When God called Israel out of Egypt and made them a nation, He knew the inclination of their hearts and that their carnality would ultimately destroy them. He anticipated that they would forsake Him for idols, incurring the wrath of the Angel of the Lord, whom they were ordered to obey in everything. Indeed, Israel did exactly as He foresaw, forsaking Him and failing to obey, ultimately becoming among the most sinful of nations, worse even than Sodom. God's judgment against Israel was severe because of their special, intimate relationship with Him. They knew, or should have known, His expectations, having formally agreed by covenant, ratified with blood, to worship and obey Him exclusively. Yet, they flagrantly sinned and rebelled, deserving severe punishment in His eyes under His justice. Only His mercy prevented their utter annihilation. Israel's moral decline was profound; they did not know to do right, despite having received the Ten Commandments and witnessing God's presence at Mount Sinai. Despite His efforts to educate them in His ways, they suppressed His instruction and became so saturated with sin that they had no concept of right and wrong, reaching a moral warp akin to the pre-Flood world. Their religious practices were corrupted, loving the spectacle of religion rather than the truth. They transgressed at Bethel and Gilgal, multiplying their sins through syncretism and perverting sacrifices and tithes for show, lacking sincerity and lacing their devotion with corruption. God warned them repeatedly with calamities—famine, drought, blight, locusts, disease, destruction, and war—designed to signal His displeasure, yet they never made the connection between these disasters and their rebellion. Spiritually obtuse, they hardened themselves against Him, failing to return to a right relationship. They forgot or misperceived who God is, underestimating Him as the Almighty Creator, the sovereign Lord God of hosts. Ignoring and rebelling against Him forced Him into the role of their enemy, a grave and fatal mistake for many, as they encountered Him in judgment rather than as a loving husband. Israel sinned against the Lord their God by fearing other gods, equating sin with idolatry as their primary offense. They forsook the God who freed and blessed them for impotent idols, particularly those of the Canaanites, whom He had cast out for wickedness. They attempted to hide their idolatry and rebellion, thinking He could not see, reducing Him to a mere idol like Baal or Ashtoreth, vastly underestimating His all-powerful, all-knowing nature. They rejected His statutes, covenant, and testimonies, following idols and becoming idolaters, abandoning all His commandments in complete apostasy. This led to horrific sins, including child sacrifice, witchcraft, and soothsaying, selling themselves to do evil, becoming enslaved to anti-God ungodliness in deliberate, all-out rebellion. Israel trusted in their own beauty, playing the harlot with foreign nations and gods, pouring out harlotry on everyone passing by, using His gifts to adorn high places for idolatry. They sacrificed their children to idols, forgetting their covenant with Him, becoming more corrupt than Sodom or Samaria, brazenly flaunting their rebellion and provoking His anger. Even in the wilderness, Israel rebelled against Him, despising His judgments and statutes, defiling His Sabbaths, their hearts going after idols. Forsaking the Sabbath, a sign between them and Him, they drifted farther from Him weekly, becoming wholehearted pagans, losing knowledge of the true God and their own identity, blending into the world as the lost tribes of Israel. Forsaking the Sabbath was essentially forsaking God Himself, severing the vital connection that set them apart as His people.

Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves rather than the flocks, as declared by the Lord GOD. They eat the fat, clothe themselves with the wool, and slaughter the fatlings, yet they do not feed the flock. They have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the broken, brought back the driven away, nor sought the lost, but have ruled with force and cruelty. The people of Israel have forgotten Me, says the LORD, burning incense to worthless idols and causing themselves to stumble from the ancient paths into misguided ways. No one forced them to turn away; they forsook the LORD on their own accord, provoking the Holy One of Israel to anger and turning backward. Even the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib, but My people do not know or consider, laden with iniquity as a sinful nation and a brood of evildoers.

