Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Jeremiah 8:3

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

No hope for an idolatrous people (7:16-8:3)

God now tells Jeremiah that it is useless for him to persist in praying for the safety of the Judeans. They have so given themselves to idolatrous practices that nothing can save them from God’s judgment. Throughout the cities and towns of Judah people worship foreign gods, but in the process they harm themselves (16-19). The harm will be much greater when God’s judgment falls on them (20).
While openly worshipping heathen gods, the people also offer sacrifices to Yahweh. The offering of sacrifices was part of the religious system God gave to Israel through Moses, but the first thing God demanded of his people was always obedience (21-23). Israel’s history shows that sacrifices will never save a stubborn and disobedient people from punishment (24-26).

Most of the people will ignore the prophet’s warnings, but he must persist in announcing God’s message (27-28). Jeremiah tells the people to shave off their hair as a sign of mourning for the death that is soon to overtake their nation (29). They have brought idolatrous practices into God’s temple, and just outside Jerusalem they have established a site for the heathen practice of sacrificing children to the god Molech (30-31). But the place where they have slaughtered their children will become a dump for their own corpses. There they will rot in the sun and be eaten by foul birds (32-34; cf. 2 Kings 21:6; 2 Kings 23:10).

Not satisfied with butchering the helpless people, the invaders will do all they can to heap disgrace upon Judah. They will even drag out the bones of the nation’s honoured dead from their tombs and scatter them like garbage on the ground. But such disgrace is preferable to the horror that will be experienced by people who live through those days (8:1-3).

Tophet and the Valley of Hinnom

The place where the Judeans offered their children as burnt sacrifices was the Valley of Ben Hinnom, on the southern side of the city. The valley got its name from the son of Hinnom (the Hebrew ben meaning ‘son’) who at one time probably owned the land that stretched along the valley. The name Tophet seems to have meant ‘place of burning’ and was used originally in relation to the place in the Valley of Hinnom where people burnt their children as sacrifices. This was also the place where people from Jerusalem dumped broken pottery (see 19:1-2). In time it became a public garbage dump and fires burnt there continually.
When transliterated from Hebrew to Greek, ‘Valley of Hinnom’ (Hebrew: ge-hinnom) becomes gehenna. This was the word that Jesus used for the place of final punishment of the wicked, and is commonly translated ‘hell’ (Matthew 10:28; Matthew 18:9; Matthew 23:33). The Valley of Hinnom was associated with judgment and burning (see 7:31-32; 19:4-7), and therefore gehenna became a fitting word to denote the place or state of eternal punishment (Mark 9:43-48; cf Matthew 18:8-9; Revelation 20:10,Revelation 20:15).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

“At that time, saith Jehovah, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves; and they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, and after which they have walked, and which they have sought, and which they have worshipped; they shall not be gathered, nor be buried, they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residents that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith Jehovah of hosts.”

These verses are actually a continuation of the previous chapter and are so treated by some writers. The desecration of the graves of defeated peoples was widely practiced in antiquity; and there were excellent reasons for it in the case of Judah.

Josephus tells us that: “Solomon buried David with great wealth;… and 1,300 years afterward, Hyrcanus the high priest, when besieged by Antiochus, opened one of the rooms of David’s sepulchre and took out 3,000 talents of gold with which he bribed Antiochus to lift the siege... Also, Herod the king opened another room and took out a great deal of money... But neither of them came near the coffins of the kings themselves, for their bodies were buried under the earth so artfully, that they did not appear even to those entering their monuments.Flavius Josephus’ Antiquities, The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, translated by William Whiston (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston), p. 237.

Dummelow expressed doubts as to the genuine motivation for such wholesale desecration of the Jewish graves, supposing that it might have been, “either from pure wantonness, or in the hope of finding treasures or ornaments of value.”J. R. Dummelow’s Commentary, p. 463. There was more than enough motivation either way. Since the bones of the dead were held in such reverence by the Hebrew people, the Chaldeans would have delighted in the desecration, even if merely for spite to a despised enemy.

