Jeremiah 8:1-3

B. The Future Destruction Jeremiah 7:32 to Jeremiah 8:3

TRANSLATION

(32) Therefore behold, days are coming (oracle of the LORD) when it shall no longer be called the Topheth or the valley of the son of Hinnom but the valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Topheth for lack of place to bury. (33) And the carcasses of this people shall become food for the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field and no one shall cause them to be afraid. (Jeremiah 8:1) In that time (oracle of 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 from their graves. (2) And they shall spread them to the sun and to the moon and to all the host of the heavens which they loved and served and went after and which they sought and which they worshiped. They shall not be gathered nor buried; they shall become dung upon the face of the ground. (3) Death shall be chosen rather than life by all the remnant of this evil family who remain in all the places where I have driven them (oracle of the LORD of hosts).

COMMENTS

The polluted worship of the people of Judah will be punished in a most decisive way. A disaster will befall Judah in which so many people will be slain or die that even the pagan shrines will be converted to cemeteries. The valley of the son of Hinnom will be renamed the valley of slaughter because of the vast numbers that will be buried there (Jeremiah 7:32). The very spot where they had tried to court the favor of a pagan deity by offering their own children as burnt offerings will become a permanent monument to the folly of idolatry. But even this huge valley will not provide enough room for burial places for all the slain. Many corpses will be left unburied. The birds and beasts of prey will come and feast upon the decaying flesh and no one will be left to drive them away (Jeremiah 7:33).[185] In antiquity the lack of proper burial was the worst indignity which could befall a man. The thought of a corpse exposed to the elements of nature horrified the ancient Hebrews.

[185] Jeremiah 7:33 echoes the threat of Deuteronomy 28:26.

The cities of Judah met the same fate as Topheth. All the normal sounds of joy and mirth will be removed. The entire land becomes a desolation (Jeremiah 7:34). The word translated desolation is used only of places which, having once been inhabited, have fallen into ruin. It is a gloomy picture indeed which the prophet paints of the future destruction.

Not only will the enemies of Judah leave the dead unburied (Jeremiah 7:33) they will also violate the graves of those who had been interred. In search of valuables the Babylonians will ransack the sepulchers of the leading citizens of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 7:1) and scatter their bones across the face of the ground. All the hosts of the heavens which the men of Judah had worshiped in life will helplessly look down upon this act of desecration (Jeremiah 7:2). The Biblical account of the fall of Jerusalem does not record the fulfillment of this particular prediction; but there can scarcely be any doubt that the ruthless Babylonians acted in the manner here described. The apocryphal book of Baruch (Jeremiah 2:24 f.) does allude to acts of desecration at the fall of Jerusalem.

For those who escape the destruction of Jerusalem and go into exile life will be so miserable that they will wish they were dead (Jeremiah 7:3). Practically nothing is known about the Jews who scattered into the neighboring countries of Syria-Palestine during the war with Babylon. Something of the despair of the Jewish exiles in Babylon shortly after 587 B.C. can be seen in Psalms 137. Time, of course, softened the utter despair of the exiles. The deportation to Babylon was for them a tremendous religious shock. They were forced to rethink their whole theology. As the exiles changed their mind and their heart in respect to God their lot improved. They adjusted to their surroundings and many of them actually prospered in exile. Jeremiah 7:3 must be describing the initial reaction of those who were carried away captive.[186]

[186] Laetsch views Jeremiah 7:3 as a conditional threat which was unfulfilled because of the repentance of the exiles.