The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken behold, they have rejected Jehovah's word; and what wisdom is in them?
The wise men of Judah still held the law in their hands. They still called themselves wise. God's answer takes the title away from them. If a man sets aside what God has said, what wisdom is left in him?
Judah had God's words and still dishonoured them. One writer links their boast in verse 8 to the charge Paul later brings against a people proud of the law:
"Those who handle the law did not know Me," says the Lord (Jer. 2:8). God had entrusted His own words to them — "the oracles of God" (Rom. 3:2) — and they said, "We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us" (Jer. 8:8). Yet Romans gives the answering echo: "You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law" (Rom. 2:23).
In an older translation, verse 8 says the pen of the scribes wrote in vain. The writer below follows that older wording. His point is that the failure lies with the readers, not with the writing:
There was never a day with more boasting, "we are wise." It is quite true that the Word of God is in men's hands. But who believes it? ... God has said it. He has made it clear... Has He made it clear? Yes, but, "Look, He made it in vain; the pen of the scribes is in vain." Yes, God has spoken in His Word in vain; men will not believe Him. "Making the word of God of no effect by your tradition." Mark 7:13.
Take away what God has said, and the mind has only its own guesses left:
Imagination cannot grasp or describe the things of God. When it tries to see into what they really are, it only shows how bare and poor it is. No, we know nothing outside of the word of God.
Writers also apply the verse to scholars who rewrite the Bible and call it an improvement. One points out how their own words give them away:
In the extracts we have given, who can miss how often the words "probably," "seem," and "conjecturally" come back? ... this scholar would have us take his guesses in place of the sure Word of God. Jeremiah has described this whole class of thinkers in words that should never be forgotten: "they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?"
Rejecting God's word does not always look like open unbelief. Often it wears religious dress, and that is the form people choose most readily:
A Christianity built on tradition is real unbelief, because it denies the Scriptures. The Scriptures claim to be enough on their own, and they set themselves up as the standard... One is open unbelief, the other is religious unbelief, and man far prefers the second. It lets him keep God at a distance, which is what man, or the flesh, wants, and at the same time keep a conscience at peace with religion.
Ashamed, dismayed, taken — God Himself brings this collapse. One writer follows the chapter from the question about wisdom into the judgment that answers it:
But what wisdom is in those who reject the word of the Lord? Their greed, and their treacherous neglect of what was truly good for Israel, must meet the punishment they deserve from His hand. He will certainly consume them. He will overturn their careful plans, disappoint their hopes, and make the whole land tremble before its enemies.
If rejecting God's word empties a man of wisdom, then keeping it marks out the person God owns:
Every teaching of human improvement denies that sin has utterly ruined man... It is a solemn truth about the great men and the wise of this world: "They have rejected the word of the LORD." The mark of a Christian is, "You have kept My word and have not denied My name." Rev. 3:8. Which is true of you, dear reader?
- The boast — Judah called itself wise because it had the law. Holding God's words while dishonouring them is what this verse exposes.
- The word in vain — God spoke clearly and the scribes wrote it down. Men still would not believe, so the writing did nothing in them.
- The emptiness — outside the word of God we know nothing. Imagination cannot describe the things of God; it only shows its own poverty.
- The disguise — unbelief often wears religion instead of open denial. That form lets a man keep God at a distance and his conscience comfortable.
- The end — those who set aside His word end up ashamed and taken, their plans overturned. Those who keep it carry the mark Christ commends.
Therefore will I give their wives unto others, their fields to those that shall possess [them]; for every one, from the least even unto the greatest, is given to covetousness; from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely.
Judah stood under sentence, and God names the cause: money. Greed reached from the poorest to the most powerful, even to prophet and priest, so the wives and fields they schemed to secure would pass to other men.