The great thing in this paragraph, however, appears in Jeremiah 8:2, where the five-fold engagement of the Jews with “the hosts of heaven,” in their (1) loving them, (2) serving them, (3) walking after them, (4) seeking them, and (5) worshipping them is stressed. Very well, the people through their false leaders have been betrayed into paganism in this worship of the sun, moon, and stars; therefore, the bones of those worshippers are exposed to the sun, moon, and stars, which were utterly helpless to afford any prevention or assistance. Indeed, the sun would only hasten the disintegration and decay of the bones. What an exposition is this of the futility of worshipping the hosts of heaven.

Henderson’s comment on this is: “The objects of idolatrous worship are here introduced as the unconcerned spectators of the indignities offered to the bones of their worshippers!”E. Henderson, The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Company, 1851), p. 56. The five-fold repetition of the word “bones” helps to add a funeral impression to the whole passage.

“Death shall be chosen rather than life” Thompson believed that, “This refers (1) either to the unbearable conditions endured in the captivity, or (2) to the memory of the last days in Judah which were too much to bear.”J. A. Thompson, The Bible and Archeology (Grand Rapid, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972) p. 296.

“All the residue that remain of this evil family” “Jeremiah here uses the word `family’ for the whole Jewish race.”Scribner’s Bible Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), p. 377.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

This evil family - The whole Jewish race.

Which remain - The words are omitted by the Septuagint and Syriac versions.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

He intimates in this verse, that all survivors would be doubly miserable, as it would be better for them to die at once than to pine away in unceasing evils: for they who give another meaning to the words, seem not to understand the design of the Prophet. The import then of the passage is, — that however dreadful God’s judgment would be, when slaughters everywhere prevailed, and dead bodies were drawn out which had been previously buried, yet all this would be a slight punishment in comparison with what God would inflict on the rest, such as remained alive: and he also intimates that their life would be more miserable than death itself, yea, than ten deaths.

That those then who would escape death might not think that they gained any advantage, the Prophet says, Chosen shall be death before life by all the residue We hence learn how grievous was to be God’s vengeance; for nothing would be better or more desirable than to undergo death at once, as life would be nothing else but a continued languor and torment. Expected then will be death in all places in which there shall be survivors, where I shall drive them He mentions a reason for this twofold misery, — they would not be allowed to live in their own country, but would become aliens, — and they would find in their exile God’s hand against them, and as it were following them everywhere. ⁽²¹⁷⁾

(217) The literal rendering of this verse is as follows, —

And chosen shall be death rather than life by all the remnant, — Who shall remain of this wicked family, In all the places of such as shall remain, Whither I shall have driven them, Saith Jehovah of hosts.

Blayney justly observes, that the participle in the second line is in apposition with “remnant,“ as explanatory of it, and is not to be put in the genitive case, as in our version. A similar construction is found in Jeremiah 24:8. But there is no sufficient authority or reason for omitting the same participle after “places,“ as is done by Blayney. Such repetitions are common in the prophets. — Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 8

At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants, out of their graves: And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth. And death shall be chosen rather than life by the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the LORD of hosts ( Jeremiah 8:1-3 ).

Now he talks about them worshipping the sun, the moon, the host of heaven. But this verse Jeremiah 8:3 is interesting to me, "Death shall be chosen rather than life by the residue of them that remain of this evil family." And the last of the Jews to hold out against the Roman government were in Masada, and this was a prophecy fulfilled as they chose death rather than life and committed mass suicide at Masada rather than to be taken by the Romans. And so that was the final residue of those that remained prior to the dispersion by the Roman government. The final residue of people chose death rather than life.

Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; Shall they fall, and not arise? shall he turn away, and not return again? ( Jeremiah 8:4 )

In other words, though they're going to be wiped out, the last of those that remain will choose to commit suicide rather than be taken captive. Yet God said, "I will return. I will deal with them again." Oh, the patience of God and the grace of God as He promises even though they have failed, He will be true and faithful and He will gather them again in the last days.

Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. I hearkened and heard, but they spoke not aright: no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle. Now, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but the people know not the judgment of the LORD ( Jeremiah 8:5-7 ).

Even the animals have certain instinctive knowledge. "But My people," God said, "are refusing to obey the conscience of their own hearts." It's been planted there. God has put His Word in each man in his heart, but men refuse even those basic instincts of good and evil, right and wrong. Now the swallow returns every year to Capistrano. He knows the days. He observes the times. They have an instinctive, built-in kind of a little guidance computer system. But here people, infinitely wiser than the animals, yet disobeying that inner conscience that God has placed in each man.

