The depiction of Yhwh’s marriage to Rebellious Israel and Treacherous Judah in Jeremiah 3 has resisted interpretation in terms that cohere with the text’s surroundings or our wider historical and theological understanding of the entities named by the text. Though commentators consistently identify the sisters as the northern and southern kingdoms, they are obliged to engage in interpretive gymnastics to explain the text’s preference for Israel, the northern kingdom. This article examines recent interpretations and their underlying assumptions, then reviews immediate and wider evidence for the entities called Israel and Judah, en route to a new proposal for their identification and significance in this passage. It proposes that the apparent incoherence of the allegory and its relationship with the surrounding material may be resolved by the recognition that Israel is meant to signify the community exiled to Babylonia, while Judah represents those left behind in the land.

中文翻译：

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玩宠儿：耶利米书3婚姻隐喻中的以色列和犹大

耶利米书 3 中对耶和华与叛逆的以色列和奸诈的犹大联姻的描述抵制了与文本环境或我们对文本所命名实体更广泛的历史和神学理解相一致的解释。尽管注释家一致认为这对姐妹是北国和南国，但她们不得不进行解释体操来解释经文对以色列这个北国的偏爱。本文检查了最近的解释及其基本假设，然后回顾了称为以色列和犹大的实体的直接和更广泛的证据，并在此过程中提出了新的建议，以确认它们在本文中的识别和重要性。