The same charge appears earlier in the book. One writer sets Israel's greed beside the greed of Christians, and finds Israel's the smaller sin:
Covetousness was one of the sins Israel kept falling into. We can see this from Jeremiah 6:13: "For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain." But let us remember that this covetousness in Israel was not nearly as bad in character as it is among us. After all, what they coveted was only an undue share of what God had given to them all. Their blessings were earthly, and no one could blame them for setting a high value on money and property. The Christian's possessions are spiritual... Christians too often covet the world and the things in it — things on which they should not set their heart or affections at all. What a tale it tells of spiritual deadness, when a child of God, an heir of glory, is seen coveting the poor riches of earth!
Older translations call this greed "covetousness."
The verse does not stop at the crowd. It climbs to prophet and priest and finds the same falseness there. One commentator names the passion behind it, and hears the same message from pulpits today:
Covetousness, the love of money, as it is in our day, was the controlling passion. Prophet and priest dealt falsely. Their one message was "Peace, peace," when there was no peace — and it is the one message of the prophet and priest today.
The people were not innocent bystanders. The rot ran through every layer of national life:
God claimed recognition and honour in every circle. But their politics were corrupt, their society was degraded, and their religion had given itself over to idolatry. Prophets, priests and people were all joined together in falsehood.
Just before this verse the nation claimed to be wise, while rejecting what the Lord had said. The "therefore" of verse 10 answers that claim and takes away the security their scheming was meant to build:
But what wisdom is there in those who reject the word of the Lord? Their greed, and their treacherous neglect of what was truly good for Israel, must meet the right punishment from His hand. He will consume them without fail. He will overturn their careful plans, disappoint their hopes, and make the whole land tremble before its enemies, who will bite like snakes that no charmer can tame.
Their greed was not only a sin against God. It was a betrayal of their own people. The men who should have guarded Israel's welfare were busy enriching themselves, and the invaders would take everything they had gathered.
Commentators read this passage as a mirror, not a museum piece. Teachers who profit by telling people what they want to hear are not confined to Judah:
Jeremiah's writings show us most fully the prophets prophesying falsely, and the priests going along with the evil so that they could rule. "And my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?" says the true prophet in his anguish... How little they believe that God's eye is on their selfish trade. How little they believe that their destruction is not asleep.
Two things stand out. First, the people wanted the comfortable message, so the false teachers were meeting a demand. Second, God already sees the trade, and the destruction waiting for it is not asleep.
- Greed — The charge starts with money. Nobody was left out, from the poorest to the most powerful. The sin is not poverty or wealth but wanting an undue share.
- Falsehood — Greed does not stay in the wallet. It buys the message. Prophet and priest dealt falsely, and their one word was "peace, peace" when there was no peace.
- Reach — No class escaped. Politics, society and religion were all corrupt, and prophets, priests and people joined in the same lie.
- Sentence — So God takes back the security they were grasping for. Wives and fields pass to others. God overturns their careful plans and disappoints their hopes.
- Warning — The same trade runs on today, and God's eye is on the selfish merchandise. Israel's blessings were earthly. A Christian's possessions are spiritual, so coveting the world is a worse thing now than it was then.
And they have healed the breach of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace.
Judah is in real danger, and her own religious leaders keep telling her that all is well. The verse asks two hard questions: how can healers treat a deep wound as a scratch, and how can the word "peace" become a lie?
The complaint is not that no one treated the people. It is that the healers worked on the surface. One writer hears in the verse the prophet's grief over a remedy that did not fit the injury.
It is the lament of the prophet over the condition God's people were in during his ministry. The prophet brings this great fact home to them. There is a wound there. And there were religious quacks with their remedies in that day who tried to heal that wound lightly. And how? By giving a message that did not match the state they were in. If God comes and deals with us, He must have reality. He could not add to a festering sore or wound if it is there in our moral being. "Peace, peace" was propping up a rotten order of things. God is too faithful, too holy and too gracious not to meet the condition of things exactly as it really is before Him.
A false message needs willing hearers. The comfortable verdict fitted what the people already thought about themselves. The prophet who said otherwise was the nuisance.
