'They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them
out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water'--JER. ii. 13.
The proclivity of the Jews to idolatry is an outstanding fact all
through their history. That persistent national tendency surely compels
us to recognise a divine inspiration as the source of the prophetic
teaching and of the lofty spiritual theology of the Old Testament,
which were in sharpest unlikeness and opposition to the whole trend of
the people's thoughts.
It is this apostasy which is referred to here. The false gods made by
men are the broken cisterns. But the text embodies a general truth.