Jeremiah 8 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Jeremiah 8

8:1 “At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. 2 And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. And they shall not be gathered or buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. 3 Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, declares the LORD of hosts.

Sin and Treachery

4   “You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD:
  When men fall, do they not rise again?
    If one turns away, does he not return?
5   Why then has this people turned away
    in perpetual backsliding?
  They hold fast to deceit;
    they refuse to return.
6   I have paid attention and listened,
    but they have not spoken rightly;
  no man relents of his evil,
    saying, ‘What have I done?’
  Everyone turns to his own course,
    like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
7   Even the stork in the heavens
    knows her times,
  and the turtledove, swallow, and crane¹
    keep the time of their coming,
  but my people know not
    the rules² of the LORD.
8   “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    and the law of the LORD is with us’?
  But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
    has made it into a lie.
9   The wise men shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed and taken;
  behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD,
    so what wisdom is in them?
10   Therefore I will give their wives to others
    and their fields to conquerors,
  because from the least to the greatest
    everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
  from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.
11   They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
    saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
    when there is no peace.
12   Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
    No, they were not at all ashamed;
    they did not know how to blush.
  Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
    when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
      says the LORD.
13   When I would gather them, declares the LORD,
    there are no grapes on the vine,
    nor figs on the fig tree;
  even the leaves are withered,
    and what I gave them has passed away from them.”³
14   Why do we sit still?
  Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities
    and perish there,
  for the LORD our God has doomed us to perish
    and has given us poisoned water to drink,
    because we have sinned against the LORD.
15   We looked for peace, but no good came;
    for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
16   “The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;
    at the sound of the neighing of their stallions
    the whole land quakes.
  They come and devour the land and all that fills it,
    the city and those who dwell in it.
17   For behold, I am sending among you serpents,
    adders that cannot be charmed,
    and they shall bite you,”
      declares the LORD.

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

18   My joy is gone; grief is upon me;⁴
    my heart is sick within me.
19   Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
    from the length and breadth of the land:
  “Is the LORD not in Zion?
    Is her King not in her?”
  “Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
    and with their foreign idols?”
20   “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
    and we are not saved.”
21   For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
    I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
22   Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
  Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
    not been restored?

Footnotes

[1] 8:7 The meaning of the Hebrew word is uncertain
[2] 8:7 Or just decrees
[3] 8:13 The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
[4] 8:18 Compare Septuagint; the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain

Commentary

v1-3: The shame of bones dug up, contradicting the Jewish hope of resurrection. The idols would give no help beyond the grave.

v4-6: Repentance is a mark of having heard God’s voice, but the people refused to repent. None were willing to repent, or even to consider God’s claims on their lives. They continued in their own, sinful, ways.

v7: The people were ignorant of God’s ways. They knew what had happened to Israel, they had already suffered some judgment, but they refused to recognise that this was God’s work. The natural cycles of animals are contrasted with Judah’s spiritual ignorance.

v8-9: They claimed to be wise, but they rejected the word of the Lord, which they claimed to know. So “what kind of wisdom do they have?” For there is no other wisdom.

v10-12: See 6.12-15. Poor leadership, covetous attitudes, full of falsehood and complacency. The message of false peace, bringing healing, but only ‘slightly, a false message that cannot bring true spiritual blessing. And there was no shame in their wrong doing.

We read “therefore” and “so;” God’s judgment fell for specific reasons. There was no doubt that God’s judgment would fall, and there was no doubt that He fulfilled His own word.

v13: The harvest, a part of God’s promise for the land; even this would be taken away.

v14-16: The prophet’s encouragement to the people, urging them to repent. Dan was at the extreme north of Israel, and so these words indicate the approach of the Babylonian army.

There is a sense of resignation here; v4-6 indicate an apparent inability to repent, and v14 suggests that judgment could not be averted. No wonder the prophet himself endured such sorrow, as he saw the state of his people.

v17: As an aside, God would send snakes among them.

v18-19: Jeremiah’s own sorrow, reflecting his deep concern for the people. He was already seeing the people far away, in exile from their land.

v20: No salvation, even though their opportunity had come. The Lord is more than willing to receive His people again.

v21: I am hurt, I am mourning, such was the depth of his concern for his people. He suffered with them, compare 1 Cor 12.26.

v22: The needed balm and physician were available; everything necessary was found in God. But there was no recovery for there was no repentance. There is great irony here - the region of Gilead seems to have suffered more than most. Damascus had 'threshed Gilead' (Amos 1.3) and Ammon had 'ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead (Amos 1.13).