How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us? Lo, certainly in vain [he gave it or] he made it; the pen of the scribes is in vain. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; so what wisdom is really in them? ( Jeremiah 8:8-9 )

How can you say you're wise? We've got the law of the Lord. "God gave the law," he said, "in vain." God sent His Son in vain as far as many people are concerned. If you have rejected Jesus Christ as your Saviour, God sent His Son to die in vain. And the death of Jesus Christ is in vain as far as you are concerned. It is only as you have received Jesus Christ that it becomes valid and meaningful.

For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush; therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD. I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no more grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defensed cities, and let us be silent: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD. We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold there was trouble! The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan ( Jeremiah 8:11-16 ):

Babylonian armies moving down from the upper area of Dan.

the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and they have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein. For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD. When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me. Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities? The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? ( Jeremiah 8:16-22 )

So God's lament now and God's crying over this situation. And I think the saddest lament in the whole Bible is this in verse Jeremiah 8:20 where God declares, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, they are not saved." Lost, eternally lost. The time of harvest is over. Let me warn you as a servant of God and as His spokesman that the day of harvest is almost over. The summer is almost past. God is winding up very rapidly His program on this planet Earth. The day of salvation will soon be over. Paul said, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand" ( Romans 13:12 ). That is, the new day of God's kingdom. If you're not saved, you don't have much more time to wait. The harvest is almost over. God is about ready to bring things to a climax.

Now how God identifies is beautiful. "For the hurt of the daughter of My people," God said, "I am hurt." It hurts God to see these people miss out on what God wants for them. God is hurt when I am walking out of fellowship with Him and thus am losing out on all that He wants to do for me. It hurts God to see me suffering from my own follies. "For the hurt of My people," God said, "I am hurt."

"

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Astral worship 8:1-3

"The sermon ends (if these verses, still in prose, should be taken with ch. 7) on a note which takes away the last shreds of comfort for those whose hopes or memories are bound up with Jerusalem." [Note: Kidner, p. 51.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The scattered remnant who survived the invasion would consider death a more desirable alternative than life as displaced persons. They would feel this way because the portion of the living would be more miserable than that of the dead (cf. Leviticus 26:36-39; Deuteronomy 28:65-67; 2 Kings 25:5-7; Psalms 137; Revelation 9:6).

Some scholars believe that Jeremiah delivered this entire collection of speeches (Jeremiah 7:1 to Jeremiah 8:3) at the temple (cf. Jeremiah 7:1-2). That may or may not be true. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to trace the origin of many of Jeremiah’s undated prophecies, when and where he gave them originally. [Note: For a chart of his dated material, see Raymond B. Dillard and Tremper Longman III, An Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 302]

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And death shall be chosen rather than life,.... By them that should be alive in those times, who would be carried captive into other lands, and be used very hardly, and suffer greatly, by the nations among whom they should dwell; see Revelation 9:6. The Septuagint version, and those that follow it, make this to be a reason of the former, reading the words thus, "because they have chosen death rather than life"; see

Deuteronomy 30:19, but the other sense is best, which is confirmed by what follows:

by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family; the nation of the Jews, become very corrupt and degenerate; so the people of Israel are called the whole family of Israel, Amos 3:1, now it is foretold, that those which remained of that people, who died not by famine, or were not slain by the sword, yet should be in such a miserable condition, as that death would be more eligible to them than life:

even which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts: for, though they were carried captive by men, yet the thing was of the Lord, and a just punishment upon them for their sins.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:   2 And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.   3 And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the LORD of hosts.

      These verses might fitly have been joined to the close of the foregoing chapter, as giving a further description of the dreadful desolation which the army of the Chaldeans should make in the land. It shall strangely alter the property of death itself, and for the worse too.

