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.... [ Continue Reading ]
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.... [ Continue Reading ]
LOVED ... SERVED ... WALKED ... SOUGHT ... WORSHIPPED - There is great force in the piled-up verbs by which their worship of the heavenly bodies is described. The prophet beginning with the heart’s “love” describes that worship) in the various stages of its development, and then contrasts its fulnes... [ Continue Reading ]
THIS EVIL FAMILY - The whole Jewish race. WHICH REMAIN - The words are omitted by the Septuagint and Syriac versions.... [ Continue Reading ]
The prophet here resumes from Jeremiah 7:28 the main subject of his prophecy. He again invites the Jews to repentance. SHALL THEY FALL? - The argument is that when men fall, they do not lie upon the ground, but endeavor to get up again: and when a man loses his way, he does not persist in going on,... [ Continue Reading ]
When men act as in Jeremiah 8:4, why is God’s own people alone an exception? SLIDDEN BACK ... BACKSLIDING - The same words as “turn” and “return” in Jeremiah 8:4. They should be rendered, “Why doth this people of Jerusalem turn away with a perpetual turning?” DECEIT - i. e., idolatry; because men... [ Continue Reading ]
I HEARKENED AND HEARD - God, before passing sentence, carefully listens to the words of the people. Compare Genesis 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... [ Continue Reading ]
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 “... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LAW OF THE LORD - The “Torah,” or written law, the possession of which made the priests and prophets so boastfully exclaim, “We are wise.” LO, CERTAINLY ... - Rather, Verily, lo! the lying pen “of the scribes” hath made it - the Law - into a lie. The mention of “scribes” in this place is a cruci... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Mark 7:13.... [ Continue Reading ]
These verses are almost identical with Jeremiah 6:12. Jeremiah 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.... [ Continue Reading ]
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 dr... [ Continue Reading ]
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 si... [ Continue Reading ]
HEALTH ... TROUBLE - Or, “rest ... terror.”... [ Continue Reading ]
DAN - i. e. the northern boundary of the land. HIS STRONG ONES - i. e., “his war-horses.”... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Numbers 21:5. COCKATRICES - “Vipers.” See Isaiah 11:8 note.... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Jeremiah 9:1, in which the prophet mourns over the miserable fate of his countrymen, among whom he had been ea... [ Continue Reading ]
Or, “Behold the voice of the cry for help of the daughter of my people from a distant land: Is not Yahweh in Zion? Is not her king there? Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images, with foreign vanities?” Their complaint, “Is there no Jehovah in Zion?” is met by God demanding of th... [ Continue Reading ]
THE SUMMER - Rather, the fruit-gathering, which follows the grain-harvest. The grain has failed; the fruit-gathering has also proved unproductive; so despair seized the people when they saw opportunities for their deliverance again and again pass by, until God seemed utterly to have forgotten them.... [ Continue Reading ]
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.... [ Continue Reading ]
NO PHYSICIAN THERE - i. e., in Gilead. Balm used to grow in Israel for the healing of the nations. Her priests and prophets were the physicians. Has Israel then no balm for herself? Is there no physician in her who can bind up her wound? Gilead was to Israel what Israel spiritually was to the whole... [ Continue Reading ]