Jeremiah Chapter 2 verse 14 Holy Bible
Is Israel a servant? is he a home-born `slave'? why is he become a prey?
read chapter 2 in ASV
Is Israel a servant? has he been a house-servant from birth? why has he been made waste?
read chapter 2 in BBE
Is Israel a bondman? Is he a home-born [slave]? Why is he become a spoil?
read chapter 2 in DARBY
Is Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave? why is he spoiled?
read chapter 2 in KJV
read chapter 2 in WBT
Is Israel a servant? is he a home-born [slave]? why is he become a prey?
read chapter 2 in WEB
A servant `is' Israel? Is he a child of the house? Wherefore hath he been for a prey?
read chapter 2 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerses 14-19. - Israel's punishment and its cause. Verse 14. - Is Israel a servant? The speaker is evidently the prophet, who exclaims in surprise at the view which his prophetic insight opens to him: "quasi de re nova et absurda sciscitatur" (Calvin). For Israel is a member of Jehovah's family; he is not a servant (except in the same high sense as in Isaiah 40-53, where "servant" is virtually equivalent to "representative"), but rather in the highest degree a free man, for he is Jehovah's "firstborn son" (Exodus 4:22). How is it, then, that he is dragged away into captivity like a slave who has never known freedom? The view of some, that "servant" means "servant of Jehovah" (comp. Jeremiah 30:10), and that the question therefore is to be answered in the affirmative, is less natural. "Servant," by itself, never has this turning; and there is a precisely similar term in the discourse at ver. 31, where the negative answer of the question does not admit of a doubt.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) Is Israel a servant?--The word "servant," we must remember, had become, through its frequent use in Isaiah (Isaiah 20:3; Isaiah 41:8, et al.), a word not of shame, but honour; and of all servants, he who was born in the house--as in the case of Eleazar (Genesis 15:3)--occupied the most honourable place, nearest to a son. The point of the question is accordingly not "Is Israel become a slave," kidnapped, as it were, and spoiled, but rather this: "Is Israel the servant of Jehovah, as one born in His house? Why, then, is he treated as one with no master to protect him?"
