Jeremiah Bible Notes Chapters 8-10

Jer. 8:1 They will bring out the bones: An act of sacrilege and disgrace for all those whose bones are profaned. See II Kings 23:16,18; Amos 2:1.

Jer. 8:4-9:26 Punishment and Lamentation (HBH) Though the people claimed to be wise because they possessed GOD's law, their actions contradicted their words. They disobeyed that same law, refused to repent, and believed the religious leaders who promised peace and safety. The LORD would deprive them of their crops and bring into the land a mighty army, likened to deadly serpents. In that day the doomed and despairing, people would lament their fate and acknowledge that their previous hope had been misplaced.

Jeremiah was emotionally shaken by this message of judgment. He described the future cry of the exiles, who in bewilderment would try to reconcile their belief in Jerusalem's inviolability with their situation. He lamented that there was no cure for the nation's sickness and that he did not have enough tears to weep around the clock. He longed to run away, for he recognized that wickedness was everywhere. Even the closest human relationships were polluted by deceit and exploitation.

The time for mourning and lamentation had come, for destruction and exile were on the way. Embodied in the Babylonian army, death would invade the cities and houses of the land, robbing the women of their children and robust young men.

In the coming day of judgment, human wisdom, strength, and riches would be of no avail. Security could only be found in loyalty to the LORD, who as a faithful and just GOD looks for and rewards these same qualities in His people. Traditional outward signs of a relationship with GOD, such as circumcision, would also be worthless, if not accompanied by genuine devotion to the LORD (likened in 9:26 to circumcision of the heart, compare 4:4). Because GOD's people lacked this devotion, their physical circumcision would be as useless as that of Gentiles who also observed this practice. Israel would be swept away with the nations mentioned in the coming Babylonian invasion of the west.

Jer. 8:4-7 Israel is completely indifferent to the Word of GOD. The birds know and interpret divine destiny, but GOD people don't (Isaiah 1:2,3).

Jer. 8:8,9 Not having understood the written Law of Jehovah, the wise now reject the Word of Jehovah that is heard by the mouth of the prophets. The scribe administrated the Law.

Jer. 8:10-12 See 6:12-15.

KINGDOM DYNAMICS

Jer. 8:8-9 Useless human efforts toward self-restoration, RESTORATION. GOD promised to send a prophet like Moses to the Israelites in order to guarantee their definitive freedom. It was necessary that they should have refused to listen to GOD, and insisted on him speaking directly only to Moses (Deut. 18:15,16). Their fear of hearing him without intermediaries placed them under the letter of the Law, where human effort tries to obtain and retain divine favor. But GOD, knowing the limits of the Law, instituted the Mosaic system of animal sacrifices to atone for sins. He also converted the Law into a demonstration that pointed to definitive salvation through the shed blood of Jesus, the sacrifice made once for all (Heb. 10:10).

The failure of their efforts is graphically presented in Jeremiah 8-10 and Lamentations 2, in the destruction of Jerusalem and dispersion of the people. These chapters paint a dark picture of human folly, rebellion, immorality, idolatry and general corruption that the nation of Israel suffered, which had forced GOD to discipline them in such a manner that "he came to be like an enemy" (Lam. 2:5).

Jeremiah 9:3 resumes their difficult situation, which brings to mind that of many in today's church, "And they have not known me". In spite of his great insistence, they still had not established a personal relationship with GOD. (Gen. 41:42,43/Ezek. 34:1-10) J.R.

Jer. 8:13-9:25 This passage is read in the synagogues every year, on the 9th day of Abib (March-April), to commemorate the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. and by the Romans in 70 A.D.

Jer. 8:13-15 Judah is like a sterile vine or fig tree, that produces no grapes or figs, and is destined to destruction. Its children flee to find refuge in fortified cities, but they won't be saved.

Jer. 8:15 Repeated with slight variations in 14:19.

Jer. 8:16 Dan was in the extreme north and would be the first to experience the consequences of the enemy's advance.

Jer. 8:18-9:2 The prophet laments for his people, some of whose children are in exile, in a far land. The people are perplexed; Jehovah is in Zion, but they have been defeated.

