Jeremiah 8

Jeremiah 8:1

2. Judah’s Insensitivity to Sin (Chap. 8)8:1-7 The bones of those who worshiped the starry host of heaven will be dug up by the Babylonians and exposed to the heavens, and the living will wish they could die. Unlike those who fall and rise again, who sin and repent, Judah refused to return to Jehovah. As far as the law was concerned, the people compared unfavorably with the stork, the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow, which are obedient to their appointed laws of migration. 8:8-12 The people thought they were wise concerning the law of the LORD, but the scribe, the prophet, and the priest had misinterpreted and rejected it. They were covetous and deceitful, and dealt with problems superficially. For their shamelessness they would share in the coming time of punishment. 8:13-17 God will sweep them away like a fully-picked vine or fig tree. The people are resigned to perishing in the city. The Babylonian army advances like vipers which cannot be charmed. 8:18-22 The brokenhearted prophet seems to hear the exiled Jews asking, “Where is God?” God answers by asking why they had forsaken Him for images and foreign idols. Again the people wail that the deliverance for which they hoped never came. Jeremiah weeps inconsolably over the seemingly hopeless plight of the people. Verse 22 is the source of a well-known spiritual, “There Is a Balm in Gilead”: There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.