How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Jeremiah 2:23 → Numbers 5:11

Allusion

Later text

Jeremiah 2:23BSB

"How can you say, 'I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals'? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there,

Earlier text

Numbers 5:11BSB

Then the LORD said to Moses,

Significance

Jeremiah 2:23 confronts Israel's denial of defilement — "How can you say, 'I am not defiled' (לֹא נִטְמֵאתִי, lo nitmeiti)" — using language drawn from the jealousy ritual of Numbers 5:11-31, where a suspected adulteress is tested for whether she has been "defiled" (נִטְמְאָה, nitme'ah). The shared root טָמֵא (tame', "to be defiled") in the context of marital unfaithfulness transforms the legal procedure into prophetic metaphor: Yahweh is the jealous husband, Israel the wife who protests innocence despite evidence of spiritual adultery. While Numbers provides a legal mechanism to determine guilt, Jeremiah's rhetorical question renders the test unnecessary — the evidence in the Valley of Hinnom is visible and incontrovertible.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Analogy — the shared root טָמֵא in a marital-unfaithfulness setting lets Jeremiah cast Israel as the suspected adulteress of the Numbers 5 ordeal who denies defilement ("I am not defiled," לֹא נִטְמֵאתִי); the legal procedure is transferred analogically to the covenant relationship — Yahweh the jealous husband needs no ordeal, for the evidence in the valley is open — analogical use of case law, not typology.