For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.
Romans 15:4
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________


_____________________________________________________________________________________________________


JEREMIAH
8

A Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough

Copyright 2003 James Melough 

8:1.  "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:"

 

The Babylonians wouldn't be content just to capture and plunder the city, and carry the inhabitants away captive: they would rifle also the tombs in search of valuables buried with the dead, and as a means of expressing their contempt for these former great ones.  It is to be remembered, however, that none of this would have been possible apart from God's permission, and His giving that permission declares that those who desecrated the tombs were unwittingly doing His will, for clearly this permitted profanation was the expression of His anger, this visible dishonor of the bodies of those who had dishonored Him while they lived, being an indication of the far more terrible recompense to be suffered by them eternally.

 

Nor should anyone miss the lesson being taught in that the list of those whose graves were desecrated, begins with the kings of Judah, the princes, the priests, the prophets.  The leaders, who should have been an example to the people, were they who had been foremost in leading them away from God.  It is no different today.  Those in positions of leadership in government, in business, in education, and in the church, are in the forefront of the revolt against God.  But as it was with rebellious Judah, so is it also with a rebel world and an equally rebellious professing but apostate church: the judgment of the God Whose patience they too have exhausted, is about to break on their guilty heads.

 

8:2.  "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 worshiped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth."

 

The love, the service, the obedience, the searching after, the worship, that belonged to God, they in their folly had given to the sun, moon, and stars, inanimate things called into existence by His Word, and upheld by that same power.  (Ahaz and Manasseh were the ones guilty of introducing this idolatry). 

As they in life had prostrated themselves to the earth before these heavenly bodies, so now would their desecrated bones lie on the earth before them in death, the stench of decay now ascending instead of the worship they had once offered.  And their folly is demonstrated in that these "gods" before whom they had prostrated themselves, were powerless to raise them again from death, while the God they had rejected and affronted had that power, and whereas obedience would have seen Him raise them to eternal life at the resurrection of life, their idolatry guaranteed that He would raise them instead at the resurrection of death for consignment to the eternal torment of the lake of fire. 

 

And so is it today.  The world and the professing but apostate church, have devoted themselves to honor the things represented by the sun, moon and stars, for the sun in a good sense represents Christ the Light of the world, but as the source of natural light, it represents the world's wisdom; the moon, in a good sense, is a type of the Church as a corporate witness for God, but in a bad sense, of the harlot system masquerading as the church; while the stars, in a good sense portray the Lord's witnesses leading men to Christ, but in a bad sense, those looked up to and followed by the giddy masses. 

 

No thinking person will refuse to admit that men today worship worldly knowledge; follow blindly and willingly the teaching of Satanic humanism; and in their devotion to equally Satanic hedonism, make heroes, role models, veritable gods, of those who, for the most part, are morally the scum of the earth.

 

The leaving of those bones to become "dung upon the face of the earth" declares symbolically that the deeds  of those whose bones were thus desecrated, were as filthy as dung in God's sight.  The evil in the world and in the professing church today is no less so.

 

8:3.  "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."

 

Such would be their misery in the land of their captivity, that they would wish for death, and surely this recalls the words of John relative to the coming Tribulation, "And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them," Re 9:6.  No reasonable mind will fail to see in Israel's past history, the foreshadowing of a more complete fulfillment in a soon-coming day.  The siege of Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah foreshadows also that which came in AD 70 at the hand of Rome, and points also to the far more terrible judgments yet to come at the hand of the Beast in the Tribulation era.

 

Above and beyond the literal is the additional truth that all who chose to disobey God are choosing eternal death rather than eternal life.

 

8:4.  "Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord; Shall they fall, and not rise? shall he turn away, and not return?"

 

God continues to declare their folly by having His prophet remind them that when one falls down he hastens to get up again; when one finds that he has taken a wrong road he hastens back to the point of departure so that he may find the right way.  But not so Israel and Judah.  So dead were they spiritually that they had no consciousness of having fallen, of having turned aside out of the right way.  Complacent in their ignorance and adherence to an empty religious ritual, they declared that it was others who had fallen, who had taken the wrong road.  And so is it with today’s apostate Christendom.  She looks with supercilious pride at what she terms “backward countries,” failing to understand that her empty ritualistic so-called worship is more abominable to God than is the activity of these other people, for she sins wantonly  against greater light.

 

8:5.  "Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return."

