Jeremiah 8

1. They shall bring out the bones, etc. This might be done partly to obtain the jewels and treasures buried with the dead, but chiefly to insult the conquered people, by dishonouring the remains of their rulers and priests.

3 this evil family. The whole “house of Israel.”

4. Shall they fall, etc. Will not those who fall try to rise? Will not one who has taken a wrong road turn back? How irrational, then, is this persistence in sin, and refusal to repent?

7 her appointed times. For her migrations in spring and autumn. See Tristram: Natural History of the Bible.

the crane and the swallow. Rather, “the swift and the crane.” With these contrasts cp. Isa. i. 3.

the judgement. Rather, as R.V., “the ordinance”: given to the birds as an instinct, to men as a command; obeyed in the former case, disregarded in the latter.

8. How do ye say, etc.? An appeal to the recognised expounders of the law.

Lo, certainly in vain made He [it], etc. Rather, “But, behold, the false pen of the scribes hath turned it into falsehood”: cp. R.V. the pen of the scribes. The first mention of scribes as a literary class dates from Hezekiah’s day: they are called “men of Hezekiah” (Prov. xxv. 1). For the word see 2 Chron. xxxiv. 13, 15 (in Josiah’s time). The claim made by the scribes, “The law of the Eternal is with us,” shows that the Pentateuch or Torah existed in Jeremiah’s day as a recognised standard of religion. Hence its antiquity may be fairly presumed. As Dr. Payne-Smith, Dean of Canterbury, has well said: “The Torah must have existed in writing before there could have been an order of men whose special business it was to study it.”

10. Therefore will I give, etc. This and the following verses contain a solemn repetition of the charge and threatening in vi. 12-15.

that shall inherit. Or, as R.V., “that shall possess.” The idea is that of a forcible possession, as by invaders.

13. And [the things that] I have given them shall pass away. Rather, as R.V. marg., “And I have appointed them those that shall pass over them”; their enemies, like a devastating flood.

14 let us be silent there. i.e., let us cease from all resistance, as God has made it useless. The language is that of the people, one to another.

17. Which will not be charmed. Implacable enemies: see Psa. lviii. 5.

18. When I would comfort myself. “My sorrow is past healing” (Moffatt).

19 of the daughter of My people because of them that dwell, etc. Rather, as R.V., “of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off.” This is the cry of the future exiles, which is answered immediately by God’s complaint of their sins: “Why have they provoked Me?” etc.

20. The harvest is past. The reply of the exiles, meaning that all seasons of hope and opportunities of deliverance have passed away. “Summer” is literally “the fruit-gathering,” after the corn-harvest.

21. For the hurt, etc. The prophet himself now takes up the strain.

I am black. In the garb of mourning.

22. Gilead. Over which the sun rose at Anathoth. East of the Jordan, where the balsam-tree (opobalsamum) abounded. Some writers say that the balm was mastic, but Dr. G. E. Post, a recognised Oriental scholar and traveller, says the tree which produces it has not been found east of Jordan (Hastings’ Dict. of Bible: article “Balm”).