Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 2:31

"O generation, see ye the word of Jehovah. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? or a land of thick darkness? wherefore say my people, We are broken loose; we will come no more unto thee?" — Jeremiah 2:31 (ASV)

O generation, see. —The pronoun occupies a different position in the Hebrew: “O generation, you, I mean, see.” The prophet speaks to the men who are actually his contemporaries. They are to look to the word of the Lord. Has He been to them as a wasteland, a land of thick darkness (literally, according to one interpretation, darkness of Jah, in the sense of intensity), that they are thus unmindful of Him? So in Song of Solomon 8:6 we have “flame of Jah,” as representing the Hebrew, in the margin, and “very vehement flame” in the text, of the Authorized Version.

We are lords. —Better, We rove at will, as in Genesis 27:40, where, however, the Authorized Version gives when you will have the dominion. The sense is practically the same. Israel claims the power to do as she likes.