 

God's referring to them as "this people of Jerusalem" declares His refusal to acknowledge them any more as His people.  As they had rejected Him, so now does He reject them.  It is a fearful thing when a man, a nation, or a church eventually reaches this point through continued rebellion.  Judah's backsliding wasn't just a temporary thing from which she would recover herself.  It had been continued so long that the people were deceived into believing that they weren't backslidden and in need of returning to God.  Their sin was of such long standing that they were no longer conscious of their wretched state, their consciences seared as with a hot iron so that they mistook evil for good, and good for evil, and would not return because they were unaware of having departed.  So is it with the professing but apostate Church so accurately portrayed by backslidden Judah.

 

8:6.  "I hearkened and heard, but they spake 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."

 

In spite of having listened long and patiently in the hope of hearing truth from their lips, God had heard only that which declared their utter wickedness and departure from truth.  Hoping to find some evidence of repentance, to find one of them examining his life and exclaiming in horror, What have I done? a disappointed God had found only adamant determination on the part of the bulk of the people to continue in the path of sin as they rushed down the path to perdition with the reckless excitement of a horse charging into battle unconscious of his danger.

 

8:7.  "Yea, 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 my people know not the judgment of the Lord."

 

The migratory birds instinctively return each year in obedience to God's appointed order, but foolish Israel refused to return to Him, their sin compounded by the fact that they were of an infinitely higher order, governed, not by instinct, but by intelligence and reason, so that the remembrance of all God's goodness should not only have compelled their obedience, but should have hastened their return from such brief departure as might have resulted from momentary carelessness.  Judgment here is literally the law of the Lord.

 

Today's apostate church is even more culpable, for in addition to having the advantage of more worldly knowledge than was available to the ancients, she has also the recorded history of Israel's folly and its attendant disastrous results.

 

8:8.  "How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?  Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain."

 

God asks in indignation how they could dare to say that they were wise, and that they possessed and obeyed His law, when their scribes (writers: teachers) in their writings and teaching had falsified and twisted the meaning out of all resemblance to what He had commanded, so that His written Word was made to appear to justify their evil conduct.

 

Those who pose as teachers and guides of today's apostate church are guilty of the same falsification of Scripture.

 

8:9.  "The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?"

 

Their so-called wise men were not yet ashamed and dismayed, but so certain was the coming judgment, that God could speak of it as already come, their rejection of His Word proving that their vaunted "wisdom" was in reality utter folly.  The same certain judgment yet to come upon apostate Christendom, will reveal that the "wisdom" of those who dictate her conduct is also folly.

 

 

8:10.  "Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them: for everyone from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even unto the priest everyone dealeth falsely."

 

As God had given them wives and farms, so would He now in His anger take those things from them, and give them to their conquerors, the Babylonians, because in addition to their idolatry, all of them from the least to the greatest, the prophet as well as the priest, had coveted the possessions of others, seizing them by both fraud and force. 

 

Inasmuch as the wife represents the expression of a man's spiritual life - godly wives representing the expression of true spiritual life; the ungodly representing the expression of what the unbeliever mistakes for spiritual life - the giving of their wives to others may be the symbolic announcement that the  spiritual life professedly possessed by Israel would be taken from them and offered to the Gentiles, as it was, in fact, in AD 70. 

 

Today's apostate church will be seized by the Beast who will ravage her in the soon coming Tribulation. 

 

Since the farms represented their wealth, the seizure of their farms by the Babylonian conquerors may well foreshadow the giving of the land of Canaan to the Gentiles in AD 70, and the Beast's seizure of the wealth of the apostate church in the Tribulation.

 

The grasping of prophet and priest for gain needs little comment.  Their counterparts in today's apostate church are equally avaricious, not one willing to so much as lift his hand without being paid, as the Lord on another occasion declared of Israel, "Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought.  I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand," Mal 1:10.  The cupidity of today’s clerics is responsible for the attitude expressed in the language of many, “All the church wants is money.”

 

8:11.  "For they have healed the hurt from the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace."

 

Verses 10 and 11 are a virtual repetition of 6:12-14, the repetition undoubtedly being intended to emphasize the warning. The charlatan prophets and priests had treated Israel's deadly wound as though it were a minor injury.  They minimized the enormity of the offense against God, and assured the people that peace would continue, when in fact, God's judgment was about to fall upon them. 

 

It is no different today.  Deluded political and religious leaders proclaim that the world is about to enter the long dreamed of age of peace, little realizing that the present tenuous peace is just the calm before the storm, when the earth will be convulsed by war, famine, disease and anarchy worse than anything it has ever known.

