Jeremiah8chapter 8

Jeremiah 8:1

“Not the living only but the dead shall be exposed to the ruthless violence of the enemy, who will ransack the graves of the wealthier classes.”

Jeremiah 8:1

“The victorious Babylonians were about to violate the sanctuaries of the dead in search of plunder; for ornaments, treasures, and insignia of royalty were usually buried with kings. Or rather, their purpose was to do the greatest dishonor to the dead (Isa 14:19).”

Jeremiah 8:2

“The faithful, as I have said, suffer no loss, when burial is denied them; but yet they do not disregard burial, inasmuch as it is a badge of the resurrection.”

Jeremiah 8:2

“They sought them, consulted them as oracles, appealed to them as judges, implored their favour, and prayed to them as their benefactors. They worshipped them, gave them divine honour, as having a sovereign dominion over them.”

Jeremiah 8:3

“And death shall be chosen rather than life,.... By them that should be alive in those times, who would be carried captive into other lands, and be used very hardly, and suffer greatly, by the nations among whom they should dwell; see Rev 9:”

Jeremiah 8:4

“Moreover thou shalt say - Dr. Blayney very properly observes, “In that part of the prophecy which follows next, the difference of speakers requires to be attended to; the transition being quick and sudden, but full of life and energy. The prophet at first, in the name of God, reproves the people’s incorrigibility; he charges their wise ones with folly, and threatens them with grievous calamities, Jer 8:4-”

Jeremiah 8:5

“When men act as in Jer 8:4, why is God’s own people alone an exception? Slidden back ... backsliding - The same words as “turn” and “return” in Jer 8:4. They should be rendered, “Why doth this people of Jerusalem turn away with a perpetual turning?” Deceit - i. e., idolatry; because men worship in it that which is false, and it is false to the worshippers. Refuse - From a feeling of dislike.”

Jeremiah 8:5

“Sin is a great cheat, and they hold it fast; they love it dearly, and resolve to stick to it, and baffle all the methods God takes to separate between them and their sins. The excuses they make for their sins are deceits, and so are all their hopes of impunity; yet they hold fast these, and will not be undeceived, and therefore they refuse to return.”

Jeremiah 8:6

“I hearkened and heard - God, before passing sentence, carefully listens to the words of the people. Compare Gen 11:5, where the divine judgment is preceded by the Almighty going down to see the tower. Not aright - Or, “not-right;” which in the Hebrew idiom means that which is utterly wrong. No man repented - The original phrase is very striking: No “man had pity upon his own wickedness.” If men understood the true nature of sin, the sinner would repent out of very pity upon himself.”

Jeremiah 8:7

Jeremiah appeals to the obedience which migratory birds render to the law of their natures. The “stork” arrives in Palestine about March 21, and after a six weeks’ halt departs for the north of Europe. It takes its flight by day, at a vast height in the air (“in the heaven”). The appearance of the “turtle-dove” is one of the pleasant signs of the approach of spring. The crane and the swallow - Rather, “the swift and the crane.”

Jeremiah 8:7

“It is an instance of their sottishness that, though they are God's people, and therefore should readily understand his mind upon every intimation of it, yet they know not the judgment of the Lord; they apprehend not the meaning either of a mercy or an affliction, not how to accommodate themselves to either, nor to answer God's intention in either.”

Jeremiah 8:8-9

The blessed prophet Jeremiah loudly condemned the ignorance, at once, and pride of the Jews, rebuking them in these words; "How say you that we are wise, and the word of the Lord is with us? In vain is the lying cord of the scribes. The wise men are ashamed: they trembled, and were taken: what wisdom have they, in that they have rejected the Word of the Lord!"

Jeremiah 8:8

“The pen of the scribes is in vain - The deceitful pen of the scribes. They have written falsely, though they had the truth before them. It is too bold an assertion to say that “the Jews have never falsified the sacred oracles;” they have done it again and again. They have written falsities when they knew they were such.”

Jeremiah 8:8

“How - These things considered where is your wisdom? He speaks to the whole body of the people. The Lord - This may have a more special eye to the priests.”

Jeremiah 8:8

“God has indeed made it able to make men wise to salvation, but as to them it is made so in vain, for they are never the wiser for it: The pen of the scribes, of those that first wrote the law and of those that now write expositions of it, is in vain. Both the favour of their God and the labour of their scribes are lost upon them; they receive the grace of God therein in vain.”

Jeremiah 8:9

“They have rejected the word of the Lord - It became in the hands of the Soferim or scribes a mere code of ceremonial observance. Compare Mar 7:13.”

