has respect to those spoken of Jer. xxxi. 2. The people which were left to the sword found grace in the wilderness. The same generation that entered into the land of Canaan, with Joshua, and took possession of the good land, it was the generation that God planted in Canaan, as is evident by verse 21. And the going after God in the wilderness that is here spoken of, is not the going of the children of Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness of Sinai, but their following God through that dreadful wilderness in which the congregation long wandered after they went back from Kadesh-barnea, which is spoken of Deut. viii. 15. “Who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought; where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint.” Although this generation had a much greater trial than the generation of their fathers had before they came to Kadesh-barnea, yet they never murmured against God in anywise as their fathers had done. But their trials had a contrary effect upon them, viz. to humble them, and fit them for great mercy. Deut. viii. 2, 3. “And thou shalt remember the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee,” &c. And ver. 16. “Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, &c. that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good in thy latter end.” And therefore it is said, Hosea xiii. 5. “I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.”
This generation were eminent for piety, as appears by many things said of them in the book of Numbers, as especially Joshua. See Josh. xxiii.8. xxii. 1, 2. Deut. iv. 3, 4. See also Note on Hos. xi. 1. Jer. xxxi. 2, 3. Hos. ix. 10. Jer. ii. 21. Ps. lxviii. 14. Josh. i. and three last verses. Judg. ii. 7, 17, 22. And though there were some wicked men amongst them, they were not like their fathers, unbelieving generation; but believed God, and followed him, and by faith overcame Sihon and Og, and the giants and mighty nations of Canaan. They showed a laudable and fervent zeal for God on several occasions, on occasion of Achan’s sin, but especially when they suspected the two tribes and half had set up an altar in opposition to the altar of burnt-offering before the tabernacle. Israel feared and served the Lord all the days that the men of that generation lived. See Notes on Judg. ii. 7.
[296] Jer. ii. 2, 3. “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth,” &c. It is probable that all those open rebellions, which were in the congregation of Israel during the whole forty years that the congregation was in the wilderness, were what the men of that perverse generation, who were adults when they came out of Egypt, were principally active and leading in, as the rebellion of Korah and his company that we have an account of Num. xvi. evidently was, for it was managed by some of the principal men in the congregation, which were wont to be their elders, or elderly men, see ver. 2. Their contesting with Moses and Aaron, such aged persons as those that ought to be esteemed equal with them, and other circumstances of the story, show it. And so it is probable was the rebellion at the place where they set up the fiery serpent; Num. xxi.; and the rebellion and wickedness in the matter of Peor.; Num. xxv. Those that remained of that wicked generation seem to have led in it; for the heads or chief of the people, which doubtless were some of their elders, had a chief hand in it, and consequently were hung up before the sun. Num. xxv. 4. That wicked generation continued their rebellions after that God for their rebelling had sworn in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest, as is implied in Psal. lxxxi. 12. “So I gave them up to their own hearts’ lust, and they walked in their own counsels.” This seems to refer to something in their history as delivered by Moses, as all other passages in the Psalms, concerning the church of Israel in Egypt, and the wilderness, do; but there is nothing else in that history they can refer to but those rebellions that have been spoken of. We may argue in like manner from Acts vii. 41-43. “And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the work of their own hands. Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch,” &c.