[NOTE: In verse 21, the KJV reads, "I am black". The Reina Valeria reads, "I am tenebrous, which means "shut off from the light" or "gloomy, hard to understand". From this word comes the term tenebrism which, according to "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary", is defined as "a painting style associated with the Italian painter, Caravaggio and his followers in which most of the figures are engulfed in shadow, but some are dramatically illuminated by a concentrated beam of light from an unidentifiable source."]

Jer. 8:22 Balsam in Gilead: The Gilead area in the Transjordan was an important provider of spices and balsam (see Gen. 37:25), but Judah's wound is incurable (even so, see 30:17).

Jer. 9:1 Because of verses like this, Jeremiah is known as "the weeping prophet".

Jer. 9:2 Jeremiah wishes to separate himself as much as possible from the sinful people.

Jer. 9:2 LODGING (Manners & Customs of the Bible by James M. Freeman; pub. 1972 by Logos International)
"O that I had in the wilderness a lodging=place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them!" The prophet probably refers to those temporary lodging-places for travelers in the open country which private charity or municipal law sometimes provides in the East; or he may refer to the temporary hospitality which is considered in the East; or he may refer to the temporary hospitality which is considered in the East as a religious duty to be extended toward strangers. His idea is that the wilderness is better than the place where his people live, and the hospitality of strangers preferable to the society of his wicked friends. Roberts thinks there may here be reference to a custom he has noticed in India. When a man becomes angry with his family it is not uncommon for him to threaten to leave them and dwell in the wilderness. This threat is not always empty sound; for there are many in every town and village who thus leave their families and are absent for months or years, and some never return. The wilderness has many ascetics, who, from this and others causes, live retired from the haunts of men.

Jer. 9:3 Jehovah speaks. He describes the breakdown of interpersonal relationships (verses 3-6,8) and promises "to refine", "to prove" and "to punish" His people (verses 7,9; 6:27-30.

Jer. 9:11 Dwellingplace of jackals (KJV-den of dragons): a literary figure that Jeremiah often utilizes (10:22; 14:6; 49:33; 51:37). The same occurs with Isaiah (13:22; 34:13; 35:7; 43:20).

Jer. 9:17-19 PROFESSIONAL MOURNERS (Manners & Customs of the Bible by James M. Freeman; pub. 1972 by Logos International)
[see II Sam. 14:2; Matt. 9:23; John 11:31,33] made up a part of funeral ceremonies. Their role consisted of loudly lamenting for the death of the deceased. Their wailing voice is still heard from Zion.

Jer. 9:17,18 MOURNING (Manners & Customs of the Bible by James M. Freeman; pub. 1972 by Logos International)
"Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call fore the mourning women, that they may come; and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters." Not only are great lamentations made by the bereaved for their loved ones, but professed mourners, usually women, are hired for the purpose. They assemble in greater or less number, according to the ability which those who hire them have to pay for their services. Their hair is disheveled, their clothes torn, and their countenances daubed with paint and dirt. They sing in a sort of chorus, mingled with shrill screams and loud wailing, distorting their limbs frightfully, swaying their bodies to and fro, and moving in a kind of melancholy dance to the thrumming music of tambourines. They recount the virtues of the deceased, calling him by names of tenderest endearment, and plaintively inquiring of him why he left his family and friends! With wonderful ingenuity these hired mourners seek to make a genuine lamentation among the visitors who have come to the funeral, by alluding to any among them who have suffered bereavement, dwelling on its character and circumstances, and thus eliciting from the sorrowing ones cries of real grief.

Miss Rogers gives a thrilling account of a formal mourning which lasted for a week, and at which she was present for several hours. Three rows of women on the one side of the room faced three rows on the other side. They clapped their hands and struck their breasts in time to the monotonous melody they murmured. One side, led by a celebrated professional mourner, sang the praises of the dead man, while the other responded in chorus. After the singing they shrieked and made a rattling noise in their throats, while the widow kneeled, swayed her body backward and forward, and feebly joined in the wild cry.