The relationship between Israel and God has been marked by a persistent pattern of forsaking Him, despite His unwavering love and care. God foretold this rebellion in Deuteronomy 31:15-22, declaring to Moses that the people would rise and play the harlot with foreign gods, forsaking Him and breaking His covenant. He warned that His anger would be aroused, and He would forsake them in return, hiding His face from them, allowing many evils and troubles to befall them as a consequence of their turning to other gods. God knew their inclination even before bringing them into the promised land, predicting they would grow fat and turn to serve other gods, provoking Him and breaking His covenant. In the Song of Moses, recorded in Deuteronomy 32:1-29, God further illustrates this tragic cycle. He describes how He cherished Israel, encircling them and keeping them as the apple of His eye, leading them with tender care and providing abundantly for their needs. Yet, Jeshurun grew fat and kicked, forsaking the God who made them and scornfully esteeming the Rock of their salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods and abominations, sacrificing to demons and forgetting the Rock who begot them. In response, God declared He would hide His face from them, heap disasters upon them, and consume them with His anger, lamenting their lack of faith and understanding. This pattern of forsaking God traces back even to the lineage of Abraham, as Joshua 24:2-4 reveals that Abraham's fathers, including Terah, served other gods before God called him out of that world. Though Abraham proved faithful, the tendency to stray persisted in his descendants. God's warnings in Deuteronomy 7:1-8 emphasized the danger of intermarrying with the nations they were to conquer, as these unions would turn their sons away from following Him to serve other gods, arousing His anger and leading to sudden destruction. Despite being chosen as a holy people, a special treasure to the Lord above all others, Israel's history reflects a consistent failure to remain loyal. By the time of Ezekiel 16:1-3, God's address to Jerusalem reveals the depth of their spiritual decline. He describes their spiritual state as tracing back to the abominations of the Amorites and Hittites, indicating that they had so forsaken His standards that they might as well be Canaanites in their beliefs and practices. This forsaking of God led to their adopting the very iniquities He had once commanded them to destroy, bringing upon themselves the same judgment He had inflicted on those nations through Israel's armies. Though God never fully abandoned them, promising eventual deliverance and atonement, their repeated forsaking of Him stands as a central theme in their tumultuous relationship.

The Israelites, marked by a highly independent and rebellious nature, consistently forsook God throughout their history. Despite being led by righteous individuals over the centuries, they repeatedly turned from Him to follow their own ways, displaying deceit, cunning, and disloyalty. They could not keep their word, even to God, provoking Him to wrath through their selfishness and rebellion, and thus receiving the curses for disobedience instead of the promised abundance and prestige. From the beginning, God recognized their stubbornness and lack of righteousness, calling them a stiff-necked people unwilling to yield to His ways and commandments. Their rebellions, evident from the day they left Egypt, continued unabated, as seen in their provocations at Horeb and Kadesh Barnea. They desired to be like other nations, rejecting God's rule and finding His ways too restrictive, ultimately demanding a human king to replace Him. In the Song of Moses, God describes Israel as a perverse and crooked generation, unmindful of Him who made them. They forsook the Rock of their salvation, scornfully esteemed Him, and provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods and abominations. They forgot Him altogether, showing no faith and failing to trust in His goodness, always pursuing the desires of their own hearts rather than seeking Him. During the period of the judges, a cycle of rebellion emerged. After a righteous judge died, the Israelites would forsake God, serving Baals and Ashtoreths, and follow other gods of the surrounding peoples, bowing down to them and provoking His anger. God, in response, delivered them into the hands of plunderers and enemies as a just consequence of their defection, in accordance with the terms of the covenant. When they cried out in distress, He raised up judges to deliver them, yet they quickly turned back to idolatry after the judge's death, repeating the cycle of forsaking Him. This pattern of doing what was right in their own eyes, rather than submitting to God as their King, persisted beyond the judges into the time of the kings and even to the destruction of Jerusalem. Over 800 years, from their youth as a nation, they did only evil before Him, turning their backs to Him, refusing to listen to His instruction, and defiling His house with abominations. They provoked Him continuously with their sins, leading to just punishment as He grew weary of their disloyalty and rebellion under the Old Covenant.

The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and He delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, allowing the Midianites to prevail against them. Because of this oppression, Israel was greatly impoverished, and they cried out to the LORD. In response, the LORD sent a prophet who reminded them of His past deliverance from Egypt and the gift of the land, declaring, "I am the LORD your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell." Yet, the prophet rebuked them, saying, "You have not obeyed My voice." Their disobedience, particularly in worshipping other gods out of fear, brought this curse upon them, as they had forsaken Him by not keeping His commandments. The LORD, through the prophet, offered no immediate promise of deliverance, emphasizing that they reaped what they had sown. He reminded them that forsaking Him would lead to such consequences, as He had warned in times past. This message echoed earlier warnings, such as when the Angel of the LORD spoke at Bochim, declaring that because they had not obeyed His voice, the inhabitants of the land and their gods would be thorns and snares to them. Similarly, in the time of King Asa, the prophet Azariah warned, "The LORD is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you." Gideon, reflecting on Israel's plight, questioned why the LORD had forsaken them, asking, "If the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us?" Yet, it was not the LORD who had forsaken Israel, but the people who had turned from Him, bringing the Midianite oppression as a consequence of their faithlessness. The lesson stands clear: forsaking the LORD leads to suffering, as He is under no obligation to intervene when His covenant is broken, though His grace may yet draw them back from the brink.