The twin themes of Judah's stubborn rebellion and her inevitable doom tie this section of miscellaneous messages together. The section contains mostly poetic material, and the prophecies bear the marks of Jehoiakim's early reign (perhaps shortly after 609 B.C.).
8:4 The Lord commanded Jeremiah to ask the people if it was not normal for people to repent after sinning. After all, when someone falls down, the natural thing to do is to get up. When he gets lost, he tries to get back on the right way as soon as possible.
8:5 But the people of Jerusalem had behaved unnaturally in continuing in their apostate condition. They insisted on being deceitful and they refused to return to the Lord even though they had stumbled and lost their way. This was irrational behavior.188
8:6 The Lord had heard what the people were saying, which was not right. They were refusing to acknowledge their sin (cf. 5:1-3). They were headed for trouble, like a horse rushing headlong into battle.
8:7 The migratory birds that visited Palestine yearly knew instinctively when it was time for them to change direction and fly either north or south, depending on the season. But the Judeans had more specific direction from the Lord in His word and the promptings of His love. Yet they did not see that it was time for them to change the direction of their lives (cf. 5:22-23).
"In matters spiritual and moral we act with a perversity which is quite unlike our common sense at other levels, let alone the impressive wisdom of our fellow creatures (even the bird-brained, 7a!)."189
The Judahites were not even as smart as birds.
8:8 The people were claiming that they knew God's word and were obeying it. However, it was only because their experts in the law had perverted it that they could say such a thing (cf. 2 Pet. 3:16). The scribes kept official records, copied important documents, and taught the people the law.
8:9 The Lord's word through Jeremiah had exposed these "wise men."They had rejected the Lord's word, and that was not "wise."
8:10 Since all the spiritual leaders, from the least to the greatest, lived for money and persisted in their deceit, the Lord would give their wives and fields to new owners, namely, the invaders (cf. Deut. 28:30).
"Dark is the day when people reject God's Word. Darker it is when the ministers of the Word betray their holy commission.190
8:11 Those in positions of spiritual leadership had provided panaceas for the people by telling them that all was well, but all was far from well.
8:12 These leaders were not in the least ashamed by their conduct, not even enough to blush. Therefore the Lord would cause them to fall when the rest of the people fell in the coming invasion (cf. 6:12-15).
"Could men reach a stage of apostasy where they would never repent? Yes they could, and Judah had reached that point [cf. Heb. 6:4-6]."191
This passage is a scathing indictment of Judah's spiritual leaders.
8:13 The Lord also declared that He would snatch the Judahites from their land. He had gone forth among His people to gather a harvest of righteousness, but all He found on His vines and fig trees was withered leaves, no grapes or figs (cf. 2:21; 5:10; 6:9; Matt. 21:18-19; Luke 13:6-9; John 15:2). Consequently, He would remove their former blessings.
8:14 Jeremiah called his fellow countrymen to go with him to the walled cities where they could resist the invader for at least a little longer before they perished. He recognized that the coming judgment was from the Lord because the people had sinned so greatly. He compared their judgment to being given poisoned water ("gall"AV) to drink.
8:15 The people had waited for the peace and healing that the false prophet kept promising (v. 11), but it never came. Instead terror had overtaken them.
8:16 The invader could be heard approaching from the north. The people living at Dan, Israel's northernmost city, heard the army coming first. The whole earth shook because of the number and strength of the advancing army. Its purpose was to consume everything in the land including Jerusalem and its citizens.
8:17 The enemy would be like a batch of poisonous snakes that no one could charm that would bite the people fatally (cf. Num. 21:6-9).
8:18 The prospect of this catastrophic invasion overwhelmed Jeremiah with sorrow. It made him weak, and he could not get over his anguish.
8:19 He could hear his people in captivity bitterly crying out. They longed for Jerusalem where their God was, their true King. Why was He not helping them? They remembered Him marveling that they had provoked Him by worshipping images and idols.
