Jeremiah 8

Jeremiah 8:1-22 . THE JEW'S COMING PUNISHMENT; THEIR UNIVERSAL AND INCURABLE IMPENITENCE.

1. The victorious Babylonians were about to violate the sanctuaries of the dead in search of plunder; for ornaments, treasures, and insignia of royalty were usually buried with kings. Or rather, their purpose was to do the greatest dishonor to the dead ( Isaiah 14:19 ).

2. spread . . . before the sun, &c.--retribution in kind. The very objects which received their idolatries shall unconcernedly witness their dishonor.
lover . . . served . . . after . . . walked . . . sought . . . worshipped--Words are accumulated, as if enough could not be said fully to express the mad fervor of their idolatry to the heavenly host ( 2 Kings 23:5 ).
nor . . . buried--( Jeremiah 22:19 ).
dung--( Jeremiah 9:22 , Psalms 83:10 ).

3. The survivors shall be still worse off than the dead ( Job 3:21 Job 3:22 , Revelation 9:6 ).
which remain in all the places--"in all places of them that remain, whither I . . . that is, in all places whither I have driven them that remain [MAURER].

4. "Is it not a natural instinct, that if one falls, he rises again; if one turns away (that is, wanders from the way), he will return to the point from which he wandered? Why then does not Jerusalem do so?" He plays on the double sense of return; literal and metaphorical ( Jeremiah 3:12 , 4:1 ).

5. slidden . . . backsliding--rather, as the Hebrew is the same as in Jeremiah 8:4 , to which this verse refers, "turned away with a perpetual turning away."
perpetual--in contrast to the "arise" ("rise again," Jeremiah 8:4 ).
refuse to return--in contrast to, "shall he . . . not return" ( Jeremiah 8:4 , Jeremiah 5:3 ).

6. spake not aright--that is, not so as penitently to confess that they acted wrong. Compare what follows.
every one . . . his course--The Keri reads "course," but the Chetib, "courses." "They persevere in the courses whatever they have once entered on." Their wicked ways were diversified.
horse rusheth--literally, "pours himself forth," as water that has burst its embankment. The mad rapidity of the war horse is the point of comparison ( Job 39:19-25 ).

7. The instinct of the migratory birds leads them with unfailing regularity to return every spring from their winter abodes in summer climes ( Solomon 2:12 ); but God's people will not return to Him even when the winter of His wrath is past, and He invites them back to the spring of His favor.
in the heaven--emphatical. The birds whose very element is the air, in which they are never at rest, yet show a steady sagacity, which God's people do not.
times--namely, of migrating, and of returning.
my people--This honorable title aggravates the unnatural perversity of the Jews towards their God.
know not, &c.--( Jeremiah 5:4 Jeremiah 5:5 , Isaiah 1:3 ).

8. law . . . with us--( Romans 2:17 ). Possessing the law, on which they prided themselves, the Jews might have become the wisest of nations; but by their neglecting its precepts, the law became given "in vain," as far as they were concerned.
scribes--copyists. "In vain" copies were multiplied. MAURER translates, "The false pen of the scribes hath converted it [the law] into a lie." See Margin, which agrees with Vulgate.

9. dismayed--confounded.
what wisdom--literally, "the wisdom of what?" that is, "wisdom in what respect?" the Word of the Lord being the only true source of wisdom ( Psalms 119:98-100 , Proverbs 1:7 , 9:10 ).