My Stubborn People (8:4-7): The next oracle denigrates God’s people for their foolish stubbornness. Through a series of rhetorical questions and comparisons, it emphasizes their unwillingness to restore their broken relationship with their God.
8:4–5 The oracle begins with two rhetorical questions. When someone falls they naturally get themselves on their feet again. When someone turns away, presumably from the right path, they try to return to go in the right direction. After these rhetorical questions, the oracle challenges the people with two probing questions that begin with Why? Their actions make no sense.They have refused to return (repent, see Additional Notes). They would rather listen and believe deceit than the truth. This deceit is a reference to the message of the false prophets who are telling them that there is no coming judgment and everything is just fine.
8:6–7 The oracle portrays God as attentive to the possibility of their repentance, but to no avail. Their lack of response dumbfounds. They are determined in their sin like a horse charging into battle. The animal similes continue by comparing God’s people with a variety of birds (stork, dove, swift, thrush). Birds know the proper time for an action (their migration), but the people do not know that they must heed the law and recognize that their sin makes this the proper time for repentance.
Additional Notes
8:4 The verb for return (shub) is also theword for repentance and suggests that idea in this and other contexts in Jeremiah.
The Deceit of the Religious Leaders (8:8-12): It is particularly the religious leaders who are to blame for the rebellion of the people. After all, it is they—wisdom teachers, prophets, and priests—who are to lead the people toward God, but do not. The role of prophets and priests are well known to readers of the Old Testament, but the exact status of wisdom teachers (scribes) is not as clear. Jeremiah 18:18 will mention the three groups again and associate them with what appears to be their main function, to “counsel.” They give advice, and their advice is obviously supposed to flow from the law, but this is the bone of contention in the present oracle.
8:8–10a These verses describe the offense of the wisdom teachers or scribes. Here, the term wise is used as a professional category (see Additional Notes for 9:24). The wise were those who were to teach and preserve the law and were likely those who copied the manuscripts. They were the interpreters of the law. The venue in which they worked is unclear. It could have been the court, the temple, the school—or all three. But the important point is that they neglected their primary responsibility. Since they rejected the law—the word of the Lord—they have no wisdom. Their interpretations are false, thus the reference to the lying pens of the scribes. They deserve punishment, and what is theirs will be lost. Their wives will be taken by others as will their fields. This is an indirect reference to the coming exile, when the Babylonians will displace the people of Judah and Jerusalem from their land.
Jeremiah certainly recognized that not all scribes had betrayed the Lord. Indeed, his closest allies and supporters were from among the scribal class (Baruch, Shaphan and his family; see in particular chapter 36).
8:10b–12 After focusing on the wisdom teachers, Jeremiah’s oracle now expands to include everyone (from the least to the greatest), at least every religious leader (prophets and priests alike). No one is motivated by love of the Lord, but rather by commercial profit. When God’s people are hurting or in distress, it is precisely the prophets and priests who represent the great Physician and heal the people. When the cancer (sin) is deep, the remedy is painful but necessary. However, these physicians treat the serious problem of the people’s sin as if it were not. They tell them “Peace” when war is about to break out.
These quacks should feel great shame. They are supposed to be healers, but they do not heal. They rather settle for gain. Accordingly, God will punish them.
Gather into the Cities! (8:13-17):
8:13–17 Some commentators (Holladay, Jeremiah 1, pp. 273–86) take verse 13 as part of the previous unit, but there is a catchword that links verse 13 and 14 (ʾasap, “to gather”) that is obscured a bit by the NIV translation (harvest in v. 13; gather in v. 14). In any case, verse 13 cites the Lord as announcing that there will be no harvest, so starvation will threaten. Verse 14 begins a long quote of the people (through v. 16), which begins by announcing their intention to go into the fortified cities presumably from the countryside. At this time only large cities like Jerusalem had defensive walls, so people from villages in the countryside would seek refuge in these cities when threatened by foreign armies. Jeremiah’s own Anathoth was a village in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and its inhabitants would look for shelter behind the walls of Jerusalem. The advantage of the city was, of course, the walls that kept the enemy out, at least temporarily. The disadvantage was that there were limited supplies in the walled city and once those ran out the people had no recourse but to surrender, often to a horrible fate.
