Jeremiah 8:17

17 "Yes, now I am sending snakes among you, vipers that no one can charm, and they will bite you," says ADONAI.

Jeremiah 8:17 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 8:17

For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you,
&c.] The Chaldeans, comparable to these noxious and hurtful creatures, because of the mischief they should do unto them. The Targum is,

``for, lo, I will raise up against you people that kill as the destroying serpents.''

These were raised up by the Lord, and sent by him, just as he sent fiery serpents among the Israelites in the wilderness, when they sinned against him; there literally, here metaphorically. Which will not be charmed:
Jarchi says, at the end of seventy years a serpent becomes a cockatrice, and stops its ear, that it will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, according to ( Psalms 58:4 Psalms 58:5 ) , the meaning is, that these Chaldeans would not be diverted from their purposes in destroying of the Jews by any arts or methods whatever; as not by force of arms, so not by good words and entreaties, or any way that could be devised. And they shall bite you, saith the Lord;
that is, kill them, as the Targum interprets it; for the bite of a serpent is deadly.

Jeremiah 8:17 In-Context

15 When we look for peace, nothing good comes; when we seek a time of healing, instead there is terror."

16 From Dan can be heard the snorting of his horses; when his stallions neigh, the whole land trembles. For they come devouring the land and all in it, the city and those who dwell there.

17 "Yes, now I am sending snakes among you, vipers that no one can charm, and they will bite you," says ADONAI.

18 My grief has no cure, I am sick at heart.

19 Listen to my people's cry of distress out of a distant land: "Is ADONAI no longer in Tziyon? Is her king no longer there?" "Why do they provoke me with their idols and their futile foreign gods?"