 

Blind religious leaders are also busy minimizing the magnitude of man's sin against God, offering healing through a spurious "gospel" that omits mention of man's ruined state, all reference to hell, the need of repentance and faith in a crucified and risen Savior, and that promises man everlasting peace in response to a mere assent to the historicity of Christ, or the parroted repetition of the so-called "sinner's prayer," a prayer in regard to which Scripture is ominously silent.  There is no more deadly error than to believe that assent to the historicity of Christ is the same as believing in Him as Savior.  The former will take you to hell; the latter, to heaven!  Faith in the mere repetition of the newly invented “sinner’s prayer” is equally deadly.  Men are saved only when the Holy Spirit convicts them of sin, impels the penitent cry, “What must I do to be saved,” and leads them to put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the One Who has been delivered for their offences, and Who has been raised again as the evidence of their being justified by that believing faith.

 

The condition of apostate Judah in the days of Jeremiah is but the OT picture of the state of apostate Christendom today, the judgment that overtook the one being but a foreshadowing of that which is about to engulf the other.

 

8:12.  "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."

 

Abomination here refers to their idolatry, so long continued that they had neither shame nor misgiving.  It had become an accepted way of life with them.  But God wasn't indifferent.  It wasn't acceptable to Him, and His just retribution was about to overtake them, their “falling” referring to their dying under His righteous judgment.

 

As has been noted already, an apostate church is equally idolatrous, the only difference between her and apostate Judah being that the gods she worships are money, education, pleasure, ease, sport, music, art, etc.  This is no less abominable to God, nor will it escape His judgment, she, as blind and deaf as the Judah of Jeremiah's day, being equally oblivious of the fact that it is abominable to God, that He will visit it with judgment, and that that judgment is imminent.

 

8:13.  "I will surely consume them, saith the Lord: there shall be no 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."

 

Certainly multitudes of them would die in the coming invasion, and most of those of that evil generation who survived the Babylonian onslaught would eventually die in the land of their captivity, but the consumption mentioned here appears to relate rather to their corporate identity.  Their national existence would be brought to an end, and when renewed, it would be as constituted by a new generation.  That old idolatrous generation would never again constitute Israel in the land.

 

There is a dreadful finality about this, reminding us that it is a fearful thing to exhaust God's patience and pass for ever beyond the pale of mercy.  The grapes and figs of Canaan, the evidences of God's bountiful provision for their comfort, would never again be enjoyed by that rebel generation.  The vines and fig trees would die as the land lay desolate for the seventy years of the coming captivity. 

 

When God first spoke to Moses relative to the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and His bringing them into Canaan, He spoke of the land as “flowing with milk and honey,” so it seems that there may be a special significance to His referring here to its vines and grapes, fig trees and figs, and their leaves, rather than to its milk and honey, and the reason becomes clear when we remember what is typified by the vine and the fig.  The vine represents Israel as she was when God brought her out of Egypt and planted her in Canaan, see Isa 5:1-7; and wine, the fruit of the vine, is scripturally synonymous with joy and gladness, see Ps 104:15.

 

The fig tree is also a type of Israel, the leafy, but fruitless fig tree of Mk 11:13 being a type of Israel as she was in the days of Christ: leafy (symbol of mere empty profession), but fruitless (lacking spiritual life); and withered, Mk 11:20-21 representing her dead state since AD 70 till the restoration of her autonomy in 1948, her present state since 1948 being portrayed by the fig tree described in Mk 13:28, her branch tender, and putting forth leaves: the evidence of her awaking after her long winter sleep of the past two thousand years.  Her restoration to fulness of blessing is very near!

 

The fruitless and leafless vine and fig tree of this present verse portrays Israel, not only during the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, but also during the long years between AD 70 and 1948, during which she has produced no fruit for God, nor born any testimony on His behalf.  The day is fast approaching, however, when there will emerge from the crucible of the Tribulation judgments a repentant believing remnant, the new Israel that will inherit millennial blessing, and that will glorify God in that halcyon age, not as the vine or the fig tree, but as the olive tree, whose oil is the biblical symbol of the fulness of the Holy Spirit’s blessing.

 

What remorse will gnaw the hearts of the impenitent in the torment of the lake of fire when they realize, eternally too late, what blessings would have been theirs had they obeyed God and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior!

 

8:14.  "Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: 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."

 

These words anticipate the reaction of Judah when the judgment would fall, and the Babylonians would invade the land.  Fleeing into the larger walled cities, they would await their doom, every mouth stopped, all arrogant claims of righteousness silenced, as they would discover, too late for remedy, that Jeremiah was right, and their false prophets and proud leaders, wrong. 

 

Their being compelled to drink the “water of gall” is the grim reminder that all who refuse to drink “the water of life,” i.e., trust the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, will suffer the fate of the rich man described in Lk 16 who from the torment of hell’s unquenchable flame pleaded, “send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame,” Lk 16:24.