The people did not know the time; they did not know His judgment; they were going on in self-security. They thought that perhaps things were not quite as right as they appeared to be, but were not as bad as this troublesome man, Jeremiah, said. And so they were crying "Peace, peace," where there was no peace. They were not even ashamed when they had committed abominations. The prophet could only give himself up to sorrow over them. "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?"
Smooth preaching is not just inaccurate. It has a target, it blocks what God is doing, and it costs the hearers dear.
When the people of God go wrong, there is always the spirit of false prophecy which would make them believe that all goes well. Men in authority do not want to be discouraged: see the opposition to Jeremiah in Jerusalem. The false prophet helps in this, to stop the conscience from turning back to God. God would use chastening to bring the conscience into direct contact with Him. The spirit of falsehood would persuade them that they are very happy. Those who call them blessed are the misleaders. Those who are so called, and believe them, are swallowed up.
The same calm settles on anyone who has never faced God. One writer names its source, and the order in which real peace comes.
This is the devil's peace; he rocks men in the cradle of security; he cries "Peace, peace," when men are on the edge of hell. The seeming peace a sinner has does not come from knowing he is happy, but from being ignorant of his danger. … True peace comes after trouble. God convinces and humbles the soul; then He speaks peace. Many say they have peace, but is this peace before a storm, or after it? True peace is after trouble. … God pours the golden oil of peace into broken hearts.
God's refusal to say the word is not harshness. It comes from what He is.
Purity comes first, before peace even. If we think about it, we will see at once that this must be so, since all is of God. He never compromises with evil, and so there can be no peace except in purity. Again and again this was the burden of the prophets. See for instance, Isaiah 48:22; Isaiah 57:21; Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11; Ezekiel 13:10, 16.
In Jeremiah the word "peace" had nothing behind it. Christ proclaims a peace that has everything behind it.
The peace He proclaims is not a mere sedative for the conscience. It is the blessed knowledge that His atoning blood has settled every question fairly. As a result, every storm cloud has been cleared away for ever. "He is our peace," says the apostle. He is now accepted in heaven. That very fact is the public proof that the horizon toward God has been cleared once and for all for those who believe in His name.
- The wound — The injury in the people is real. God deals with things exactly as they are before Him.
- The patch — Healers treated the wound lightly. Their message did not fit the state of the people, and it propped up a rotten order of things.
- The appeal — Such preaching stops the conscience from turning back to God. Men in authority welcome it, because they do not want to be discouraged.
- The test — Peace before the storm is only ignorance of danger. Peace after God has humbled the soul is the real thing.
- The cure — There is no peace except in purity. The peace Christ proclaims rests on His atoning blood, which has settled every question.
Are they ashamed that they have committed abomination? Nay, they are not at all ashamed, and they know not how to blush. Therefore shall they fall among them that fall in the time of their visitation they shall stumble, saith Jehovah.
God asks His people in Judah a plain question: did they blush at all over what they had done? The answer is no. The verse turns the loss of shame into the reason for the fall.
Where does a blush come from? One writer traces it back to the first moment of sin.
Shame is sin's firstborn. It is often pushed aside by sin's later offspring (Jer. 6:15), while nature runs on in its dark course; but it returns to its first place whenever light breaks in on the soul.
So a lost blush does not prove the conscience was never there. It proves that later sins have buried it.
Scripture reads a person's face as a sign of the heart. Two faces stand opposite each other here: Israel's, and the bride's.
The forehead is used in Scripture to express either modesty or boldness. The prophet had to say of Israel, "You are obstinate … your forehead brass" (Isa. 48:4). The Lord asks, "Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?" The answer comes back: "No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush" (Jer. 6:15; Jer. 8:12). In contrast, the bride is marked by modesty. She can blush… Under the outward symbol of subjection there was genuine modesty. Not outward subjection, and inward rebellion.