8:20 The time for divine deliverance had come and gone. The Lord had left them exposed to judgment, as grain left standing after the harvest.
"It would appear that we have here a popular proverb used in daily life when men encountered a hopeless situation from which no deliverance or escape seemed possible. Jeremiah pictured the people of Judah as having passed by one opportunity after another to repent of their rebellious ways and so be delivered or saved(Heb. nosha') from coming judgment."192
8:21 Jeremiah was all broken up over the broken condition of his people. Dismay had seized him, and he could not stop mourning.
8:22 Gilead, east of the Jordan River, was a source for healing balsam, but no healing was forthcoming for Judah.193
"The balm referred to is the resin or gum of the storax tree. It was used medicinally (cf. Gen 37:25; Jer 46:11; 51:8; Ezek 27:17)."194
No physician was on the horizon either, even though Yahweh was Israel's Great Physician (Exod. 15:26). The prophet marveled that Israel's Great Physician had not provided healing for His people, but he knew that their affliction was judgment for their sins.
9:1 Jeremiah loved his people so much that he wished he had more tears to shed for those of them that had died (cf. 2 Sam. 18:33; Matt. 23:37; Luke 19:41-44; Rom. 9:1-5; 10:1). His empathy with his people's sufferings earned him the nickname "the weeping prophet"(cf. 13:17; 14:17).195
9:2 Jeremiah longed for a place of retreat in the wilderness where he could go to get away from his fellow countrymen.196Their spiritual adultery and treachery repulsed him.
9:3 The Lord added that they assassinated people with their words, which they used as arrows. They spoke falsehood more than the truth. They went from one evil thing to another giving evidence of no acquaintance with Yahweh (cf. Rom. 1:28).
9:4 The Lord advised His people to be on guard against their neighbors and not to trust their fellow Israelites because they all dealt deceitfully and slandered one another. The word translated "craftily"comes from the same Hebrew root as "Jacob,"ya'qob. The people were behaving like Jacob at his worst. This was civil unrest at its worst.
9:5 They intentionally deceived their neighbors, cultivated the skill of lying, and pursued iniquity so strenuously that it wore them out.
9:6 Deceit was their environment so much that it prevented them from having much of a relationship with Yahweh. Note the recurrence of "deceit"and its synonyms in this pericope. They did not know God (v. 3), and they refused to know Him. Even though they studied deception (v. 5) they refused to "know"Him.
"The verb yada', know,' denotes much more than intellectual knowledge but rather that deep intimate knowledge that follows on the personal commitment of one life to another, which is at its deepest in the commitment of a man to God [cf. Amos 3:2]."197
9:7 The sovereign Lord promised to put the Judean sinners through a refining process and to assay their value because the present dear generation of His people was so wicked (cf. 6:27-30; Mal. 3:3). He could do nothing else.
9:8 The tongue of this "daughter"was as deadly as an arrow (cf. v. 3). Her words appeared to be peaceful, but she was really setting a trap for her neighbors. People greeted their neighbors amicably on the streets, but in their hearts they intended to do them harm.
9:9 Yahweh asked, interrogatively, if He should not punish such a nation for their deceits. His nation had become like all the other nations (cf. vv. 24-25). Should He not avenge Himself by punishing Judah for violating His covenant commands?
"The grief of God is caused not only by what the people have done to him but more especially by what they have done to each other."198
9:10 The Lord took up a lamentation on behalf of the land that suffered because of His people's sin. The coming invasion would leave the land deserted even by beasts and birds. The rest of this message indicates that the invasion had not yet taken place. Jeremiah was describing a future event as though it was already past.
9:11 The Lord would make Jerusalem a ruin where jackals (or wolves) would prowl freely without fear of human interference (cf. 10:22; 49:33; 51:37). He would also make the other cities of Judah uninhabited desolations. Jeremiah might have wanted to flee from Jerusalem to the wilderness (v. 2), but God would turn the city into a wilderness.