The people here recognize that their doom is the result of their sin. Their hopes for peace have been dashed as the oracle envisions the onslaught of the enemy army. This is a foe from the north as is indicated by the reference to the snorting of the enemy horses from Dan, the tribe settled furthest north in the nation. The foe from the north remains unnamed (see §23 for identification of this force).
The section ends with a final word from God himself. He announces that he will send snakes among his people. This is likely a metaphor for the human enemy that God will send among them, the Babylonians.
Additional Notes
8:14 Under a siege, a city would be vitally dependent on its water supply. If it were poisoned (poisoned water), inaccessible, or undrinkable for any reason, that city’s fate was sealed.
No Balm in Gilead (8:18--9:1):
8:18–9:1 This lament contains words of Jeremiah, God, and the people. It all, however, bemoans Judah’s fate. Jeremiah begins by confessing his heartrending grief at the suffering of his people. He hears their cries from a land far away. Presumably this is a reference to people in exile, but it is unclear whether this imagines a future situation or a present reality. If the latter, it would likely be a reference to those who were taken in the Babylonian intrusion of 597 B.C. However, Jeremiah’s grief does not center on their deportation, but rather on their quoted statement that questions God’s presence in Zion. Zion is the hill where the temple was located, but sometimes it refers to the entire city of Jerusalem. Their present suffering leads them to question God’s presence in Zion.
God asks a question in response, “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?” Here is the answer to their question. Of course God is not going to make his redemptive presence known to his people in the light of the fact that they have set up false gods in his place. Immediately following this quotation of God comes another word from the people: time has passed (harvest summer) and rescue still has not come. Indeed, because of their sin, their sufferings would continue for years to come.
Jeremiah responds to it all. He identifies with the people. He again uses the pervasive theme of Judah as a wounded person who needs a doctor (see M. L. Brown, Israel’s Divine Healer, pp. 191–95). He is crushed as they are crushed. The people need a physician, but there is no balm in Gilead. Balm “was probably the resin of the storax tree, obtained by incision on the bark of the tree” (IVPBBCOT, p. 650). It was used in the treatment of wounds. God’s people were wounded, but there was no medicine available to treat the wound. The lament ends with Jeremiah’s confession that he cannot stop weeping for those killed (9:1), presumably during the Babylonian attack, among his people. In this regard, Jeremiah uses a vivid metaphor. He wants his head to turn into a spring of water with his eyes providing the spouts (my eyes a fountain of tears). There are not enough tears for the devastation that has come on his people.
Additional Notes
8:18 This verse presents major difficulties in the Hebrew as can be witnessed by the chaotic interpretations offered by the ancient versions. The NIV takes the verse as a bicolon, but it is better taken as a tricolon (see Lundbom, Jeremiah, p. 530 and Holladay, Jeremiah 1, p. 288). One minor emendation (ʿale repointed to ʿaloy) leads to the following translation:
My cheerfulness is gone (ʿaloy);
grief has come on me.
My heart is sick.
9:1–26 The Masoretic Text of the Old Testament numbers the verses in this section as 8:23–9:25. We will follow the English versification used by the NIV in what follows.
The People Are Liars (9:2-6):
9:2–6 The division between oracles is difficult throughout this section, but is particularly hard with this passage. No two commentators seem to agree. The fact that 9:1 and 9:2 begin with the same grammatical construction (Oh, that) might lead us to put these two verses in the same oracle (so Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20, pp. 534–39), but the tonoe of 9:2 sets it apart from what precedes. In verse 1, Jeremiah expresses his emotional devastation at the fate of his people. In verse 2 the speaker expresses disdain toward the people. The two thoughts are not utterly irreconcilable, but the latter fits in better with verses 3–6 that follow.
Another ambiguity has to do with the speaker. Does the oracle begin with Jeremiah’s lament or God’s or are we to understand the prophet and his God sharing the same voice? In any case, the speaker desires to be far from the people because of their sin. Their spiritual unfaithfulness is metaphorically likened, once again (2:20, 23–24; 3:1–5, etc.), to sexual infidelity. They are all adulterers. The expression and the thought is the same as found in Hosea 7:4, and Jeremiah may be quoting or alluding to his earlier prophetic colleague.
The next few verses focus in on one particular transgression by the people—their lying. Their lies are weapons. Indeed, their tongues are like a bow from which they shoot lies like arrows. A similar thought is found in Psalm 64:3–4 where the wicked person’s tongue is compared to a sword and then implicitly to a bow. Even those in the most intimate of relationships must be on their guard against deception. Friends and brothers betray each other. Implicit is the message that those who betray God will also betray their closest human relations, thus undermining community.