      I. Death shall not now be, as it always used to be--the repose of the dead. When Job makes his court to the grave it is in hope of this, that there he shall rest with kings and counsellors of the earth; but now the ashes of the dead, even of kings and princes, shall be disturbed, and their bones scattered at the grave's mouth,Psalms 141:7. It was threatened in the close of the former chapter that the slain should be unburied; that might be through neglect, and was not so strange; but here we find the graves of those that were buried industriously and maliciously opened by the victorious enemy, who either for covetousness, hoping to find treasure in the graves, or for spite to the nation and in a rage against it, brought out the bones of the kings of Judah and the princes. The dignity of their sepulchres could not secure them, nay, did the more expose them to be rifled; but it was base and barbarous thus to trample upon royal dust. We will hope that the bones of good Josiah were not disturbed, because he piously protected the bones of the man of God when he burnt the bones of the idolatrous priests, 2 Kings 23:18. The bones of the priests and prophets too were digged up and thrown about. Some think the false prophets and the idol-priests, God putting this mark of ignominy upon them: but, if they were God's prophets and his priests, it is what the Psalmist complains of as the fruit of the outrage of the enemies, Psalms 79:1; Psalms 79:2. Nay, those of the spiteful Chaldeans that could not reach to violate the sepulchres of princes and priests would rather play at small game than sit out, and therefore pulled the bones of the ordinary inhabitants of Jerusalem out of their graves. The barbarous nations were sometimes guilty of these absurd and inhuman triumphs over those they had conquered, and God permitted it here, for a mark of his displeasure against the generation of his wrath, and for terror to those that survived. The bones, being dug out of the graves, were spread abroad upon the face of the earth in contempt, and to make the reproach the more spreading and lasting. They spread them to be dried that they might carry them about in triumph, or might make fuel of them, or make some superstitious use of them. They shall be spread before the sun (for they shall not be ashamed openly to avow the fact at noon day) and before the moon and stars, even all the host of heaven, whom they have made idols of, Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 8:2. From the mention of the sun, moon, and stars, which should be the unconcerned spectators of this tragedy, the prophet takes occasion to show how they had idolized them, and paid those respects to them which they should have paid to God only, that it might be observed how little they got by worshipping the creature, for the creatures they worshipped when they were in distress saw it, but regarded it not, nor gave them any relief, but were rather pleased to see those abused in being vilified by whom they had been abused in being deified. See how their respects to their idols are enumerated, to show how we ought to behave towards our God. 1. They loved them. As amiable being and bountiful benefactors they esteemed them and delighted in them, and therefore did all that follows. 2. They served them, did all they could in honour of them, and thought nothing too much; they conformed to all the laws of their superstition, without disputing. 3. They walked after them, strove to imitate and resemble them, according to the characters and accounts of them they had received, which gave rise and countenance to much of the abominable wickedness of the heathen. 4. They sought them, consulted them as oracles, appealed to them as judges, implored their favour, and prayed to them as their benefactors. 5. They worshipped them, gave them divine honour, as having a sovereign dominion over them. Before these light of heaven, which they had courted, shall their dead bodies be cast, and left to putrefy, and to be as dung upon the face of the earth; and the sun's shining upon them will but make them the more noisome and offensive. Whatever we make a god of but the true God only, it will stand us in no stead on the other side death and the grave, nor for the body, much less for the soul.

      II. Death shall now be what it never used to be--the choice of the living, not because there appears in it any thing delightsome; on the contrary, death never appeared in more horrid frightful shapes than now, when they cannot promise themselves either a comfortable death or a human burial; and yet every thing in this world shall become so irksome, and all the prospects so black and dismal, that death shall be chosen rather than life (Jeremiah 8:3; Jeremiah 8:3), not in a believing hope of happiness in the other life, but in an utter despair of any ease in this life. The nation is now reduced to a family, so small is the residue of those that remain in it; and it is an evil family, still as bad as ever, their hearts unhumbled and their lusts unmortified. These remain alive (and that is all) in the many places whither they were driven by the judgments of God, some prisoners in the country of their enemies, others beggars in their neighbour's country, and others fugitives and vagabonds there and in their own country. And, though those that died died very miserably, yet those that survived and were thus driven out should live yet more miserably, so that they should choose death rather than life, and wish a thousand times that they had fallen with those that fell by the sword. Let this cure us of the inordinate love of life, that the case may be such that it may become a burden and terror, and we may be strongly tempted to choose strangling and death rather.