9:12 Yahweh called for some wise person to step forward, someone who could explain the reason for the land's coming desolate condition.
9:13 The Lord Himself provided the answer to His own question. The land would lay desolate because His people had abandoned His covenant with them, had not walked in its commandments, and had not paid attention to His messages to them. The Israelites had promised to do these things at Mount Sinai (Exod. 19:4-8).
9:14 Instead the people had followed their own desires and the Baals just like their ancestors. Stubbornness was one of their chief sins (cf. Deut. 29:18; Ps. 81:13).
"The threat of stubbornness' still exists today. It has been described as atrophy of the will.' When people stubbornly refuse to do right, the time comes when they cannot do right. Judgment then comes in the form of living in the prison you have erected for yourself."199
9:15 Because the people were stubborn the Lord promised to feed them with wormwood (instead of honey) and to give them poisoned water ("gall"AV, instead of milk) to drink (cf. 8:14; 23:15; Deut. 29:18; Matt. 27:34).200
9:16 He would also scatter them among nations that would be unfamiliar to them and their forefathers. Violence would follow them until the Lord had annihilated them. This would be the fate of many ungodly Judahites, not the whole nation (cf. 4:27; 5:18; 30:11).
What follows is a brilliant prophetic elegy. It contains two pronouncements from the Lord (vv. 17-21 and 22).
9:17 The Lord called Jeremiah to summon the professional mourners (Heb. meqonenoth) to come forward.
"In the Middle East even today, on the occasion of deaths or calamities, mourning is carried out by professional women who follow the funeral bier uttering a high-pitched shriek. Some of the Egyptian tomb paintings depict boatloads of professional mourners with their hair and garments disheveled accompanying a corpse on its way to a burial."201
9:18 The Lord wanted these women to come quickly and mourn on His behalf, wailing and shedding many tears.
9:19 The reason for this mourning was that the residents of Zion would bewail their ruin and shame in having to leave the land as captives with their homes destroyed.202
9:20 Jeremiah instructed the professional mourners in the Lord's name to teach their daughters how to wail and to teach their neighbors a dirge.
9:21 Death had invaded the city like a plague. It had entered homes and palaces, and it was cutting off children and youths from the public places.203
9:22 Men too would die in the open fields and lie there uncared for, like dung or like scraps of wheat left after a harvest.
"Here we see Death as the Grim Reaper. The custom was for a reaper to hold in his arm what a few strokes of his sickle had cut. Then he put it down, and behind him another laborer then gathered it into bundles and bound it into a sheaf. So death was to cover the ground with corpses, but the carcasses would lie there unburied because of the paucity of survivors and the great number of dead [cf. Rom. 6:23]."204
This reflection on the nature of true wisdom contrasts strongly with the preceding dirge. In such crucial days, Judah's only hope lay in her relationship with God. The thematic connection with the context is judgment.
9:23 The Lord commanded that the wise and strong and rich should not take pride in their wisdom and strength and wealth.205
9:24 Instead the person who felt satisfied should do so because he or she understood and knew Yahweh as a God who loves and practices loyal love (loyalty, loving kindness, steadfast love, unfailing devotion, merciful love, Heb. hesed), justice (Heb. mishpat), and righteousness (right, integrity, deliverance, salvation, Heb. sedaqa) on the earth. Truly knowing the Lord in this way implies participating with Him in valuing and practicing these essential covenant virtues. The standard is not social custom or community consensus but the character and will of Yahweh (cf. 1 Cor. 1:31; 2 Cor. 10:17; James 1:9).
". . . true religion consists in a personal and existential knowledge of God, and in a commitment to those qualities displayed by Yahweh himself--unfailing loyalty, justice, and right dealing."206
This verse is a concise summary of Israel's religion at its highest. For Israel true religion consisted of acknowledging the sovereignty of God over all of life and allowing Him to produce the qualities that mark Him in the lives of all His people.
Trust in religious ritual is just as wrong as trust in human achievements.
