Therefore at least at this time call to me: Thou art my father, the guide of my virginity:

Hast thou not henceforth called to Me, 'My father, Thou art the leader of my youth?

Will you not, from this time, make your prayer to me, crying, My father, you are the friend of my early years?

Didst thou not just now cry unto Me: 'My father, Thou art the friend of my youth.

Therefore, at least from this moment on, call out to me: 'You are my father, the guide of my virginity.'

An non posthac clamabis ad me, Pater mi, dux adolescentiae meae tu es?

God, after having set forth the wickedness of his people, and severely reproved them as they deserved, now kindly invites them to repentance, Wilt thou not say to me hereafter, he says, My Father! Some incorrectly render the words, "Wilt thou say to me, My Father," as though God would reject what they said: and they give the meaning, -- that the Jews would act dishonestly in thus glorying in God's name, from whom they were so alienated. But very different is the meaning of the Prophet: for God mitigates the severity of the reproof which we have observed, and shews that he would be ready to be reconciled to them, if they repented: nay, he waits not for their repentance, but of his own accord meets and allures these perfidious apostates: "What!" says God, "shall there be no more any union between us?" For God expresses here the feeling of one grieving and lamenting, when he saw the people perishing; and he seems anxious, if possible, to restore them. It is with this design that he asks, "Will they not again call on me as their Father and the guide of their youth?" And by this periphrastic way of speaking, he intimates that he was the husband of that people; for most tender is that love which a youth has for a young virgin in the flower of her age. God, then, makes use now of this comparison, and says, that he still remembered the love which he had manifested towards his people. In short, he shews here that pardon was ready, if the people sought reconciliation; and he confirms the same thing when he adds --

Or, Hast thou Not from this time called "me, My Father, thou art the" husband "of my youth?" i. e., from the time of Josiah's reforms in his eighteenth year, in opposition to "of old time" Jeremiah 2:20.

Wilt thou not - cry unto me, My father - Wilt thou not allow me to be thy Creator and Preserver, and cease thus to acknowledge idols? See on Jeremiah 2:27 (note).

Wilt thou not from this time cry (h) to me, My father, thou [art] the guide of my youth?
(h) He shows that the wicked in their miseries will cry to God and use outward prayer as the godly do, but because they do not turn from their evil, they are not heard, (Isaiah 58:3-4).

Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me,.... These words are either a confirmation and proof of that impudence with which these people are charged; for had they not been impudent, or had not a forehead like a whorish woman; or were they truly ashamed, they would have cried to the Lord henceforward; called upon him; claimed their relation to him; and owned his favours in time past: or, if they had not been impudent, they would not have dared from this time to have called God their Father and their guide, when they had so wickedly sinned against him; so that this is a charge of hypocrisy and deceit, calling God their Father and guide, when they were at the same time worshipping idols: or rather they are expressive of the wondrous grace and goodness of God towards this people, that had so highly offended him, yet he expostulates with them, puts words into their mouths to return unto him with, saying:
my father; I have sinned against thee, and am not worthy of the relation, yet receive me as a returning prodigal:
thou art the guide of my youth; or, "hast been": I acknowledge the favours I have received in time past, which is an aggravation of my sin; reject me not, but receive me graciously into thy favour; see Hosea 14:2, so the Targum interprets the words as a prayer,
"wilt thou not from this time pray before me, saying, thou art my Lord, my Redeemer, which art of old?''
or else they point to them their duty, what they ought to do from henceforward; that seeing the Lord had withheld from them the former and latter rain for their idolatry, it became them to return to him by repentance; and to call upon him, who had been their Father and their guide in time past, to have mercy on them, and avert his judgments from them.

from this time--not referring, as MICHAELIS thinks, to the reformation begun the year before, that is, the twelfth of Josiah; it means--now at once, now at last.
me--contrasted with the "stock" whom they had heretofore called on as "father" (Jeremiah 2:27; Luke 15:18).
thou art--rather, "thou wast."
guide of . . . youth--that is, husband (Jeremiah 2:2; Proverbs 2:17; Hosea 2:7, Hosea 2:15). Husband and father are the two most endearing of ties.

Henceforward, forsooth, it calls upon its God, and expects that His wrath will abate; but this calling on Him is but lip-service, for it goes on in its sins, amends not its life. הלוא, nonne, has usually the force of a confident assurance, introducing in the form of a question that which is held not to be in the least doubtful. מעתּה, henceforward, the antithesis to מעולם, Jeremiah 2:20, Jeremiah 2:27, is rightly referred by Chr. B. Mich. to the time of the reformation in public worship, begun by Josiah in the twelfth year of his reign, and finally completed in the eighteenth year, 2 Chron 34:3-33. Clearly we cannot suppose a reference to distress and anxiety excited by the drought; since, in Jeremiah 3:3, it is expressly said that this had made no impression on the people. On אבי, cf. Jeremiah 2:27. אלּוּף נערי (cf. Proverbs 2:17), the familiar friend of my youth, is the dear beloved God, i.e., Jahveh, who has espoused Israel when it was a young nation (Jeremiah 2:2). Of Him it expects that He will not bear a grudge for ever. נטר, guard, then like τηρεῖν, cherish ill-will, keep up, used of anger; see on Leviticus 19:18; Psalm 103:9, etc. A like meaning has ישׁמר, to which אף, iram, is to be supplied from the context; cf. Amos 1:11. - Thus the people speaks, but it does evil. דּבּרתּי, like קראתי in Jeremiah 3:4, is 2nd pers. fem.; see in Jeremiah 2:20. Hitz. connects דּבּרתּי so closely with ותּעשׂי as to make הרעות the object to the former verb also: thou hast spoken and done the evil; but this is plainly contrary to the context. "Thou speakest" refers to the people's saying quoted in the first half of the verse: Will God be angry for ever? What they do is the contradiction of what they thus say. If the people wishes that God be angry no more, it must give over its evil life. הרעות, not calamity, but misdeeds, as in Jeremiah 2:33. תּוּכל, thou hast managed it, properly mastered, i.e., carried it through; cf. 1-Samuel 26:25; 1-Kings 22:22. The form is 2nd pers. fem., with the fem. ending dropped on account of the Vav consec. at the end of the discourse, cf. Ew. 191, b. So long as this is the behaviour of the people, God cannot withdraw His anger.

My father - Wilt thou not as a child call upon me, whom thou hast thus greatly provoked. The guide - I have been brought up by thee.