I just saw an internet entry bemoaning this passage as negative, not cheery and uplifting. As someone who finds life so hard at times, i so appreciate that we have these sorts of material within the pages of Scripture.
1) God is bewildered here. it reminds one of similar material in Hosea. God seems to have tried the best to be beneficent, but it seems to be thrown back at god, or quickly forgotten as the due of the chosen ones.
2)Instead of gratitude, not only do we forget but we actively seek replacements for the God of deliverance.
3) The three engines of religion:priests, rulers, and prophets all fail.Is tha tthe same in our time?
4) God continues in this vein of issuing an indictment against the people in what many see as a lawsuit format. again god is mystified in the god of a peoiple being transferred to another allegiance. What elements of our culture serve as substitutes for allegiance to God?
5) v. 11 is powerful for our time. when do we substitute the worthless for the precious?
6) this image is made even more evocative in the final verse, where we build oursleves cracked vessels while we reject the fountain of life-sustaining water. Waht would be osme good modern examples of this?
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