Why dost thou endeavour to shew thy way good to seek my love, thou who has also taught thy malices to be thy ways,

“How you adorn Heb. תיטבי. You adorn yourself to greet your adulterers. Comp. “And she adorned her head” (I Kings 9:30) concerning Jezebel in the section dealing with Jehu. even to the most evil you accustomed You searched throughout all the evil ways to learn the most corrupt of them all. גם is an expression of ‘even.’ verily Heb. לכן, an expression of a true oath. Verily, to the most evil way of all the ways you accustomed yourself. you accustomed Heb. למדת, lit. you taught.”

“Here he convicts them of guilt against the neighbor: and first he proves the guilt; second he threatens the punishment of confusion, there, "and you shall be confounded by Egypt." Concerning the first, three things. First he sets forth the slaying of the neighbors, marveling at the excuse: "to seek love"; as though by these things you could appease me. Setting forth the spiritual slaying: "which, moreover, you have taught" — by evil examples. Below, 13: "you have taught them against you, and instructed them to your own head." And setting forth the bodily slaying, "in the wings," that is, in the birds: he speaks in the likeness of a bird of prey. "Of the poor," whom you have sacrificed to idols. Zach. 5: "I saw, and behold, two women coming forth, and wind was in their wings, and they had wings like the wings of a kite." Second, the manifestation of the guilt: "I did not find them in the ditches," as though secretly slain by robbers: "in all," namely, the hills, and the pleasant places. Isai. 59: "Truth has fallen in the street, and equity could not enter in. And truth has come into oblivion, and he who departed from evil lay open to plunder." And he marvels at the excuse. "And you said." Job 11: "You said: my speech is pure, and I am clean in your sight." Third, he shows the repetition of the guilt, premising a marveling at the excuse, "behold, I." "How exceedingly vile you have become, repeating your ways." "Sins." Threni 1: "See, Lord, and consider, for I have become vile."”

“Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents,.... Either of the innocent infants of poor persons, who were sacrificed to Moloch; or of the poor prophets of the Lord, whom they slew, because they faithfully reproved them for their sins; and the blood of those being found in their skirts is expressive of the publicness and notoriety of their sin, and also of the large quantity of blood shed, inasmuch as the skirts of their garments were filled with it, as if they had trod and walked in blood; see Isa 63:3. I have not found it by secret search; or, "by digging" (q); there was no need to dig for it; it lay above ground; it was upon their skirts, public enough: or, "in ditches", as the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin (r) versions; as when murders are privately and secretly committed; but these were done openly. Some read the words, "thou didst not find them with a digging instrument" (s); so Jarchi interprets the words, "you did not find them with a digging instrument, or in digging, when you slew them;'' you did not find them prepared as thieves to break up your houses, or digging down your walls, and breaking through into your houses, then you would have been justified by the law in slaying them, Exo 22:2, but this was not the case: but upon all these; upon all their skirts, and not in ditches, or under ground; or, "for all these"; thou hast so done; not for their sins, for theft, or any other; but for their faithful reproofs and rebukes; so Jarchi, for all these words with which they reproved thee; or for all these, the idols on whose account, in the worship of them, the blood of the innocents was shed. (q) "in suffossione", Vatablus, Calvin, De Dieu; "effossione", Junius & Tremellius; "perfossione", Schmidt. (r) , Sept. "in fossis", V. L. (s) "Cum perfossorio", Pagninus, Montanus; "sub. instrumento", Grotius; "terebro", Cocceius.”

“Why trimmest--MAURER translates, "How skilfully thou dost prepare thy way," &c. But see Kg2 9:30. "Trimmest" best suits the image of one decking herself as a harlot. way--course of life. therefore--accordingly. Or else, "nay, thou hast even," &c. also . . . wicked ones--even the wicked harlots, that is, (laying aside the metaphor) even the Gentiles who are wicked, thou teachest to be still more so [GROTIUS].”