"Just as the knowledge of God is more important than wisdom, power, or might, even so faith that springs from the heart is more important than any outward show of religion."207
9:25 The Lord promised to punish those circumcised in one way but not in another in the future.
9:26 This would include the Gentile nations that practiced circumcision as well as Israel. There was no essential difference between these nations and Israel since they all practiced the superficial requirement of the Mosaic Law but had not really devoted themselves to the Lord wholeheartedly (cf. Gen. 17:9-14). They were the circumcised of body but not of heart (cf. 4:4; 6:10; Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Rom. 2:25-29). It was only what circumcision symbolized that Yahweh accepted, not just the practice of the rite by itself. Certain Arab tribes trimmed their hair away from their temples (cf. 25:23; 49:32), which the Law forbade the Israelites from doing (Lev. 19:27), but they did practice circumcision. Thus Judah was no better than her neighbors and could expect punishment just as the pagan nations could.
This scathing exposé of the folly of idolatry resembles several polemics in Isaiah (cf. Isa. 40:18-20; 41:6-7; 44:9-20; 46:5-7). Verses 12-16 appear again in 51:15-19.
"Why did so easy a target as idolatry need so many attacks in the Old Testament? Verse 9 suggests one reason: the appeal of the visually impressive; but perhaps verse 2 goes deeper, in pointing to the temptation to fall into step with the majority."208
A study of the architecture of the passage reveals alternating assertions about idols (vv. 2-5, 8-9, 11, 14-15) and Yahweh (vv. 6-7, 10, 12-13, 16).
"Theologically these verses are of great significance, for they set Yahweh apart from every other object of worship. . . . As Lord of the covenant Yahweh demanded total unswerving loyalty from his subjects. Any attempt to share allegiance to him with another merited judgment, for it amounted to a rejection of the covenant. In that case the curses of the covenant became operative."209
10:1 The prophet again called his Israelite audience to hear the message that Yahweh had for them. There were people in Judah who were venerating idols who needed to hear this message.
10:2 He warned His people not to be disciples of the Gentile nations, specifically not to let the celestial phenomena that the nations looked to for guidance frighten them. The nations regarded abnormalities in the heavens as divine signs and held them in awe, particularly unusual phenomena such as comets, meteors, and eclipses. But it was Yahweh who controlled these things (cf. Gen. 1:14; Hab. 3:4, 11).
10:3 The worship of the Gentiles was an empty delusion. They worshipped only wood cut from the forest that a craftsman shaped with a tool. These gods were no more than pieces of wood.
10:4 They decorated their idols with precious metal and nailed them in place so they would not fall over. How ridiculous it is to worship something that cannot even keep itself upright much less its devotees.
10:5 These idols were similar to scarecrows whose only power is to frighten birds. They did not speak to command, counsel, or comfort their worshippers. They could not walk to come to the aid of their worshippers. People had to carry them; they were burdens to be borne rather than bearers of their worshippers' burdens. God's people should not fear them because they do neither harm nor good. They are do-nothing gods.
10:6 Yahweh, on the other hand, is unique among the deities that people worship. He is great, and He had a reputation for acting mightily.
10:7 People naturally fear Him (cf. v. 5) because He is the sovereign over all nations. The ancients believed that idols only had authority over certain geographical territories. Yahweh is also wiser than any wise men anywhere.
10:8 So-called wise men from the nations who worship a wooden idol are really stupid and foolish (cf. 1 Cor. 1:21). Their disciplined worship is just a delusion accomplishing nothing.
10:9 The idolaters imported silver from Tarshish to the far west, probably Tartessus in Spain, and gold from Uphaz (location unknown).210Craftsmen and goldsmiths then glorified these images that had no glory of their own. They dressed the idols up like little kings with royal-colored fabrics, but that did not make them kings since they were merely human artifacts.