Judah kept the outward forms while rebellion ran on inside. A face that can still redden shows something real underneath.
How does a whole nation reach that state? It starts with a comfortable lie.
The people did not know the time; they did not know His judgment; they were going on in self-security. They thought that things were perhaps not quite as right as they seemed, but not as bad as this troublesome man, Jeremiah, said. And so they were crying "Peace, peace," where there was no peace. They were not even ashamed when they had committed abominations.
Comfort given where there is no ground for it does not calm a conscience. It kills it.
The verse hinges on one word: therefore. The judgment at the end grows out of what came before it.
They did not repent of their wickedness. Theirs was a perpetual backsliding. The stork knows his appointed time. The turtle dove, the crane and the swallow keep the time of their coming. But they had hardened their hearts so far that they did not know the judgment of the Lord. So the retribution follows.
They fall among the fallen — swept off with the crowd. Older translations call that moment the time of their visitation: a visit from God.
Scripture contemplates a day or time of visitation. (Jer. 8:12; Luke 19:44; 1 Peter 2:12)
This visit is either in mercy (Luke 19; 1 Peter 2), or in judgment (Jer. 8).
God draws near either way. The first half of the verse decides which kind Judah receives.
Judah is not the last case. Commentators find the same lost shame in what Scripture says about the last days.
The unbridled lust, lawlessness, boldness, self-will and corruption of the last days will be more terrible than any outbreak of evil in the past. This is because it is found among people who claim the Christian name, and it exists in the full light of the truth. Men usually, out of sheer shame, wait for the darkness of night for their evil deeds. These men, without shame, "riot in the daytime". As one has said, "They have learnt to face the light and defy it."
- Blush lost. Shame is the first thing sin produces. When later sins crowd it out, a person can commit an abomination and feel nothing.
- Blush faked. The face shows either modesty or boldness. Outward religion with inward rebellion hardens the forehead like brass.
- Blush killed. The numbness came from "Peace, peace" where there was no peace. False comfort leaves people sure of a safety they do not have.
- Blush judged. Birds keep their seasons. Judah could not read hers. Hearts hardened against the Lord's judgment bring retribution on themselves.
- Blush recovered. God's visit comes in mercy or in judgment. Shame returns the moment light breaks in on the soul. Feeling it again is a mercy, not a burden.
I will utterly take them away, saith Jehovah there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig-tree; and the leaf is faded and I will give them up to those that shall pass over them.
God walks through His own vineyard in Jeremiah's day like an owner at harvest time. He finds the branches empty. Two questions follow. What can God expect from a people He planted? And what happens to His gifts when nothing comes back to Him?
The vine and the fig tree were not wild growth. They stand for a nation God Himself planted, tended, and fenced. So the empty branch is guilt, not misfortune. One commentator sets the two sides side by side:
There was no more doubt of the goodness shown to Israel than of their obligation to bear fruit for God. But obligation produces no fruit fit for Him. What was the consequence on such ground as this? Nothing but woe after woe. Their doom would match their guilt.
The barrenness had a history. Jeremiah preached during a national reform under King Josiah. Idols came down and the outward scene improved. One writer sets that reform beside the revivals of the last days:
These end-time revivals have a powerful effect on everyone, but only the remnant is real at heart. The book of Jeremiah, who prophesied under Josiah, shows that the moral state of the people did not change at all. They agreed easily to the removal of idols under the faithful king, but their hearts stayed as far from God as ever.
Note the order in the verse: no grapes, no figs, and only then the fading leaf. On a fig tree the fruit comes before the leaf. So a leafy tree promises a harvest it does not have. When the promise proves empty, the display dies with it:
It is impossible to forget, as we think of this, that tree on which the Lord once sought fruit. He found none. He said, "May no fruit ever come from you again," and at once the fig tree withered away. The leaf withered because the fruit was not to be found, for in the case of the fig tree the leaves come out after the fruit... on this tree there was already the leaf of profession, and so the meaning of the judgment is plain.