"A minstrel woman began slowly beating a tambourine, and all the company clapped their hands in measure with it, singing, 'Alas for him! Alas for him! He was brave, he was good; alas for him!' Then three women rose, with naked swords in their hands, and stood at two or three yards distance from each other. They began dancing with slow and graceful movements, with their swords at first held low and their heads drooping. Each dancer kept within a circle of about a yard in diameter. By degrees the tambourine and the clapping of the hands and the songs grew louder, the steps of the dancers were quickened. They threw back their heads and gazed upward passionately,a s if they would look into the very heavens. They flourished their uplifted swords, and as their movements became more wild and excited, the bright steel flashed, and bright eyes seemed to grow brighter. As one by one the dancers sank, overcome with fatigue, others rose to replace them. Thus passed seven days and nights. Professional mourners were in constant attendance to keep up the excitement, and dances and dirges succeeded each other, with intervals of wild and hysterical weeping and shrieking." - Domestic Life in Palestine, pp. 181,182.

Shaw says that the hired mourners at Moorish funerals cry out in a deep and hollow voice, several times together, Loo! loo! loo! ending each period with "some ventriloquous sighs".

To this singular custom of hiring mourners the prophet refers in the text, and also in the twentieth verse. These hired mourners were present at the burial of the good king Josiah. Solomon refers to them in Ecclesiastes 12:5: "The mourners go about the streets". Amos speaks of "such as are skillful of lamentation" (Amos 5:16). Hired mourners were present with their instruments of funeral music at the house of Jairus after the death of his daughter. See Matthew 9:23; Mark 5:38.

Jer. 9:20,21 Jeremiah tells the women to instruct their daughters in their function as "mourners", because the number of dead will be so great that their services will be required.

Jer. 9:23,24 See section 3 of "TRUTH IN ACTION" at the end of Jeremiah.

Jer. 9:23,24 The only true reality is understanding and knowing GOD. Everything else is transitory, including wisdom, bravery and wealth.

Jer. 10:1-16 (HBH)The LORD exhorted His people to reject their pagan gods. The manmade wooden and metal idol-gods were inactive and as lifeless as scarecrows. In response Jeremiah praised the LORD, whose greatness infinitely surpasses that of idols. The LORD is the true, living, and eternal GOD, who created and controls the physical universe and determines the destinies of nations.

Jer. 10:1-16 In this part of the sermon of the Temple, Jeremiah compares idols to Jehovah. The idol-worshipers are condemned in verses 2-5,8,9,11,14,15. GOD is praised in verses 6,7,10,12,13,16. See Isaiah 40:18-20; 41:7; 44:9-20; 46:5-7.

Jer. 10:3-5 Objects made by human hands are no help, because they can neither do evil nor good. They remain immobile, they don't speak, they are carried, because they cannot walk. See Psalm 115:4-7; 135:15-18.

Jer. 10:6,7 In comparison with powerless idols, GOD is unique. There are no (gods) like Him. This deals with someone who is above tribal deities who are confined a determined geographical area, because He is King of the nations, King of all.

Jer. 10:8 ADZE (Manners & Customs of the Bible by James M. Freeman; pub. 1972 by Logos International)
"For one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe." Maatsad, "ax", is thought to have been a light kind of hewing instrument, similar to an adze, used for fashioning or carving wood into shape. It is rendered "tongs" in Isaiah 44:12.

Jer. 10:9 The silver came from Tarshish (Ezek. 27:12). Uphaz is mentioned only here and in Daniel 10:5. Its location is unknown.

Jer. 10:12-16 This is repeated with a slight variation in 51:15-19.

Jer. 10:17-25 Jeremiah's Lament (HBH)Since GOD's people had rejected their sovereign King for idols, judgment remained inevitable and lamentation appropriate. Continuing the mood of earlier chapters, the prophet lamented the nation's incurable sickness and impending doom. Appealing to GOD's justice, he pled that the coming judgment not be unduly harsh and that GOD would eventually punish the nations for their mistreatment of His people.