Jeremiah 8:9

“None to any purpose; none that will be found to their praise at the great day, how much soever it is found to their pride now. The pretenders to wisdom, who said, " We are wise and the law of the Lord is with us, " were the priests and the false prophets; with them the prophet here deals plainly. He threatens the judgments of God against them.”

Jeremiah 8:10

“Therefore will I give their wives unto others,.... To strangers, to the Gentiles; than which nothing could be more disagreeable to them, or a sorer punishment, of a temporal one: and their fields to them that shall inherit them; or, to the heirs (i); other and new ones; and who should possess them as if they were the true and rightful heirs of them.”

Jeremiah 8:10

“These verses are almost identical with Jer 6:12-15. Jer 8:10 To them that shall inherit them - Rather, “to those that shall take possession of them, i. e., “to conquerors who shall take them by force.”

Jeremiah 8:11

“But what can I do, I who can only wish for peace and have no power to bring it about? Even though the wish may win its reward with God, its futility must still sadden one who cherishes it. When the apostle said, "as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all," he knew quite well that the realization of peace depends on the consent of two parties. The prophet truly cries, "They say Peace, peace: and yet there is no peace." To overthrow peace by actions while professing it in words is not hard.”

Jeremiah 8:13

“Or, “I will gather and sweep them away, saith Jehovah: there are no grapes on the vine, and no figs on the fig-tree, and the leaf is dry: therefore will I appoint those that shall pass over them.” Judah is a vine which bears no fruit: a tree which makes even no profession of life, for her leaf is dry. Many explain the last words of an army sweeping over the land like a flood.”

Jeremiah 8:13

“It is expounded in the last clause: The things that I have given them shall pass away from them. Note, God's gifts are upon condition, and revocable upon non-performance of the condition. Mercies abused are forfeited, and it is just with God to take the forfeiture.”

Jeremiah 8:14

“Why do we sit still?.... In the country, where were barrenness and want of provisions; in the villages and unwalled towns, where they were exposed to the spoils and ravages of the enemy. These words, with what follow, are the words of the prophet, in the language of the Israelites, as Kimchi observes.”

Jeremiah 8:14

“The people rouse one another to exertion. “Why,” they ask, “do we remain here to be overwhelmed?” They are ready now to follow the command given (see the marginal reference), but with the conviction that all hope is over. Let us be silent there - Rather, let us perish there, literally “be put to silence.” Water of gall - i. e., poison. The word rendered “gall” was probably the belladonna, or night-shade, to the “berries” of which the grapes of Israel were compared.”

Jeremiah 8:16

“The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan - From this to the end of Jer 8:15 is repeated from Babylon to Jerusalem; and it was by this city, after the battle of Carchemish, that Nebuchadnezzar, in pursuing the Egyptians, entered Palestine. The whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones - Of his war horses. This is a fine image; so terrible was the united neighing of the cavalry of the Babylonians that the reverberation of the air caused the ground to tremble.”

Jeremiah 8:16

“The snorting - The fury of the Chaldeans march is described by the snorting of their horses, which is a noise they make through their nostrils. Heard - Even to Jerusalem. Have devoured - It is spoken in a prophetical style, who use to express the certainty of what shall be, as if it actually were already.”

Jeremiah 8:17

“For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you,.... The Chaldeans, comparable to these noxious and hurtful creatures, because of the mischief they should do unto them. The Targum is, "for, lo, I will raise up against you people that kill as the destroying serpents.'' These were raised up by the Lord, and sent by him, just as he sent fiery serpents among the Israelites in the wilderness, when they sinned against him; there literally, here metaphorically.”

Jeremiah 8:17

“I will send - Or, am sending. No prophet changes his metaphors so suddenly as Jeremiah. The invading army is now compared to snakes, whom no charming can soothe, and whose bite is fatal. Compare Num 21:5-6. Cockatrices - “Vipers.” See Isa 11:8 note.”

Jeremiah 8:17

“I--Jehovah. cockatrices--basilisks (Isa 11:8), that is, enemies whose destructive power no means, by persuasion or otherwise, can counteract. Serpent-charmers in the East entice serpents by music, and by a particular pressure on the neck render them incapable of darting (Ps 58:4, 5).”