Should I Not Avenge Myself? (9:7-11):
9:7–11 The messenger formula (this is what the LORD Almighty says) likely signals a new oracle, though verse 8 continues the topic of deceitful speech. The similar topic may, however, explain why the two short oracles are found together in the final form of the book of Jeremiah.
God begins to speak, describing himself as a refiner of metals (I will refine). The image of refiner was used already of Jeremiah in 6:27–30. The principle here is that the people need to be tested as metal is tested to see if they are pure or not. They are impure. They are sinful. Therefore, God will refine them to remove their impurities.
The sin is again deceit, and as in verse 3 the tongue is described as shooting arrows that harm others. What is said sounds sweet (each speaks cordially to his neighbor), but behind the pleasant words is the intention to hurt. With his heart he sets a trap.
It is sometimes difficult to tell who is speaking here, but because of the close relationship between God and his prophet, it is not always important to differentiate. It is likely, though, that Jeremiah is the speaker of verse 10. He is the one who takes up the lament for the desolation and abandonment of the land, the the result of God’s judgment, which took the form of an incursion of the Babylonian army.
At the end of the oracle God states a determination to destroy Jerusalem as well as the surrounding countryside (Judah). It will be made such a heap of ruins that wild animals like jackals will take up their homes there.
Why? (9:12-16):
9:12–16 This prose oracle asks the question, Why? Why has the land been punished so thoroughly? Who is so wise to give an answer? The Lord finally gives the answer, but not because the question is difficult. They have broken the law and deserve the curses of the law, which are quite clearly listed in Deuteronomy 28 and elsewhere. They not only have resisted the true God, however; they have also served the Baals, the gods of their predecessors in the land. Their judgment is first described by the metaphor of drinking bitter food and poisoned water. The land that God gave them was a land flowing with milk and honey, but because of their sin, they will be cut off from this provision and given something horrible instead. Furthermore, they will not be allowed to stay in the land, but the Lord will scatter them widely as described as an explicit curse in the covenant law (Deut. 28:25, 36–37, 64–68).
Additional Notes
9:12 What man is wise enough? The question does not presuppose a negative answer. As mentioned above, the question is not that difficult and, furthermore, may be paralleled by Hosea 14:9:
Who is wise? He will realize these things.
Who is discerning? He will understand them.
In other words, this is not so much a rhetorical question as a challenge.
9:14 Baal is a Hebrew word that means “master” or “lord.” It reflects a Ugaritic word (bʿl) that has the same meaning, but in Ugaritic is a proper name for the most active God in the Canaanite pantheon. The plural (Baals) is used because there were different geographical manifestations of this God. These gods were Yahweh’s chief rivals in the land for the affection of the people.
9:15 Bitter food (laʿanah) is more specifically wormwood, which is the bitter-tasting leaf of a shrub. It was used for medicine, but would not make a pleasant diet. Wormwood also evokes mourning or expresses a sense of bitterness. For poisoned water, see Additional Notes for 8:14.
Wail, O Women! (9:17-22):
9:17–19 These verses are addressed by the Lord to the wandering people of God. They advise that wailing women, professional mourners, be called. Why? Because disaster and death are about to arrive because God will judge them for their sins. The devastation will be so great that eyes will overflow with tears. They will have to leave their land because its destruction will be so great.
9:20–21 The next section addresses the wailing women. They should teach their daughters how to wail. The cause for lament will not be short-lived but will survive to the next generation. Death will kill off not only the old, but also the children playing out in public.
9:22 The oracle ends with a divine pronouncement concerning dead bodies of men lying in the open field like cut grain. Their bodies will not be collected and honored in burial, but will be like refuse (i.e., manure), fertilizing the ground. Burial was considered an important closure to one’s life. It was appalling to contemplate a dead body rotting in an open field.
Additional Notes
9:21 The reference to death climbing through the window may well have a mythological background. The Baal myth in Ugaritic has an episode where Baal and Kothar wa-Hasis, the craftsman god, argue over whether or not to build windows in his house. The text is broken, but he seems concerned that someone will enter his house to destroy him and his. As it turns out, Mot, whose name means Death, does sneak in and capture him in the following section. The Baal text may be read in M. D. Coogan, Stories from Ancient Canaan (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), pp. 86–115.
