Jeremiah 8:8

Lexham English Bible

Contextual Overview

⁴ "And you shall say to them, ‘Thus asks Yahweh: "Do men fall and not stand up? If one turns away does he not return? ⁵ Why has this people, Jerusalem, turned away in enduring apostasy? They have kept hold of deceit, they have refused to return. ⁶ I have listened attentively, and I have listened. They do not speak honestly, there is no man who regrets his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?' All of them are turning to their ways of running, like a horse plunging into battle. ⁷ Even the stork in heaven knows its appointed time, and the turtledove, and the swallow, and the song bird, they observe the time of their coming. But my people do not know the ordinance of Yahweh. ⁸ How can you say, ‘We are wise and the law of Yahweh is with us'? Look, surely the lying stylus of the scribes has made it a lie. ⁹ The wise will be put to shame, they will be dismayed, and they will get taken. Look, they have rejected the word of Yahweh, and what is wisdom to them? ¹⁰ Therefore I will give their wives to others, their fields to conquerors, because from the smallest to the greatest, all of them make profit for unlawful gain, from prophet to priest, all of them practice deceit. ¹¹ And they have treated the wound of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,' but there is no peace. ¹² Were they ashamed, for they had committed a detestable thing? What's worse, they were not ashamed at all, and they did not know to feel humiliated. Therefore they will fall among those who fall; at the time of their punishment they will stumble," says Yahweh.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

We: Job 5:12, Job 5:13, Job 11:12, Job 12:20, John 9:41, Romans 1:22, Romans 2:17-29, 1 Corinthians 3:18-20

the law: Psalms 147:19, Hosea 8:12

Lo: Matthew 15:6

in vain: etc. or, the false pen of the scribes worketh for falsehood, Proverbs 17:6, Isaiah 10:1, Isaiah 10:2

Reciprocal: 2 Samuel 15:31 - turn the counsel 1 Chronicles 2:55 - the scribes 2 Chronicles 34:13 - scribes 2 Chronicles 34:14 - the law Ezra 7:6 - scribe Nehemiah 8:1 - Ezra Psalms 119:99 - than all Psalms 119:100 - because Psalms 119:126 - they Jeremiah 2:8 - and they that Jeremiah 48:14 - How Hosea 4:6 - because Matthew 2:4 - scribes Matthew 6:23 - If Mark 7:13 - the word Luke 7:30 - rejected Luke 11:35 - General John 3:10 - Art Romans 2:23 - that makest Romans 3:31 - do we 1 Corinthians 4:10 - are wise 2 Corinthians 6:1 - ye Galatians 2:21 - Christ 1 Timothy 1:7 - understanding

Cross-References

Genesis 8:10
And he waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark.

Genesis 8:11
And the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly-picked olive tree leaf was in her mouth. And Noah knew that the waters had subsided from upon the earth.

Genesis 8:12
And he waited seven more days, and he sent out the dove. But it did not return again to him.

Song of Solomon 1:15
Look! You are beautiful, my beloved. Look! You are beautiful; your eyes are doves.

Song of Solomon 2:14
My dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secluded place in the mountain, Let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.

Matthew 10:16
"Behold, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

How do ye say, we are wise,.... Which they were continually boasting of, though they were ignorant of the judgment of the Lord, and were more stupid than the stork, turtle, crane, and swallow:

and the law of the Lord is with us? this was the foundation of their boast, because the law was given to them, and not to the nations of the world, which knew not God, and therefore they must be a wise and understanding people; and this law continued with them, they had it in their synagogues, and in their houses, and read it, and heard, or at least they might and ought to have heard and read it, and in this they trusted; of this character and cast were the Jews in the times of Christ and his apostles, Romans 2:17 to which agrees the Targum,

"how say ye, we are wise, and in the law of the Lord we trust?''

Lo, certainly in vain made he it; either the law, which was made or given in vain by the Lord to this people, since they made no better use of it, and valued themselves upon having it, without acting according to it; or the pen of the scribe, which was made by him in vain to write it, as follows:

the pen of the scribes is in vain; in vain, and to no purpose, were the scribes employed in writing out copies of the law, when either it was not heard or read, or however the things it enjoined were not put in practice; or the pen of the scribes was in vain, when employed in writing out false copies of the law, or false glosses and interpretations of it, such as were made by the Scribes and Pharisees in Christ's time, and the fathers before them, by whose traditions the word of God was made of none effect: and so the Targum,

"therefore, lo, in vain the scribe hath made the lying pen to falsify;''

that is, the Scriptures. The words may be rendered,

"verily, behold, with a lie he wrought; the pen: is the lie of the scribes h.''

h אכן הנה לשקר עשה עט שקר ספרים "utique ecce, mendacio operatus est; stylus mendacium scribarum est", Schmidt. Approved by Reinbeck. De Accent. Heb. p. 435.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The law of the Lord - The “Torah,” or written law, the possession of which made the priests and prophets so boastfully exclaim, “We are wise.”

Lo, certainly ... - Rather, Verily, lo! the lying pen “of the scribes” hath made it - the Law - into a lie. The mention of “scribes” in this place is a crucial point in the argument whether or not the Pentateuch or Torah is the old law-book of the Jews, or a fabrication which gradually grew up, but was not received as authoritative until after the return from the captivity. It is not until the time of Josiah 2 Chronicles 34:13 that “scribes” are mentioned except as political officers; here, however, they are students of the Torah. The Torah must have existed in writing before there could have been an order of men whose special business it was to study it; and therefore to explain this verse by saying that perhaps the scribes were writers of false prophecies written in imitation of the true, is to lose the whole gist of the passage. What the scribes turned into a lie was that Law of which they had just boasted that they were the possessors. Moreover, the scribes undeniably became possessed of preponderating influence during the exile: and on the return from Babylon were powerful enough to prevent the restoration of the kingly office. That there should be along with the priests and Levites men who devoted themselves to the study of the written Law, and who in the time of Josiah had acquired such influence as to be recognized as a distinct class - is just what we should expect from the rapid progress of learning, which began with Elisha’s active management of the schools of the prophets, and culminated in the days of Hezekiah. Jeremiah’s whole argument depends upon the fact that there were in his days men who claimed to be “wise” or “learned” men because of their study of the Pentateuch, and is entirely inconsistent with the assumptions that Jeremiah wrote the book of Deuteronomy, and that Ezra wrote parts of Exodus and the whole of Leviticus.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 8:8. The pen of the scribes is in vain. — The deceitful pen of the scribes. They have written falsely, though they had the truth before them. It is too bold an assertion to say that "the Jews have never falsified the sacred oracles;" they have done it again and again. They have written falsities when they knew they were such.