Jeremiah 8:18

“When I would comfort myself against terror,.... Either naturally, by eating and drinking, the necessary and lawful means of refreshment; or spiritually, by reading the word of God, and looking over the promises in it: my heart is faint in me; at the consideration of the calamities which were coming upon his people, and which were made known to him by a spirit of prophecy, of which he had no room to doubt. So the Targum takes them to be the words of the prophet, paraphrasing them, "for them, saith the prophet, my heart grieves.''”

Jeremiah 8:18

“Rather, “O my comfort in sorrow: my heart faints for me.” The word translated “comfort” is by some supposed to be corrupt. With these mournful ejaculations a new strophe begins, ending with Jer 9:1, in which the prophet mourns over the miserable fate of his countrymen, among whom he had been earnestly laboring, but all in vain.”

Jeremiah 8:18

“The lamentation of the prophet for the impending calamity of his country. against sorrow--or, with respect to sorrow. MAURER translates, "Oh, my exhilaration as to sorrow!" that is, "Oh, that exhilaration ('comfort', from an Arabic root, to shine as the rising sun) would shine upon me as to my sorrow!" in me--within me.”

Jeremiah 8:18-22

“Death shall not now be, as it always used to be--the repose of the dead. When Job makes his court to the grave it is in hope of this, that there he shall rest with kings and counsellors of the earth; but now the ashes of the dead, even of kings and princes, shall be disturbed, and their bones scattered at the grave's mouth, Ps. cxli.”

Jeremiah 8:19

“In the latter half of the verse God replies that their own idolatry, not want of faithfulness on His part, is the cause. because of them that dwell in a far country--rather, "from a land of distances," that is, a distant land (Isa 39:3).”

Jeremiah 8:20

The harvest is past - The siege of Jerusalem lasted two years; for Nebuchadnezzar came against it in the ninth year of Zedekiah, and the city was taken in the eleventh; see 2Ki 25:1-3. This seems to have been a proverb: “We expected deliverance the first year - none came. We hoped for it the second year - we are disappointed; we are not saved - no deliverance is come.”

Jeremiah 8:20

“THIS is a very mournful chapter, especially if we include in it, as we rightly should, the first verse of the ninth chapter: "O that my head were waters." The passage is full of lamentation and woe and yet it is somewhat amazing that the chief mourner is not one who was likely to be in trouble. Jeremiah was under the special protection of God and he escaped in the evil day. Even when Nebuchadnezzar was exercising his utmost rage, Jeremiah was in no danger, for the heart of the fierce monarch was kindly towards him.”

Jeremiah 8:20

“Note, The salvation of God's church and people often goes on very slowly, and God keeps his people long in the expectation of it, for wise and holy ends. Nay, they stand in their own light, and put a bar in their own door, and are not saved because they are not ready for salvation.”

Jeremiah 8:21

“For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt,.... These are the words, not of God, as Jerom; nor of Jerusalem, as the Targum; but of the prophet, as Kimchi observes, expressing his sympathy with the people in their affliction: and they may be rendered, "for the breach of the daughter of my people" (o), which was made when the city was broken up and destroyed, Jer 52:7. I am broken; in heart and spirit: I am black; with grief and sorrow.”

Jeremiah 8:21

“For the hurt ... hurt - literally, “Because of the breaking ... broken.” These are the words of the prophet, whose heart is crushed by the cry of his countrymen. I am black - Or, I go mourning.”

Jeremiah 8:21

“Jeremiah had prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, and, though the truth of his prophecy was questioned, yet he did not rejoice in the proof of the truth of his prophecy was questioned, yet he did not rejoice in the proof of the truth of it by the accomplishment of it, preferring the welfare of his country before his own reputation.”

Jeremiah 8:22

“Is there no balm in Gilead?.... Which was famous for it; see Gen 37:25, or rather turpentine or rosin, a gum which drops from pine trees and the like; since balm or balsam grew on this side Jordan, near Jericho and Engedi, and not beyond Jordan, in the land of Gilead; and rosin is good for healing.”

Jeremiah 8:22

“The opobalsamum of PLINY; or else [BOCHART] the resin drawn from the terebinth. It abounded in Gilead, east of Jordan, where, in consequence, many "physicians" established themselves (Jer 46:11; 43:11). health . . . recovered--The Hebrew is literally, "lengthening out . . . gone up"; hence, the long bandage applied to bind up a wound.”

Jeremiah 8:22

“The physician and physic were both ready, but the patient was wilful and irregular, would not be tied to rules, but must be humoured. Note, If sinners die of their wounds, their blood is upon their own heads. The blood of Christ is balm in Gilead, his Spirit is the physician there, both sufficient, all-sufficient, so that they might have been healed, but would not.”