Jer. 10:17-22 The punishment and exile are near, thus GOD tells the people to gather their belongings.

Jer. 10:19,20 Jeremiah laments his own fate and that of his people. His children are the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeremiah never married or had children (see 16:2).

Jer. 10:21 The shepherds are rulers, and the livestock are the people.

Jer. 10:23-25 Jeremiah bows before GOD's punishment, but implores divine judgment.

LITERARY RICHES

Jer. 10:24 chastise (KJV-correct), yasar; Strong #3256: To correct, instruct, or reform someone. This verb refers to the discipline and correction necessary for moral training. Moses said to Israel in Deuteronomy 8:5 that "as a man chastises his son, thus Jehovah your GOD chastises you". Some individuals can't be corrected solely through words (Prov. 29:19). Yasar occasionally implies severe measures, such as the use of whips (I Ki. 12:11), or techniques of teaching, as in the case of the musical director who instructed the Levite musicians (I Chron. 15:22). From yasar is derived the substantive musar, which means "instruction".

Jer. 10:25 is repeated with slight variation in Psalm 79:6,7.

4. The Genuineness of the Book and the Integrity of the Masoretic Text (Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament)
Jeremiah's prophecies bear everywhere so plainly upon the face of them the impress of this prophet's strongly marked individuality, that their genuineness, taken as a whole, remains unimpugned even by recent criticism. Hitzig, e.g., holds it to be so undoubted that in the prolegomena to his commentary he simply takes the matter for granted. And Ewald, after expounding this view of the contents and origin of the book, observes that so striking a similarity in expression, attitude, and colouring obtains throughout every portion that from end to end we hear the same prophet speak. Ewald excepts, indeed, the oracle against Babylon in Jer 50 and 51, which he attributes to an anonymous disciple who had not confidence to write in his own name, towards the end of the Babylonian captivity. He admits that he wrote after the manner of Jeremiah, but with this marked difference, that he gave an entirely new reference to words which he copied from Jeremiah; for example, according to Ewald, the description of the northern enemies, who were in Jeremiah's view first the Scythians and then the Chaldeans, is applied by him to the Medes and Persians, who were then at war with the Chaldeans. But with Ewald, as with his predecessors Eichh., Maur., Knobel, etc., the chief motive for denying the genuineness of this prophecy is to be found in the dogmatic prejudice which leads them to suppose it impossible for Jeremiah to have spoken of the Chaldeans as he does in Jeremiah 50f., since his expectation was that the Chaldeans were to be the divine instruments of carrying out the judgment near at hand upon Judah and the other nations. Others, such as Movers, de Wette, Hitz., have, on the contrary, proposed to get rid of what seemed to them out of order in this prediction by assuming interpolations. These critics believe themselves further able to make out interpolations, on a greater or less scale, in other passages, such as Jer 10; 25; 27; 29; 30; 33, yet without throwing doubt on the genuineness of the book at large. See details on this head in my Manual of Introduction, 75; and the proof of the assertions in the commentary upon the passages in question.