10:10 Yahweh is the true God; idols are false gods. He is alive; they are dead, really nonexistent. He is the King who lives forever; they are only temporary and destructible. He controls the earth and makes it quake when He is angry; they have no power at all. The nations are unable to endure His indignation when He manifests it; the idols have no indignation and are impotent to manifest any feelings whatsoever.
10:11 Jeremiah instructed his audience to say that these idols would perish because they were human creations rather than the divine Creator.
This is the only Aramaic verse in Jeremiah.
"The Tg [Targum] prefaces v 11 with these words: This is the copy of the letter which the Prophet Jeremiah sent to the leaders of the exile in Babylon: "If the Chaldeans say to you, worship our idols, then answer them as follows."This suggests that v 11 was a shortened version of a letter sent by Jeremiah to Jehoiachin and the other exiles in Babylon [where Aramaic was spoken] between 598 and 587 B.C. (compare 29:1-32)."211
Another possibility is that this verse represents a well-known saying that someone, perhaps an Aramaic speaker, added to the text under divine inspiration. 212
10:12 Yahweh is the Creator. His power, wisdom, and understanding were responsible for creating and establishing the universe.
10:13 He is responsible for the rains and storms, even the lightning, on the earth. He summons the winds from His celestial storehouse with a mere word, and they blow on the earth. The Canaanites attributed all these powers to Baal. Every thunderstorm testifies to the omnipotence of Yahweh.
10:14 Everyone who worships idols is stupid and ignorant (cf. 1 Cor. 8:4-6). Their inability to do anything shames those who glorify them.
10:15 Idols have no worth. They mock those who make them by their silence. And they are unable to defend themselves so they perish whenever the true God chooses to humiliate them.
10:16 Yahweh, the God who gave Himself in a special relationship to such an unworthy person as Jacob, is not like the idols because He is the Creator. He adopted Israel as His special treasure among the nations (Exod. 19:5-6). He is Yahweh Almighty.
10:17 Jeremiah called those living during the siege of Jerusalem to pack their bags. He often warned his hearers of the coming invasion by speaking as if the enemy was attacking. Consequently it is very difficult, if not impossible, to date these prophecies unless they contain a more specific indication of their historical origin.
10:18 The Lord had announced that He was going to send Jerusalem's citizens away soon, as a shepherd throws a stone out of his sling. This would be a very distressing experience for them, but it would bring them to their senses.
10:19 The people, for whom the prophet spoke, bewailed their calamity viewing it as an incurable injury that the Lord had inflicted on them. Yet they realized that there was no escape from it and they had to endure the experience.
10:20 Their homes lay in ruins, and there was no one to help them rebuild them. Jerusalem, as a pitiful tent-dwelling mother, had lost her home and her children.
10:21 Israel's leaders, political and spiritual, had foolishly forsaken the Lord and His covenant, so they became failures and their people scattered like sheep (cf. Ezek. 34).
10:22 The report of a great commotion in the north had reached Jerusalem. An invader was coming who threatened to destroy the towns of Judah so thoroughly that only jackals (or wolves) would inhabit them.
"There is not a single known case where a town of Judah proper was continuously occupied through the exilic period."213
In view of the coming invasion, Jeremiah prayed to Yahweh. Earlier God had told him not to pray that He would stop the invasion (7:16; cf. 11:14; 14:11-12). But here the prophet did not pray for that but for God to correct him (and Judah) and to judge the nations.
10:23 The prophet confessed that people do not have the wisdom to direct their own steps in safe and successful paths (cf. Ps. 37:23; Prov. 3:5-6; 16:9; 20:24).
10:24 He invited the Lord to correct him, to lead him in the proper way, but to do it with justice (without undue severity). If the Lord corrected him in anger, as the prophet (and his people) deserved, he would die. Jeremiah was probably speaking for his people as well as for himself in this prayer.
10:25 The Lord's anger should find its object in the nations that did not know Him and did not pray to Him but devoured, consumed, and desolated God's people, despicable as the Judeans were (cf. Ps. 79:6-7).