The last line is the heaviest: what God gave them passes away from them. One writer ties that loss to their treatment of God's word:
But what wisdom is there in those who reject the word of the Lord? Their greed and treacherous neglect of Israel's true interests must meet their due repayment at His hands. He will surely consume them. He will overturn their careful plans, disappoint their hopes, and make the whole land tremble before their enemies.
The principle is not locked in the past. One writer applies the same test to the church:
God has a right to look for fruit in proportion to the pains He took, and if there were none, judgment must follow. God never stops at what is spoiled to patch up the gaps. He looks at what He did at the beginning, and compares it with the present state. So the Lord says to the church in Ephesus, "You have abandoned the love you had at first."
A withered tree is not the end of the story. God's answer to a fruitless people is not repair but new birth:
How is the curse on that fruitless tree to be reconciled with Israel being to the praise of the Lord in days to come? Israel must be born again. "This generation" will never produce fruit for the Lord. It is to be destroyed under the judgment of God; and a new race will be born. The pattern of the past makes room for a striking picture of the future.
- Planted — God fenced and tended this vine Himself. His claim to fruit is as sure as His goodness. The empty branch is guilt, not bad weather.
- Hollow — Reform under a good king changed the nation's public face, not its heart. Reform without heart grows leaves without figs.
- Exposed — On a fig tree the fruit comes first. The fading leaf is an outward show with nothing behind it.
- Removed — Rejecting God's word costs more than reputation. God overturns their plans, disappoints their hopes, and takes back what He gave.
- Reborn — God measures us by what He did at the beginning. His answer to a withered tree is not repair but new birth and a future harvest.
Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the fenced cities, and let us be silent there for Jehovah our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Jehovah.
The verse sounds like a plan of retreat: gather, run to the walled cities, and die there. It ends with an admission of sin. So why does that admission change nothing? And what is the poisoned drink God is said to hand them?
Commentators differ over whose voice this is. One says the words belong to the prophet, not to the people who refused to repent:
Verses 13-17. Verse 13 shows the desolation that will fall on the land when the Lord arises. The prophet spoke the words of verses 14-16 — not the unrepentant people, as some take it. The 16th verse is extremely vivid.
The poisoned water takes its name from a plant. A dictionary entry traces the word to bitterness, and to idolatry:
Gall (Hebrew rosh) is some very bitter or poisonous plant, not identified for certain. The word is a symbol of "bitterness." To turn to idolatry was like "a root that bears gall and wormwood." Deut. 29:18. God gave them His judgments as water of gall to drink. Jer. 8:14; Jer. 9:15; Jer. 23:15... The Roman soldiers drank sour wine, or vinegar. Mixed with gall, they gave it to men about to be crucified — to dull the pain of the torture, as people now suppose. They offered it to the Lord, but He refused it. Ps. 69:21; Matt. 27:34.
The cup Judah had earned was later held out to Christ, and He would not take it. (Deuteronomy 29:18 reads in the ESV: "a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.")
Running to the fortified cities looks like sensible strategy. But one commentator reads this whole section as God overturning such plans:
But what wisdom is in those who reject the word of the Lord? Their greed and treacherous neglect of Israel's true interests must meet the punishment they deserve from Him. He will indeed consume them. He will overturn their careful plans and disappoint their hopes. He will make the whole land tremble before its enemies, who will bite like snakes that no charmer can tame. (Ver. 9-17.)
Their own words concede the outcome. They go into the cities not to survive but to die there.
The threat was not vague. Judah's place in history made it plain:
What kind of times did Jeremiah prophesy in? They were the last days of the kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom of ten tribes had already fallen. Now "the destroyer of the nations" — Nebuchadnezzar — was on his way to overthrow Judah too. So judgment was close, but the people did not understand it. And so there was no repentance.
So the closing line of the verse — that they have sinned — is not the same thing as turning back. They state the cause of their ruin and walk into it.