Besides this, several critics have denied the integrity of the Hebrew text, in consideration of the numerous divergencies from it which are to be found in the Alexandrine translation; and they have proposed to explain the discrepancies between the Greek and the Hebrew text by the hypothesis of two recensions, an Alexandrine Greek recension and a Babylonian Jewish. J. D. Mich., in the notes to his translation of the New Testament, i. p. 285, declared the text of the lxx to be the original, and purer than the existing Hebrew text; and Eichh., Jahn, Berthdolt, Dahler, and, most confident of all, Movers (de utriusque recensionis vaticiniorum Jer. graecae Alexandr. et hebraicae Masor., indole et origine), have done what they could to establish this position; while de Wette, Hitz., and Bleek (in his Introd.) have adopted the same view in so far that they propose in many places to correct the Masoretic text from the Alexandrine. But, on the other hand, Küper (Jerem. librorum ss. interpres), Haevern. (Introd.), J. Wichelhaus (de Jeremiae versione Alexandr.), and finally, and most thoroughly, Graf, in his Comment. p. 40, have made comparison of the two texts throughout, and have set the character of the Alexandrine text in a clear light; and their united contention is, that almost all the divergencies of this text from the Hebrew have arisen from the Greek translator's free and arbitrary way of treating the Hebrew original. The text given by the Alexandrine is very much shorter. Graf says that about 2700 words or the Masoretic text, or somewhere about the eighth part of the whole, have not been expressed at all in the Greek, while the few additions that occur there are of very trifling importance. The Greek text very frequently omits certain standing phrases, forms, and expressions often repeated throughout the book: e.g., (Hebrew words) is dropped sixty-four times; instead of the frequently recurring (Hebrew words) or (Hebrew words) there is usually found but (Hebrew word). In the historical portions the name of the father of the principal person, regularly added in the Hebrew, is often not given; so with the title (Hebrew word), when Jeremiah is mentioned; in speaking of the king of Babylon, the name Nebuchadnezzar, which we find thirty-six times in the Hebrew text, appears only thirteen times. Such expressions and clauses as seemed synonymous or pleonastic are often left out, frequently to the destruction of the parallelism of the clauses, occasionally to the marring of the sense; so, too, longer passages which had been given before, either literally or in substance. Still greater are the discrepancies in detail; and they are of such a sort as to bring plainly out on all hands the translator's arbitrariness, carelessness, and want of apprehension. All but innumerable are the cases in which gender, number, person, and tense are altered, synonymous expressions interchanged, metaphors destroyed, words transposed; we find frequently inexact and false translations, erroneous reading of the unpointed text, and occasionally, when the Hebrew word was not understood, we have it simply transcribed in Greek letters, etc. See copious illustration of this in Küper, Wichelh., and Graf, il. cc., and in my Manual of Introd. 175, N. 14. Such being the character of the Alexandrine version, it is clearly out of the question to talk of the special recension on which it has been based. As Hgstb. Christol. ii. p. 461 justly says: "Where it is notorious that the rule is carelessness, ignorance, arbitrariness, and utterly defective notions as to what the translator's province is, then surely those conclusions are beside the mark that take the contrary of all this for granted." None of those who maintain the theory that the Alexandrine translation has been made from a special recension of the Hebrew text, has taken the trouble to investigate the character of that translation with any minuteness, not even Ewald, though he ventures to assert that the mass of slight discrepancies between the lxx and the existing text shows how far the MSS of this book diverged from one another at the time the lxx originated. He also holds that not infrequently the original reading has been preserved in the lxx, though he adds the caveat: "but in very many, or indeed most of these places, the translator has but read and translated too hastily, or again, has simply abbreviated the text arbitrarily." Hence we can only subscribe the judgment passed by Graf at the end of his examination of the Alexandr. translation of the present book: "The proofs of self-confidence and arbitrariness on the part of the Alexandrian translator being innumerable, it is impossible to concede any critical authority to his version - or it can hardly be called a translation - or to draw from it conclusions as to a Hebrew text differing in form from that which has been handed down to us."

We must maintain this position against Nägelsbach's attempt to explain, by means of discrepancies amongst the original Hebrew authorities, the different arrangement of the prophecies against foreign nations adopted in the lxx, these being here introduced in Jer 25 between Jer. 25:12 and Jer. 25:14. For the arguments on which Näg., like Movers and Hitz., lays stress in his dissertations on Jeremiah in Lange's Bibelwerk, p. 13, and in the exposition of Jer. 25:12; Jer. 27:1; Jer. 49:34, and in the introduction to Jer 46-51, are not conclusive, and rest on assumptions that are erroneous and quite illegitimate. In the first place, he finds in Jer. 25:12-14, which, like Mov., Hitz., etc., he takes to be a later interpolation (see table below), a proof that the Book against the Nations must have stood in the immediate neighbourhood of Jer 25. To avoid anticipating the exposition, we must here confine ourselves to remarking that the verses adduced give no such proof: for the grounds for this assertion we must refer to the comment. on Jer. 25:12-14. But besides, it is proved, he says, that the prophecies against the nations must once have come after Jer 25 and before Jer 27, by the peculiar expression (Hebrew words) at the end of Jer. 25:13 (Septuag.), by the omission of Jer. 27:1 in the Sept., and by the somewhat unexpected date given at Jer. 49:34. Now the date, "in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah," in the heading of the prophecy against Elam, Jer. 49:34, found not only in the Masoretic text, but also in the Alexandr. version (where, however, it occurs as a postscript at the end of the prophecy in Jer. 26:1), creates a difficulty only if the prophecy be wrongly taken to refer to a conquest of Elam by Nebuchadnezzar. The other two arguments, founded on the (Hebrew words) of Jer. 25:13, and the omission of the heading at Jer. 27:1 (Heb.) in the lxx, stand

