Jeremiah Chapter 2 verse 8 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. - The priests, etc. The blame principally falls on the three leading classes (as in ver. 26; Micah 3:11). First on the priests who "handle the Law," i.e. who have a traditional knowledge of the details of the Law, and teach the people accordingly (Deuteronomy 17:9-11; Deuteronomy 33:10; Jeremiah 18:18; see also on Jeremiah 8:8); next on the "pastors," or "shepherds" (in the Homeric sense), the civil and not the spiritual authorities; so generally in the Old Testament (see Jeremiah 3:15; Jeremiah 10:21; Jeremiah 22:22; Jeremiah 25:34; Zechariah 10:3; Zechariah 11:5, 8, 16; Isaiah 44:28); and lastly on the prophets, who sought their inspiration, not from Jehovah (comp. note on ver. 30), but from Baal. To prophesy by (by means of) Baal or rather, the Baal, implies that prophecy is due to an impulse from the supernatural world; that it is not an objectifying of the imaginations of the prophet himself. Even the Baal prophets yielded to an impulse from without, but how that impulse was produced the prophet does not tell us. We are told in 1 Kings 22:19-23, that even prophets of Jehovah could be led astray by a "lying spirit;" much more presumably could prophets of the Baal. The Baal is here used as a representative of the idol-gods, in antithesis to Jehovah; sometimes "Baalim," or the Baals, is used instead (e.g. ver. 23; Jeremiah 9:13), each town or city having its own Baal ("lord"). Things that do not profit. A synonym for idols (comp. Jeremiah 16:19; Isaiah 44:9;. 1 Samuel 12:21). An enlightened regard for self-interest is encouraged by the religion of the Bible, at any rate educationally. Contrast Comtism.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) The priests said not . . .--As throughout the work of Jeremiah and most of the prophets of the Old Testament, that which weighed most heavily on their souls was that those who were called to be guides of the people were themselves the chief agents in the evil. The salt had lost its savour. The light had become darkness. The rebuke, we must remember, came from the lips of one who was himself a priest.The priests said not, Where is the Lord?--The same failure to seek as that condemned in Jeremiah 2:6. To them, too, all was a routine. Jehovah was absent from their thoughts even in the very act of worship.They that handle the law.--These, probably, were also of the priestly order, to whom this function was assigned in Deuteronomy 33:10. The order of non-priestly scribes, in the sense of interpreters of the law, does not appear till after the captivity. Their sin was that they "dealt with the law" as interpreters and judges, and forgot Jehovah who had given it.The pastors.--Better, shepherds, the English "pastors" having gained a too definitely religious connotation. The Hebrew word was general in its significance, but in its Old Testament use was applied chiefly to civil rulers, as in Psalm 78:71; 1Kings 22:17. Even in Ezekiel 34, where the spiritual aspect of rule is most prominent, the contrast between the false shepherds and the one true shepherd of the house of David (Jeremiah 2:23) shows that the kingly, not the priestly, office was in the prophet's mind. . . .