The prophet's reaction follows in the same chapter, and he searches for a cure that is not there. His question about the balm of Gilead and the physician gets no answer from within Judah:
"This evil family" would spread the bones of the dead before the host of heaven, and would even want to die themselves. Yet they felt no shame; they "did not know how to blush." No one turned from his wickedness. Feeling all this, the prophet cries, "Dismay has taken hold on me! Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?" (Jer. 8:21-22). None could be found. There was no man. The coming of Christ is the only hope.
- Sin. The verse names its own cause. The bitter drink comes because they sinned against the Lord. Their greed and neglect of Israel's true good had to be punished.
- Sentence. Gall means bitterness. The water of gall is God's judgment handed to them as a drink — the same drink later offered to Christ, who refused it.
- Shelter. Crowding into walled cities looks wise. But God overturns such plans and disappoints such hopes.
- Stupor. Nebuchadnezzar was already on the way. Judgment was plain, yet the people did not understand it. So there was no repentance.
- Saviour. Admitting sin without turning leaves no cure: no balm, no physician, no man. The coming of Christ is the only hope.
Peace is looked for, and there is no good; a time of healing, and behold, terror.
Judah expected relief; what came instead was dread. Why did a people so sure of peace get the opposite, and did God's word fail, or only the hopes they had built beside it?
The words fall inside a long stretch of chapter 8 where God answers a nation that will not turn back. One writer sums up this whole run of verses. He traces the disappointment straight to God's own hand.
But what wisdom is in those who reject the word of the Lord? They are greedy, and they have treacherously neglected the true interests of Israel. At His hands this must meet the punishment it deserves. He will surely consume. He will overturn their wise plans, disappoint their hopes, and make the whole land tremble before its enemies, who will bite like serpents that cannot be charmed.
Who speaks these words — the people, or the prophet? Commentators differ, and one gives his reading while noting the other view.
Verse 13 shows the desolation that will fall on the land when the Lord arises. The words of verses 14-16 were spoken by the prophet, and not by the unrepentant people, as some take it.
Why did no healing come? One writer points to a wound treated lightly by those who cried "Peace, peace."
The prophet brings home this great fact to them: there is a wound there. In that day there were religious remedies and quacks who tried to heal that wound lightly. And how? By offering a message that did not match the real state of things. If God comes and deals with us, dear friends, He must have reality. He could not add to a festering sore or wound, if it is there in our moral being. "Peace, peace" was propping up a rotten order of things. God is too faithful, too holy, and too gracious not to deal with things exactly as they really are before Him.
What made the false hope possible? One writer describes a people who could not read their own time.
The people did not know the time; they did not know His judgment; they were going on in self-security. They thought that perhaps things were not quite as right as they appeared. But they did not think things were as bad as this troublesome man Jeremiah said. And so they were crying "Peace, peace," where there was no peace. They were not even ashamed when they had committed terrible things. The prophet could only give himself up to sorrow over them.
The terror that came instead of healing looks like pure loss. One writer sees it differently.
It is a mercy from God when a false peace is smashed up. The great bitterness that results is not pleasant, but it is still the way to God.
One writer comments on another prophecy where a nation's confidence was struck down blow after blow. He finds God's purpose behind the repeated disappointment.
It is striking how these prophecies follow one another. That shows how urgent it was to God that His people should encourage themselves in no false hope. We can see how every blow on such hopes was meant to fasten their hope on God Himself. But how little will man listen to anything short of experience itself! And experience, as everyone admits, is a hard teacher. How we have again and again to hear the word "Cease from man" stated, and then underlined by the event itself.
The same source traces where those hopes came from, and names what really failed.
This is another solemn testimony against vain hopes. The people expected the message of peace the false prophets had given them. They based that hope on all the promises made to their fathers. They were already seeing their vision fail, and it was no true vision. How often people imagine that God's word has failed, when the failure is only that of hopes falsely built on His word!