“In Jer 2:33 the style of address is ironical. How good thou makest thy way! i.e., how well thou knowest to choose out and follow the right way to seek love. היטיב דּרך sig. usually: strive after a good walk and conversation; cf. Jer 7:3, Jer 7:5; Jer 18:11, etc.; here, on the other hand, to take the right way for gaining the end in view. "Love" here is seen from the context to be love to the idols, intrigues with the heathen and their gods. Seek love = strive to gain the love of the false gods. To attain this end thou hast taught thy ways misdeeds, i.e., accustomed thy ways to misdeeds, forsaken the commandments of thy God which demand righteousness and the purifying of one's life, and accommodated thyself to the immoral practices of the heathen. הרעות, with the article as in Jer 3:5, the evil deeds which are undisguisedly visible; not: the evils, the misfortunes which follow thee closely, as Hitz. interprets in the face of the context. For in Jer 2:34 we have indisputable evidence that the matter in hand is not evils and misfortunes, but evil deeds or misdemeanours; since there the cleaving of the blood of innocent souls to the hems of the garments is mentioned as one of the basest "evils," and as such is introduced by the גּם of gradation. The "blood of souls" is the blood of innocent murdered men, which clings to the skirts of the murderers' clothes. כּנפים are the skirts of the flowing garment, Eze 5:3; Sa1 15:27; Zac 8:23. The plural נמצאוּ before דּם is explained by the fact that נפשׁות is the principal idea. אביונים are not merely those who live in straitened circumstances, but pious oppressed ones as contrasted with powerful transgressors and oppressors; cf. Ps. 40:18; Psa 72:13., Psa 86:1-2, etc. By the next clause greater prominence is given to the fact that they were slain being innocent. The words: not בּמּחתּרת, at housebreaking, thou tookest them, contain an allusion to the law in Exo 22:1 and onwards; according to which the killing of a thief caught in the act of breaking in was not a cause of blood-guiltiness. The thought runs thus: The poor ones thou hast slain were no thieves or robbers whom thou hadst a right to slay, but guiltless pious men; and the killing of them is a crime worthy of death. Exo 21:12. The last words כּי על כּל־אלּה are obscure, and have been very variously interpreted. Changes upon the text are not to the purpose. For we get no help from the reading of the lxx, of the Syr. and Arab., which seem to have read אלּה as אלה, and which have translated δρυΐ́ oak or terebinth; since "upon every oak" gives no rational meaning. Nor from the connection of the words with the next verse (Venem., Schnur., Ros., and others): yet with all this, or in spite of all this, thou saidst; since neither does כּי mean yet, nor can the ו before תאמרי, in this connection, introduce the sequel thought. The words manifestly belong to what goes before, and contain a contrast: not in breaking in by night thou tookest them, but upon, or on account of all this. על in the sig. upon gives a suitable sense only if, with Abarb., Ew., Ng., we refer אלּה to בּכנפיך and take מצאתים as 1st pers.: I found it (the blood of the slain souls) not on the place where the murder took place, but upon all these, sc. lappets of the clothes, i.e., borne openly for display. But even without dwelling on the fact that מחתּרת does not mean the scene of a murder or breaking in, this explanation is wrecked on the unmistakeably manifest allusion to the law, אם בּמּחתּרת ימּצא הגּנּב, Exo 21:1, which is ignored, or at least obscured, by that view. The allusion to this passage of the law shows that מצאתים is not 1st but 2nd pers., and that the suffix refers to the innocent poor who were slain. Therefore, with Hitz. and Graf, we take על כּל־ אלּה in the sig. "on account of all this," and refer the "all this" to the idolatry before mentioned. Consequently the words bear this meaning: Not for a crime thou killedst the poor, but because of thine apostasy from God and thy fornication with the idols, their blood cleaves to thy raiment. the words seem, as Calv. surmised, to point to the persecution and slaying of the prophets spoken of in Jer 2:30, namely, to the innocent blood with which the godless king Manasseh filled Jerusalem, Kg2 21:16; Kg2 24:4; seeking as he did to crush out all opposition to the abominations of idolatry, and finding in his way the prophets and the godly of the land, who by their words and their lives lifted up their common testimony against the idolaters and their abandoned practices.”