Differences Between lxx and MT Versification

Septuagint Prophecy Against Masoretic Text

Chapter 25:15 Elam Chapter 49:34

Chapter 26:1 Egypt Chapter 46:1

Chapter 27:1
28:1 Babylon Chapter 50:1
51:1

Chapter 29:1-7 Philistines Chapter 47:1-7

Chapter 29:7-29 Edom Chapter 49:7-22

Chapter 30:1-5 Ammon Chapter 49:1-6

Chapter 30:6-11 Kedar Chapter 49:28-33

Chapter 30:12-16 Damascus Chapter 49:23-27

Chapter 31:1 Moab Chapter 48:1

Chapter 32:1 Nations Chapter 25:15-38

and fall with the assumption that the Greek translator adhered closely to the Hebrew text and rendered it with literal accuracy, the very reverse of which is betrayed from one end of the translation to the other. The heading at Jer. 27:1, "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, came this word to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying," coincides word for word with the heading of Jer. 26:1, save that in the latter the words "to Jeremiah" do not occur; and this former heading the Greek translator has simply omitted - holding it to be incorrect, since the prophecy belongs to the time of Zedekiah, and is addressed to him. On the other hand, he has appended (Hebrew words) to the last clause of Jer. 25:13, "which Jeremiah prophesied against the nations," taking this clause to be the heading of Jeremiah's prophecies against the nations; this appears from the (Hebrew words), manifestly imitated from the (Hebrew words) . His purpose was to make out the following oracle as against Elam; but he omitted from its place the full title of the prophecy against Elam, because it seemed to him unsuitable to have it come immediately after the (in his view) general heading, (Hebrew words), while, however, he introduced it at the end of the prophecy. It is wholly wrong to suppose that the heading at Jer. 27:1 of the Hebrew text, omitted in the lxx, is nothing but the postscript to the prophecy against Elam (Jer. 26:1 in the lxx and Jer. 49:34 in the Heb.); for this postscript runs thus: (Hebrew words), and is a literal translation of the heading at Jer. 49:34 of the Heb. It is from this, and not from Jer. 27:1 of the Heb., that the translator has manifestly taken his postscript to the prophecy against Elam; and if so, the postscript is, of course, no kind of proof that in the original text used by the Greek translator of the prophecies against the nations stood before Jer 27. The notion we are combating is vitiated, finally, by the fact that it does not in the least explain why these prophecies are in the lxx placed after Jer. 25:13, but rather suggests for them a wholly unsuitable position between Jer 26 and Jer. 27:1, where they certainly never stood, nor by any possibility ever could have stood. From what has been said it will be seen that we can seek the cause for the transposition of the prophecies against the nations only in the Alexandrian translator's arbitrary mode of handling the Hebrew text.

For the exegetical literature on the subject of Jeremiah's prophecies, see my Introduction to Old Testament, vol. i. p. 332, English translation (Foreign Theological Library). Besides the commentaries there mentioned, there have since appeared: K. H. Graf, der Proph. Jeremia erklärt, Leipz. 1862; and C. W. E. Naegelsbach, der Proph. Jeremia, Theologisch-homiletisch bearbeitet, in J. P. Lange's Bibelwerk, Bielefeld and Leipz. 1868; translated in Dr. Schaff's edition of Lange's Bibelwerk, and published by Messrs. Clark.