- False cure. The wound was real. Men treated it lightly with a message that did not match the people's true state, and God will not build on a rotten order of things.
- False calm. They did not know the time or the judgment, so they lived in self-security, saying "Peace, peace," and felt no shame.
- Broken hope. God Himself reversed their plans and disappointed their hopes, so terror came where they expected healing.
- Real cause. Commentators differ on who speaks here. They agree on this: God's word did not fail. The hopes falsely built beside it did.
- Real mercy. The smashing of a false peace is a kindness, because every blow on such hopes was meant to fasten hope on God Himself.
The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan the whole land trembleth at the sound of the neighing of his steeds, and they come, and devour the land, and all it contains, the city and those that dwell therein.
Judah expected peace, but instead a sound reaches Jerusalem from the far north: warhorses on the move, and a land shaking at the noise. Who is coming, why does the sound start at Dan, and why does it fall on people who thought they were safe?
One writer names the invader and the anger behind him:
There was no man to save the sorrowful situation. So the instrument of God's anger is raised up! The event the book points to is about to happen! Nebuchadnezzar — the lion of Babylon — the destroyer from the north is coming! The battle standard is unfurled! The trumpet sound is heard! Evil comes, and a great destruction!
Some readers take verses 14 to 16 as the cry of the people. One writer gives them to Jeremiah instead:
Verse 13 shows the desolation that will fall on the land when the Lord arises. The words of verses 14-16 were spoken by the prophet, and not by the unrepentant people, as some take them. Verse 16 is extremely vivid.
Dan stood in the far north, and it was known for two things:
This is often named as the northern border of Palestine; "from Dan to Beersheba" means the whole land. It was here that open idolatry was set up early on.
So the noise starts where the nation first turned from God. It is also the first place an invader from the north would cross the border.
Horses are not a neutral detail in Scripture. One survey traces where Israel's horses came from and what they stand for:
Horses were forbidden to Israel (Deuteronomy 17:16), and they were brought from Egypt (1 Kings 10:28)... The Assyrian armies were famous for horses. So they represent strength, swiftness, fearlessness, majesty, and strength in battle (Proverbs 21:31; Jeremiah 6:23; Jeremiah 8:16).
The animal Israel was forbidden to keep is now thundering toward her.
The threat covers land, city and people together. One writer traces the trembling back to its cause — a people who rejected the Lord's word:
But what wisdom is there in those who reject the word of the Lord? Their greed and treacherous neglect of Israel's true interests must meet with the punishment they deserve at His hands. He will surely consume them. He will overturn their careful plans, disappoint their hopes, and make the whole land tremble before their enemies, who will bite like snakes that cannot be charmed.
Why was the shock so complete? One writer points to what the people believed about themselves:
The people did not know the time; they did not know His judgment; they were carrying on in false security. They thought perhaps things were not quite as right as they appeared, but not as bad as this troublesome man Jeremiah said. And so they were crying "Peace, peace," where there was no peace. They were not even ashamed when they had committed abominations.
- Sound. Jerusalem hears the army before it sees it — horses snorting and neighing at the border. The words are Jeremiah's, not the frightened crowd's.
- Source. The horses belong to Nebuchadnezzar, "the destroyer from the north." God raised him up as the instrument of His anger against a nation that had no one left to save it.
- Start. Dan marks the northern edge of the land. It is also where open idolatry first took hold. Judgment enters where the drift away from God began.
- Sweep. Horses in Scripture stand for strength, swiftness, fearlessness and power in battle. This army devours land, city and people alike. The whole land trembles before enemies who bite like snakes that cannot be charmed.
- Security. The shock lands on people crying "Peace, peace" where there was no peace. They were not ashamed of their sin, and they felt safe. The sound from Dan answers that.
For behold, I send among you serpents, vipers against which there is no charm, and they shall bite you, saith Jehovah.
