What iniquity have your fathers found in me - Have they ever discovered any thing cruel, unjust, oppressive in my laws? Any thing unkind or tyrannical in my government? Why then have they become idolaters?

Thus saith the Lord, what iniquity have your fathers found in me,.... What injustice or injury has been done them? there is no unrighteousness in God, nor can any be done by him; or what unfaithfulness, or want of truth and integrity in performing promises, had they found in him? he never suffers his faithfulness to fail, or any of the good things he has promised. So the Targum,

"what falsehood have your fathers found in my word?''

none at all; God is a covenant keeping God:

that they are gone far from me; from my fear, as the Chaldee paraphrase; from the word and worship, and ways of God:

and have walked after vanity; after idols, the vanities of the Gentiles, Jeremiah 14:22,

and are become vain? in their imaginations and in their actions, in their knowledge and in their practice, worshipping idols, as well as guilty of many other sins.

Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they have gone {e} far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become {f} vain?

(e) That is, fallen to vile idolatry.

(f) Altogether given to vanity, and are become blind and insensible as the idols that they serve.

2:5 Vanity - Idols. Vain - Fools; senseless as the stocks and stones that they made their idols of.

5. iniquity-wrong done to them (Isa 5:4; Mic 6:3; compare De 32:4).

walked after vanity-contrasted with "walkest after me in the wilderness" (Jer 2:2): then I was their guide in the barren desert; now they take idols as their guides.

vanity . vain-An idol is not only vain (impotent and empty), but vanity itself. Its worshippers acquire its character, becoming vain as it is (De 7:26; Ps 115:8). A people's character never rises above that of its gods, which are its "better nature" [Bacon] (2Ki 17:15; Jon 2:8).

2:1-8 Those who begin well, but do not persevere, will justly be upbraided with their hopeful and promising beginnings. Those who desert religion, commonly oppose it more than those who never knew it. For this they could have no excuse. God's spiritual Israel must own their obligations to him for safe conduct through the wilderness of this world, so dangerous to the soul. Alas, that many, who once appeared devoted to the Lord, so live that their professions aggravate their crimes! Let us be careful that we do not lose in zeal and fervency, as we gain knowledge.