“Go west and look in the land of Cyprus; go east and search through the land of Kedar. Has anyone ever heard of anything as strange as this? Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones, even though they are not gods at all? Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols! The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay,” says the Lord.” Jeremiah 2:10-12
Since Israel liked to look to surrounding nations in imitation of their idolatry, God asked His rebellious people to look to even distant places beyond the coasts of Cyprus or Kedar and to ask: Do they forsake their gods? Strangely, the heathen nations around Israel were more faithful to their pagan gods than Israel was to the Living God. The heathen nations were faithful to their gods, even though their gods did nothing for them. Yet Israel had the God of all Glory who had blessed them in innumerable ways and they turned from Him.
Some of the heathen nations did change their gods, but only in times of nation catastrophe. They changed because they felt that their god has abandoned them or were not capable. They changed to another deity, but this was rare. The Holy Spirt is saying through Jeremiah that the god of Israel has never let His people down. He had rather helped them, blessed them, guided them, and in fact given them more abundant life. God has done the same for our nation so why in the world would we want to leave the one true God for the gods that we in America worship; money and material things, like Sports. Be astonished…be horribly afraid…be very desolate: First this is astonishment, that men can be so foolish, disloyal, and ungrateful. Then it is something to fear, because a righteous God must answer such outrageous rebellion. Finally, it is desolation, because the result of judgment upon such rebellious people will leave little behind.