fication, "to be put
to shame," "to be convicted of a disgraceful deed," is quite an
established one. Compare, _e.g._, Jer. ii. 26: "As the disgrace of a
thief when he is found, thus the whole house of Israel is _put to
shame_;" Jer. vi. 15: "They are put to shame, for they have committed
abomination; they shamed not themselves, they felt no shame;" compare
also Jer. viii. 9. In all these passages, [Hebrew: hvbiw] signifies
the shame forced upon those who have no sense of shame.--2. The
signification, "to act disgracefully," does not admit of a regular
grammatical derivation. _Gesenius_ refers to analogies such as [Hebrew:
hiTib], [Hebrew: hre]; but these would be admissible only if the _Kal_
[Hebrew: bvw] signified, "to be infamous," while it means only "to be
ashamed." Being derived from [Hebrew: bvw], the verb can mean only "to
put to shame," in which signification it occurs, _e.g._, in 2. Sam.
xix. 6. But, on the other hand, the signification, "to be put to
shame," can be well defended. As the _Hiphil_ cannot have an
intransitive signification, it must, with this signification, be
considered as derived from [Hebrew: bwt], "_pudorem, ignominiam
contraxit_,"--a view which is favoured by Jer. ii. 26.--The "lovers"
are the idols; compare the remarks on Zech. xiii. 6. The [Hebrew: ki]
confirms the statement, that she who bare them has been whoring, and
has been put to shame by a further exposure of the crime and its
origin. The same delusion which appears here as the cause of the
spiritual adultery, is stated as such also in Jer. xlix. 17, 18.
Jeremiah there warns the people not to contract sin by idolatry,
because that was the cause of all their present misery, and would bring
upon them [Pg 238] greater misery still. But they answer him, that they
would continue to offer incense and drink-offerings to the Queen of
heaven, as they and their fathers had formerly done in their native
land; for, "since we left off to do so, we have wanted all things, and
were consumed by hunger and sword." The antithesis in Jer. ii. 13 of
the fountain of living waters, and the broken cisterns that hold no
water, has reference likewise to this delusion. But that which is the
_cause_ of the gross whoredom, is the _consequence_ of the refined one.
The inward apostasy must already have taken place, when one speaks as
the wife does in the verse before us. As long as man continues
faithfully with God in communion of life, he perceives, by the eye