 

Their silence  recalls the words of Paul, "Now we know that whatsoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God," Ro 3:19.  So will it be also at the judgment of the great white throne, the bitter irony related to unbelief being that the voluntary confession of guilt, which given in time, would have saved the soul, will be unreservedly given then, but too late, in eternity.  Can any folly be greater than that which postpones till eternity the confession that damns the soul, when the same confession made in time and in conjunction with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, would have brought salvation?

 

There is no greater tragedy than that of repentance come too late!

 

8:15.  "We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!"

 

Too late they lamented that instead of the peace they had been wrongly taught to expect, had come instead evil; and in place of anticipated health, terror.

 

It is to be noted that the terror came suddenly, but its sudden coming was the result of their refusal to ignore warning, while believing the lies of their false prophets.  Had they listened to God's oft repeated warnings, they would have known to expect the terror; and had they obeyed His warnings, would have saved themselves.

 

So is it today with a spiritually blind and deaf world, and an equally blind and deaf apostate church.  The coming judgment will overtake them as suddenly as it did Judah in the days of Jeremiah, and for the same reason.  It will be not because of lack of warning, but because of warning long repeated, but ignored.  Believers are the tangible evidence that the warning has been, and is still being given, for it is belief of God's warning that leads men to save themselves from the coming wrath, by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. 

 

The element of fear, however, is missing from today's false gospel, but no man will be saved who hasn't first been made to tremble at the thought of meeting a Holy God.  It is the fear of God that impels men to seek a hiding place, there being only one such refuge, the man Christ Jesus, as it is written in Scripture, "A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," Isa 32:2.

 

8:16.  "The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein."

 

Horses are one of the biblical symbols of strength, particularly the strength of man in opposition to God, and here they represent the might of the Babylonians, a strong people who defied God, but who here were unwittingly doing His will in being the instrument of chastisement against rebellious Judah.  Since Dan means judging: a judge, spiritual minds will have no difficulty reading the spiritual message.  The invasion that began in Dan, in the north, was the judgment of God upon His rebellious people, the intrusion of the invader being impossible apart from God's permission, that permission being given only because apostate Judah had refused to repent, and must therefore perish.

 

The north is the biblical direction that speaks of mere natural intelligence, which invariably works against God, there being no clearer demonstration of that truth than the rebellious activity of this twenty-first century world obsessed with its quest for all knowledge except that of God; and its foolish confidence that that same knowledge will yet bring the peace which God says is available only to those who confess their nothingness and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. 

 

The destruction which overtook the foolish Judeans of Jeremiah’s day was but a foreshadowing of the far more terrible Tribulation judgments that will leave this present world in ruins, and that will sweep two-thirds of its population into eternity, only the tiny believing remnant entering heaven, the vast majority plunging into torment in hell to await their final consignment to the unquenchable flame of the lake of fire.

 

8:17.  "For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices (vipers), among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord."

 

The word serpent as used here is derived from a primitive root related to the idea of hissing or whispering magic spells or enchantments; while cockatrice is related to the idea of  extruding, as in a viper’s thrusting out the tongue and hissing; and there is no question that the statement is first to be understood literally; but that doesn’t automatically exclude also a spiritual application to “that old serpent” Re 12:9; 20:2, Satan and all his viper brood, for in the final analysis it was he who had first enticed Judah to sin, and those who will not serve God must serve Satan.  Judah and Benjamin, having refused Jehovah's easy service, must now as the compelled slaves of the Babylonians, render an arduous service to the old serpent, for the Babylonians were simply Satan's minions.

 

The reference to the impossibility of charming the serpents, is related to the general belief that snakes can be charmed or lulled by music.  Nothing, however, would charm Judah's conquerors.  As the natural proclivity of the serpent is to bite and kill, so would the Babylonians, the spiritual seed of the old serpent, bite and destroy those, who rebels though they were, were still God's earthly people, having amongst them the small believing remnant who were the true Israel, the seed of the godly line which would eventually produce the long-promised Messiah.

 

8:18.  "When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me."

 

It is generally accepted that the speaker here is Jeremiah, Judah's folly having not only brought sorrow to her own heart, but to his also.  Such was his love for the sinful people that he found no pleasure in having to announce their doom, his genuine sorrow at what their folly had brought upon them, causing him to weep, and to be known as "the weeping prophet."  The same compassion reigned in the heart of Christ as He also sorrowfully announced the doom of a later generation of the same rebellious people; and all who would be true servants of God, must declare His warnings with the same compassion.

 

8:19.  "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 speaker in the first part of this verse appears to be the prophet; and those lamenting, they who would be left in the land, crying  on behalf of "them that dwell in a far country," i.e., the majority who would be carried captive to Babylon.