Boast Only in the Lord and Uncircumcised of Heart (9:23-26): The chapter ends with two short oracles, the first poetic and the second in prose.
9:23–24 In the New Testament Paul may be alluding to, or quoting from, this passage in Jeremiah, when he says: “Let him who boasts boast in the LORD” (1 Cor. 1:31, see also 2 Cor. 10:17). However, the context of the New Testament passage is different because the apostle seeks to encourage an audience not characterized by riches, power (strength), or wisdom. Jeremiah is warning those who are wise in the eyes of the world, those who have riches, and those who have power not to put their confidence in these things. Indeed, riches, power, and wisdom can easily blind people into thinking they do not need the Lord. Jeremiah addresses a complacent Judean audience who are depending on their own resources rather than on God himself.
In this passage God declares himself on the side of those possessing ethical strength—kindness, justice, and righteousness—rather than on the side of those with material wealth, power, riches, and wisdom.
9:25–26 The final oracle of chapter 9 attacks the Judeans’ presumption of safety in the sign of circumcision. We observed in Jeremiah 7 that the people presumed on the temple as a sign of God’s presence and blessing. Here the prophet uncovers their confidence in circumcision for blessing. Circumcision was established in Genesis 17, at the time of Abraham, as a sign of the covenant. It marked them as God’s people. Though they did not act like God’s people by obedience, they felt that God would still carry through on his part of the promise to take care of them.
Jeremiah here uncovers their misunderstanding of what it means to be circumcised with a comparison to the circumcision practices of the surrounding nations (see Additional Notes below). Most of the surrounding nations, including those listed in verse 26—Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all who live in the desert in distant places—practiced some form of circumcision. The shock value for Jeremiah’s Judean audience was that they were listed with these pagan nations (and not even in a prominent position). They are being compared with those who are both circumcised in the foreskin (v. 25) and also uncircumcised (v. 26). The people of God may have practiced complete circumcision, but they were not really circumcised because it was not reflected in their life and behavior.
Additional Notes
9:23–24 For the relationship between Jeremiah and 1 Corinthians, see G. R. O’Day, “Jeremiah 9:22–23 and 1 Corinthians 1:26–31: A Study in Intertextuality,” JBL 109 (1990), pp. 259–67. H. H. Drake Williams III (“Of Rags and Riches: The Benefits of Hearing Jeremiah 9:23–24 within James 1:9–11,” Tyndale Bulletin 53 [2002], pp. 273–82) points out that James 1:9–11 is dependent on the Jeremiah passage and that this helps the reader of James to identify the rich as Christian and the boast in Jeremiah as heroic.
9:24 Jeremiah’s use of wise man (hakam) is different than that in the book of Proverbs. In the latter, wisdom is integrally associated with righteousness and thus an unmitigated positive category. The only true wisdom is a wisdom bequeathed by God himself (Prov. 1:7). However, Jeremiah knows of wise men whose purposes are at odds with God (Jer. 18:18). Whether he uses this term in a purely professional sense is a matter of debate. The safest way to understand the expression here is to think of these people as those who are wise in their own eyes.
9:25–26 This passage has been debated through the centuries. The difficulty has to do primarily with what seems to be a contradiction between vv. 25 and 26 (in Hebrew vv. 24–25, see Additional Notes for 9:1–26 above). On the one hand, the nations listed in v. 26 are said to be circumcised in the flesh, but in v. 26, they are described as uncircumcised. The NIV tries to solve the tension by adding “only” in v. 25 and “really” in v. 26, giving the impression that all these nations practiced the same form of physical circumcision, but were also united in not having that circumcision affect their relationship with the true God. In an interesting article, however, R. C. Steiner (“Incomplete Circumcision in Egypt and Edom: Jeremiah [9:24–25] in the Light of Josephus and Jonckheere,” JBL 118 [1999], pp. 497–505) has picked up a suggestion by Rashi, modified by Erhlich, which argues that the circumcision practiced by nations like Egypt was physically partial. “The Egyptian procedure involved either the excision of a triangular section from the dorsal face of the foreskin or simply a longitudinal incision along the median line of the dorsal face allowing retraction of the foreskin and exposure of the glans.” Thus, they were circumcised, yet according to the Israelites, uncircumcised.