Reflections on Jeremiah 8

Jeremiah 08 (Contemporary English Version)
1. Then the bones of the dead kings of Judah and their officials will be dug up, along with the bones of the priests, the prophets, and everyone else in Jerusalem
   
2. who loved and worshiped the sun, moon, and stars. These bones will be scattered and left lying on the ground like trash, where the sun and moon and stars can shine on them.
   
3. Some of you people of Judah will be left alive, but I will force you to go to foreign countries, and you will wish you were dead. I, the LORD God All-Powerful, have spoken.
   
4. The LORD said: People of Jerusalem, when you stumble and fall, you get back up, and if you take a wrong road, you turn around and go back.
   
5. So why do you refuse to come back to me? Why do you hold so tightly to your false gods?
   
6. I listen carefully, but none of you admit that you've done wrong. Without a second thought, you run down the wrong road like cavalry troops charging into battle.
   
7. Storks, doves, swallows, and thrushes all know when it's time to fly away for the winter and when to come back. But you, my people, don't know what I demand.
   
8. You say, "We are wise because we have the teachings and laws of the LORD." But I say that your teachers have turned my words into lies!
   
9. Your wise men have rejected what I say, and so they have no wisdom. Now they will be trapped and put to shame; they won't know what to do.
   
10. I'll give their wives and fields to strangers. Everyone is greedy and dishonest, whether poor or rich. Even the prophets and priests cannot be trusted.
    
11. All they ever offer to my deeply wounded people are empty hopes for peace.
    
12. They should be ashamed of their disgusting sins, but they don't even blush. And so, when I punish Judah, they will end up on the ground, dead like everyone else.
    
13. I will wipe them out. They are vines without grapes; fig trees without figs or leaves. They have not done a thing that I told them! I, the LORD, have spoken.
    
14. The people of Judah say to each other, "What are we waiting for? Let's run to a town with walls and die there. We rebelled against the LORD, and we were sentenced to die by drinking poison.
    
15. We had hoped for peace and a time of healing, but all we got was terror.
    
16. Our enemies have reached the town of Dan in the north, and the snorting of their horses makes us tremble with fear. The enemy will destroy Jerusalem and our entire nation. No one will survive."
    
17. "Watch out!" the LORD says. "I'm sending poisonous snakes to attack you, and no one can stop them."
    
18. I'm burdened with sorrow and feel like giving up.
    
19. In a foreign land my people are crying. Listen! You'll hear them say, "Has the LORD deserted Zion? Is he no longer its king?" I hear the LORD reply, "Why did you make me angry by worshiping useless idols?"
    
20. The people complain, "Spring and summer have come and gone, but still the LORD hasn't rescued us."
    
21. My people are crushed, and so is my heart. I am horrified and mourn.
    
22. If medicine and doctors may be found in Gilead, why aren't my people healed?

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It is natural that if a person falls down or turns away from a thing that they get up again or return to what they left. But Judah had turned away from the Lord and had fallen but had not returned or gotten back up. She remained in her condition with no regrets. Even nature, such as the birds, know the seasons and observe them with their migratory patterns, but Judah had not the wisdom to observe "the requirements of the Lord." She claimed to be wise in that she had the "law of the Lord" with her, but in fact had obscured that law through the "Lying pen of scribes." (8:7-8) There seems to be a common attitude among those who boldly pursue their own way apart from the Lord, in that they presume to have a superior wisdom to those who are naive enough to follow the Lord. Or, as many say, are weak enough to require a crutch upon which to lean, the crutch being a dependence on God.

Whatever pleasure there might be in sin, it is short-lived, and whatever suffering might come to those who follow God is also short-lived. Rather than being wise, Judah was instead foolish in her choice of short-lived pleasure over long-term suffering by choosing her own way over God's way. The foolishness of this choice would soon be exposed when God sent the Babylonian army to destroy the nation. When this occurred, Judah would see the inadequacy of those things she had chosen to depend upon to defend her against the attack of the Babyloians. Life attacks us from time to time. It happens to both good and bad people. These attacks inevitably expose the wisdom, or lack of wisdom, of the choices we have made. Upon what or whom have we chosen to depend. In what or whom do we trust to take us through these difficult times in life?

Those things Judah had turned to in place of God, and upon which she had placed her trust, would prove inadequate in the face of the Babylonian onslaught. At that time the people would only be able to retreat to the fortified cities to await their fate at the hands of the Babylonians. There would be no salvation from the destruction. None of the supposed gods or other things Judah had turned to would come to her aid.