 

"Is not the Lord in Zion? is not her king in her?"  The  questioner is taken by some to be Jehovah; by others, Jeremiah; and by others, the remnant left in the desolated land.  The resolution of that question, however, is relatively unimportant compared to the necessity of learning what a fearful thing it is to so provoke God that He departs either from a nation or an individual.  He is a very great fool who ignores the warning, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man," Ge 6:3, and repeated in Pr 29:1, "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."

 

Judah's tragic history is so only because she ignored Divine warning; and sadly, a rebel world and apostate church will demonstrate that that sad history is but their own prewritten, and for the same reason - rejection of Divine warning.

 

There is no uncertainty as to the identity of the One Who asks the last question.  It is Jehovah Himself, and well might He ask, "Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?"  The reader too must stand amazed at the response of Israel and Judah to such kindnesses as had been shown them by the God from Whom they had wantonly turned aside, and mocked with their idolatry.  A greater wonder is that a rebel world and apostate church, having this history to warn them against such folly, should be guilty of the same offense; nor should it surprise anyone that the impending Tribulation era will see meted out to them judgments far more terrible than those which overtook the rebels of Jeremiah's day.

 

8:20.  "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

 

The grain harvest was reaped in April through June, and the fruit harvest in August through October, and with the ending of the harvest season the lament of doomed Judah was, "and we are not saved." 

 

The frequency with which this verse has been used in the Gospel has resulted in misunderstanding relative to the meaning of the word saved in the present context.  It is literally delivered or set free, i.e., from the impending Babylonian invasion.  But the Gospel application is very fitting, for it would be difficult to find a more dramatic picture of the dreadful state of those whose rejection of the Gospel finally exhausts God's patience, and carries them over that dread invisible line that separates His mercy from His wrath, which carries them for ever beyond hope of mercy, and assures them of an eternity of torment in the lake of fire.

 

Nor should we miss the propriety of this reference to the harvest season passed for ever beyond recall.  The grain and fruit (the evidence of God's gracious care) gathered during those months, wouldn't be eaten by the rebels, for many of them would be slain by the invader, and the rest would be carried off into captivity.

 

But the produce of that harvest now past, is a figure of God's provision in the Gospel.  As rebellion deprived Judah of the enjoyment of those good things, so will continued rejection of the Gospel result in its blessings being taken away for ever from the rejecters, leaving them, like rebel Judah, to lament eternally, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

 

8:21.  "For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me."

 

This continues to disclose the tender heart of Jeremiah.   Though he must, as God's prophet, pronounce the doom of rebel Judah, yet such was his pity that their pain was his, his compassion being a foreshadowing of that which filled the heart of Christ and led Him, not only to weep over rebellious Jerusalem, see Lk 19:41, but that led Him out to Calvary to die for her sins.  In a far deeper sense than Jeremiah ever knew, the Lord could say, "For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt...."  The prophet's hurt was empathic: the Lord's was physical as well, as it is written, "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities .... for the transgression of my people was he stricken," Isa 53:5-8. 

 

The Lord could and did do what Jeremiah couldn't: He died, not only for Judah's sin, but for the sin of the whole world.

 

There is special significance in its being said it was for the hurt of the daughter of his people that the prophet was hurt, for the daughter in Scripture speaks of passivity of the will.  The message therefore seems to be that while his weeping was for all of Judah, it was particularly for the believing remnant - Daniel and his friends, for example - who must also suffer the consequences of the folly of their unbelieving fellows.

 

The Babylonian captivity of Judah is but the foreshadowing of that which befell Israel in AD 70, the supreme tragedy of Calvary being that Israel need never have experienced that captivity and scattering which have lasted for two thousand years, had she but repented and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior Messiah.  And it is to be noted, that as it was in connection with the Babylonian captivity, so was it also in AD 70: believers weren't exempt from the rigors of the judgment; nor are they today.  The spiritual famine gripping an apostate church affects the obedient believer as well as the carnal, and the false professor, the great difference, however, being that the believer rests in the assurance that the worst that can happen humanly speaking simply transports his soul from earth to heaven.

 

8:22.  "Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?

 

Made in Gilead from the resin of the styrax tree, and widely exported, neither the balm of Gilead nor of any other place on earth, could heal Judah's sickness for it was of the soul.  Repentance and faith alone could heal such a malady, but sadly neither was to be found within her borders, nor are they to be found today either in a godless world or in an apostate church.

[Jeremiah 9]

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________


     Scripture portions taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version
© 2000-2005 James Melough
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________