Jeremiah 8:6

Jeremiah also says, in like manner: "The turtle and the swallow have known her time, and the sparrows of the field have observed the times of their coming, but my people have not known the judgment of the Lord. How do you say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? The meting out is in vain. The scribes are deceived and confounded. The wise men are dismayed and taken, for they have rejected the word of the Lord." Therefore (as I had begun to say), when God had determined to send to people a teacher of righteousness, he commanded him to be born again a second time in the flesh and to be made in the likeness of humankind himself, to whom he was about to be a guide, and companion and teacher. But since God is kind and merciful to his people, he sent him to those very persons whom he hated, that he might not close the way of salvation against them forever but might give them a free opportunity of following God, that they might both gain the reward of life if they should follow him (which many of them do and have done) and incur the penalty of death by their fault if they should reject their King.

Wherefore it were meet exceedingly to admire the consideration of our Lawgiver, in that, when He might bring forward His illustration from among men, and when He might have spoken of Moses and Elias and John, and others like them, who took no thought; that He might touch them more to the quick, He made mention of the irrational beings. For had He spoken of those righteous men, these would have been able to say, "We are not yet become like them." But now by passing them over in silence, and bringing forward the fowls of the air, He hath cut off from them every excuse, imitating in this place also the old law. Yea, for the old covenant likewise sends to the bee, and to the ant, and to the turtle, and to the swallow. And neither is this a small sign of honor, when the same sort of things, which those animals possess by nature, those we are able to accomplish by an act of our choice.

(2.) They were so far from repenting of their sins that they went on resolutely in their sins: Every one turned to his course, his wicked course, that course of sin which he had chosen and accustomed himself to, as the horse rushes into the battle, eager upon action, and scorning to be curbed. How the horse rushes into the battle is elegantly described, Job xxxix.

I hearkened and heard,....

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.