Pemikiran Yahudi Yeremia 2:10: Akeidat Yitzchak & Netzach Yisrael

For these reasons, Pinchas, a few years later, had prima facie reason to put a negative interpretation on the significance of the altar, and to commence appropriate action to restore the religious unity of the nation which appeared to have been jeopardised by the action of the two and a half tribes. Close examination of the paragraph reveals that the two and a half tribes agreed to only two of the three terms that were offered to them for retaining the territory east of the Jordan as their homeland. They agreed to go to war with the rest of the nation. Regarding the land of Gilead, they demanded that it become theirs by right, immediately, independent of future performance of their duties. Moses acceded when he gave Machir that piece of land. All this proves that their major concern was a land grab. This gave Moses the right to approach them with suspicion. Pinchas based himself on the same facts, when he suspected the altar was meant to pacify local deities. Since the two and a half tribes lived outside Israel proper, they may have felt less secure, not included in the protective umbrella of G'ds Providence. Although they argued that their altar had not been used for sacrifices, nor had been intended for sacrifices, this did not totally remove Pinchas' and the other tribes' doubts about what its purpose had been intended to be.

In the first chapter of Tractate Ta'anit (5a), Rav Yitzchak asked: What is the meaning of that which is written (Jeremiah 2:13), "For My people have committed two evils"? Was it only two they did, when they had abandoned twenty-two? Rabbi Yochanan explained it thus: It is one evil that is equivalent to two. And what is it? Idolatry, as it is written (ibid.), "they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves broken cisterns," and it is also written (cf. ibid. 2:10-11), "For pass over to the isles of the Kittites and see, and send to Kedar and consider diligently… Has a nation ever changed its gods, even though they are no-gods? But My people have changed their Glory for that which does not profit." It was taught: The Kittites worship fire and the Kedarites worship water, and even though they know that water extinguishes fire, they have not changed their gods; yet "My people have changed their Glory for that which does not profit." The explanation of this matter is that a person chooses for himself a deity that he imagines is his proper portion. For there is a nation that considers itself to be of the portion of fire, and so every nation has chosen a deity according to what it perceives to be its portion. And even though they know that a more significant power exists which can overcome the power that is their own portion, they do not change it, since in their minds they belong to that particular power. But Israel, whose portion is the Lord, may He be blessed, as Scripture states in several places—and He, may He be blessed, rules over all—exchanged their Glory for that which does not profit, for things that are not Israel's portion. Herein lie the two evils: that they belong solely to the portion of the Lord, may He be blessed, and yet they exchanged Him for that which does not profit.