Jeremiah 8:1

JEREMIAH 8

THE HARVEST IS ENDED; AND THE SUMMER IS PAST.

The title given here comes from Jeremiah 8:20; and it symbolizes the approach of the Chaldean invasion and the hopelessness of any deliverance of the people. All opportunities for repentance and return to God hav been spurned; and the nation is rushing headlong into destruction.

Divisions of the chapter, as made by Feinberg,[1] are as follows; the invaders desecrate the graves (Jeremiah 8:1-3); Israel stubbornly continues in idolatry (Jeremiah 8:4-7); God describes the penalty of their apostasy (Jeremiah 8:8-13); the invaders approach (Jeremiah 8:14-17); the sorrow of the prophet is recorded (Jeremiah 8:18-22).

Jeremiah 8:1-3

"At that time, saith Jehovah, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves; and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshipped; they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residents that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith Jehovah of hosts."

These verses are actually a continuation of the previous chapter and are so treated by some writers. The desecration of the graves of defeated peoples was widely practiced in antiquity; and there were excellent reasons for it in the case of Judah.

Josephus tells us that: "Solomon buried David with great wealth; ... and 1,300 years afterward, Hyrcanus the high priest, when besieged by Antiochus, opened one of the rooms of David's sepulchre and took out 3,000 talents of gold with which he bribed Antiochus to lift the siege... Also, Herod the king opened another room and took out a great deal of money... But neither of them came near the coffins of the kings themselves, for their bodies were buried under the earth so artfully, that they did not appear even to those entering their monuments.[2]

Dummelow expressed doubts as to the genuine motivation for such wholesale desecration of the Jewish graves, supposing that it might have been, "either from pure wantonness, or in the hope of finding treasures or ornaments of value."[3] There was more than enough motivation either way. Since the bones of the dead were held in such reverence by the Hebrew people, the Chaldeans would have delighted in the desecration, even if merely for spite to a despised enemy.

The great thing in this paragraph, however, appears in Jeremiah 8:2, where the five-fold engagement of the Jews with "the hosts of heaven," in their (1) loving them, (2) serving them, (3) walking after them, (4) seeking them, and (5) worshipping them is stressed. Very well, the people through their false leaders have been betrayed into paganism in this worship of the sun, moon, and stars; therefore, the bones of those worshippers are exposed to the sun, moon, and stars, which were utterly helpless to afford any prevention or assistance. Indeed, the sun would only hasten the disintegration and decay of the bones. What an exposition is this of the futility of worshipping the hosts of heaven.

Henderson's comment on this is: "The objects of idolatrous worship are here introduced as the unconcerned spectators of the indignities offered to the bones of their worshippers!"[4] The five-fold repetition of the word "bones" helps to add a funeral impression to the whole passage.

"Death shall be chosen rather than life ..." (Jeremiah 8:3). Thompson believed that, "This refers (1) either to the unbearable conditions endured in the captivity, or (2) to the memory of the last days in Judah which were too much to bear."[5]

"All the residue that remain of this evil family ..." (Jeremiah 8:3). "Jeremiah here uses the word `family' for the whole Jewish race."[6]