In Jeremiah 8 the Lord answers people who had rejected His word. His answer is something He sends: snakes that no charmer can quiet. Two questions follow. Who are these serpents, and why does the usual remedy fail?
Commentators read the serpents as the enemy God brings against people who rejected His word — the repayment their greed had earned.
But what wisdom is there in those who reject the word of the Lord? They are greedy, and they betray Israel's true interests by neglecting them. His hand must repay them as they deserve. He will surely consume. He will overturn their careful plans and disappoint their hopes. He will make the whole land tremble before their enemies, who will bite like serpents that no one can charm.
Older translations turned the Hebrew word behind the ESV's "adders" into "cockatrices." The exact reptile is uncertain. The trait Jeremiah names is not.
tsiphoni. Older translators rendered this word 'adder' in the text only once, in Proverbs 23:32. They rendered it 'cockatrice' four times: in Isaiah 11:8; Isaiah 14:29; Isaiah 59:5, which refer to its poison, and in Jeremiah 8:17, which says it will not be charmed, but will bite. People take it to be the 'yellow viper' of Palestine, which hides in dens and has deadly poison. Reports say it resists the skill of the snake charmers. The cockatrice was an imaginary creature, and the translators may have picked its name for some unknown deadly snake.
Charming was a real trade, and Scripture uses the word in more than one setting.
In Psalm 58:5 and Jeremiah 8:17 the reference is to those who can charm serpents, probably by soft and gentle sounds. In Deuteronomy 18:11 and Isaiah 19:3 it is linked with idolatry and sorcerers: these also carry on their incantations with low mutterings.
So Jeremiah names a skill that works on other snakes. On these it fails.
In Scripture snake venom points two ways at once.
Scripture uses the poison of serpents and of asps as a symbol of God's judgement and of the malice that belongs to the wicked. Deuteronomy 32:24, 33; Psalm 58:4; Psalm 140:3; Romans 3:13. The tongue is "a restless evil, full of deadly poison." James 3:8.
Jeremiah's commission explains why no remedy was left. The time for reversal had run out.
Jeremiah prophesied just before the Babylonian captivity. He lived to see it and to record it. Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. His sins made it impossible to cancel the sentence long before passed on the guilty nation, or even to put it off much longer. So Jeremiah is commissioned to declare that their doom cannot be reversed. God had given them space to repent. Again and again, when the people showed some signs of sorrow, the Lord had delayed carrying the sentence out. But now He declares Himself "weary of relenting" (older versions: "weary with repenting")… The judgment was unavoidable. No pleading, not even Moses' or Samuel's, could turn it aside.
This was not the first time God sent snakes among His own people. What happened then shows how He deals with a judgment already spoken.
Israel had sinned, as we have seen, and God sent fiery serpents among them. They prayed that the serpents might be taken away, but no such prayer could succeed. The snakes that carried out God's righteous sentence had to stay in the camp. Death must follow sin, for God had said at the beginning, "In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." But the Lord commands Moses to make a serpent of bronze and set it on a pole. Then Moses is to announce, so the whole camp can hear, that every bitten Israelite who looked to that lifted-up serpent would be healed and live.
The same creature has a future in which it can no longer harm.
Its deadly sting will be changed in the millennium, when a little child shall put its hand on its den.
- Sent. The serpents are not an accident of nature. They come from God's own hand. They repay people who rejected His word, and they stand for the enemies who make the whole land tremble.
- Unstoppable. The word behind "adders" (older versions: "cockatrices") names a snake that resists the charmer's skill. It will not be charmed, but it will bite.
- Useless. Charmers worked by soft, gentle sounds, and the same word group is tied to sorcery. Against these snakes that skill fails.
- Irreversible. The Lord had delayed the sentence again and again while there was space to repent. By Jeremiah's day not even Moses' or Samuel's pleading could turn it aside.
- Remedy. When God sent serpents before, He did not take them away. He gave a bronze serpent lifted up on a pole, and whoever looked at it lived. One day the deadly sting itself will be changed.