"The sermon ends (if these verses, still in prose, should be taken with ch. 7) on a note which takes away the last shreds of comfort for those whose hopes or memories are bound up with Jerusalem."183
8:1 When the invasion from the north came (cf. vv. 32-34), the Lord declared, the enemy soldiers would dig up the bodies of kings, princes, priests, prophets, and ordinary citizens (cf. Amos 2:1). Thus they would add insult to injury. The ancients believed that the spirits of unburied people would have no rest in the nether world.184Some of the reason for exhuming these corpses may have been to plunder the graves of the dead, a practice common in the ancient Near East.185
"Even in modern times, the opening up of graves and the throwing about of the bones of the departed is practiced as a mark of extreme contempt. In recent wars in the Middle East such desecrations and insult were perpetrated."186
8:2 The enemy soldiers would expose these bones to the sun, moon, and stars, which the Judahites had loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshipped.
". . . as if in fulfillment of the desires of the dead, their bones are laid out upon the earth, exposed to the very astral powers' whom once the dead had worshiped [sic]. And in the humiliation of the dead, their former heavenly masters were uncaring, complacently shining in the heavens, unconcerned about human fate on the face of the earth. Although in life the citizens of Judah had served these astral deities, offering them affection, soliciting their advice and counsel (much as their modern counterparts might read an astrological chart), in human death the futility of their actions was at last made plain."187
Worship of astral deities was popular in the days of Manasseh (2 Kings 21:3; 23:4) and later revived after Josiah's reforms (Ezek. 8:16). The land would resemble a bone yard because there would be few if any survivors from Judah to gather up the bones for burial (cf. ch. 37). Human bones would serve as fertilizer for the land instead of animal bones, which were often used for this purpose (cf. 16:4).
8:3 The scattered remnant who survived the invasion would consider death a more desirable alternative than life as displaced persons. They would feel this way because the lot of the living would be more miserable than that of the dead (cf. Lev. 26:36-39; Deut. 28:65-67; 2 Kings 25:5-7; Ps. 137; Rev. 9:6).
Some scholars believe that Jeremiah delivered this entire collection of speeches (7:1-8:3) at the temple (cf. 7:1-2). That may or may not be true. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to trace the origin of many of Jeremiah's undated prophecies, when and where he gave them originally.
