9 The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh; and what kind of wisdom is in them?
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He says now that the wise were ashamed, and astonished, and ensnared By which words he means, that the Jews gained nothing by their craftiness, while they arrogated to themselves wisdom, and under this pretense rejected all admonitions, and sought to be spared. "This wisdom, "he says, "avails you nothing, for God, as it is said in another place, will take you unawares." (Isaiah 29:14; 1-Corinthians 1:19.) Ashamed, then, he says, are they; not that they were then ashamed; for be said before, in Jeremiah 6:15, and will state the same presently, that they were so hardened that they could not be made ashamed, nor be made to blush: [1] but he here denounces a punishment, which was soon to overtake them; as though he had said, "Ye have now an iron front, and think that ye can elude God and his servants with impunity; but God will take you unawares, and will so shake off the masks under which you hide yourselves, that your disgrace shall be made manifest to all." This is the meaning. For the same purpose he says, "Ye are now secure, but God will shortly fill you with such terror, that he will make you greatly astonished " He intimates, then, that nothing would benefit them while they took delight in their vices, and increasingly hardened themselves; for God would deprive them of their craftiness, and cast them down with terror, however secure and perverse they were now. By the third word he sets forth the manner in which they would be treated: God would have his snares by which he would take them. He alludes to the subterfuges in which those hypocrites trust, who proudly oppose God, while they think that by their arts they can escape in this or that way, and often devise some new schemes by which they may deceive God. Hence the Prophet, alluding to their perverse cunning, says, that God would be as it were a fowler, who would ensnare them, and hold them captive. He afterwards assigns the reason, Because they had repudiated, or despised or rejected, [2] (for the verb means all these things,) the word of Jehovah And he uses a demonstrative particle, Behold, that they might not, as usual, make any evasions: "The thing, "he says, "is sufficiently known, and even children can be judges of your impiety, that you have rejected the word of Jehovah." He draws hence this inference, What does wisdom avail them? or, What is their wisdom? Either of these meanings may be admitted, They were wise to no purpose, while they provoked God by their impious contempt. "I hate the wise who is not wise for himself, "is an old proverb. As then the Jews ill consulted their own benefit, by rejecting the word of God, in which their safety was involved, the Prophet justly alleges, that their wisdom availed them nothing. Others read, "What is their wisdom, "when there is no fear of God? And doubtless it ever remains a truth, that the fear of God is the beginning and the chief part of wisdom. (Proverbs 1:7; Proverbs 9:10; Psalm 111:10.) Since then they had basely despised God's word, rightly does the Prophet ask, "What is their wisdom?" But there is a third meaning which is suitable, even this, And wisdom, what to them? So it is literally, -- What is wisdom to them? He still speaks to them ironically, as though he said, "They are indeed wise, but in their own esteem; they have therefore no need of being taught: What then is wisdom to them!" The meaning is, that they were so swollen with pride that they received no instruction. How so? They refused wisdom through the false conceit with which they were inflated. Let, however, every one choose for himself; my object is to shew what I mostly approve. There will be no lecture to -- morrow, as a consistory is to be held.
1 - It would be better to consider the shame in this verse as referring to the people, and the want of shame in Jeremiah 8:12, as applied to the teachers, the scribes, the false interpreters of the law, who promised peace, while there was no peace. -- Ed.
2 - The verb is here followed by v: see note on Jeremiah 2:37
They have rejected the word of the Lord - It became in the hands of the Soferim or scribes a mere code of ceremonial observance. Compare Mark 7:13.
The (g) wise [men] are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom [is] in them?
(g) They who seem wise may be ashamed of their ignorance for all wisdom consists in God's word.
The wise men are ashamed,.... Of the wisdom of which they boasted, when it would appear to be folly, and unprofitable to them:
they are dismayed and taken; frightened at the calamities coming upon them, and taken as in a snare, as the wise sometimes are in their own craftiness, Job 5:13.
Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; sent by the prophets, which urged obedience to the law, and is the best explanation of it; but this they despised, and refused it:
and what wisdom is in them? to contemn that, which, if attended to, would have been profitable to them, and the means of making them wise unto salvation; let them therefore boast of their wisdom ever so much, it is certain there can be none in persons of such a spirit and conduct.
dismayed--confounded.
what wisdom--literally, "the wisdom of what?" that is, "wisdom in what respect?" the Word of the Lord being the only true source of wisdom (Psalm 119:98-100; Proverbs 1:7; Proverbs 9:10).
Those who held themselves wise will come to shame, will be dismally disabused of their hopes. When the great calamity comes on the sin-hardened people, they shall be confounded and overwhelmed in ruin (cf. Jeremiah 6:11). They spurn at the word of Jahveh; whose wisdom then have they? None; for the word of the Lord alone is Israel's wisdom and understanding, Deuteronomy 4:6.
The threatening in Jeremiah 8:10 includes not only the wise ones, but the whole people. "Therefore" attaches to the central truth of Jeremiah 8:5 and Jeremiah 8:6, which has been elucidated in Jeremiah 8:7-9. The first half of Jeremiah 8:10 corresponds, in shorter compass, to what has been said in Jeremiah 6:12, and is here continued in Jeremiah 8:10-12 in the same words as in Jeremiah 6:13-15. יורשׁים are those who take possession, make themselves masters of a thing, as in Jeremiah 49:2 and Micah 1:15. This repetition of the three verses is not given in the lxx, and Hitz. therefore proposes to delete them as a supplementary interpolation, holding that they are not only superfluous, but that they interrupt the sense. For he thinks Jeremiah 8:13 connects remarkably well with Jeremiah 8:10, but, taken out of its connection with what precedes as we have it, begins baldly enough. To this Graf has made fitting answer: This passage is in no respect more superfluous or awkward than Jeremiah 6:13.; nor is the connection of Jeremiah 8:13 with Jeremiah 8:10 at all closer than with Jeremiah 8:12. And Hitz., in order to defend the immediate connection between Jeremiah 8:13 and Jeremiah 8:10, sees himself compelled, for the restoration of equilibrium, to delete the middle part of Jeremiah 8:13 (from "no grapes" to "withered") as spurious; for which proceeding there is not the smallest reason, since this passage has neither the character of an explanatory gloss, nor is it a repetition from any place whatever, nor is it awanting in the lxx. Just as little ground is there to argue against the genuineness of the two passages from the variations found in them. Here in Jeremiah 8:10 we have מקּטן ועד־גּדול instead of the מקּטנּםof Jeremiah 6:13; but the suffix, which in the latter case pointed to the preceding "inhabitants of the land," was unnecessary here, where there is no such reference. In like manner, the forms הכּלם for הכלים, and עת פּקדּתם for עת־פּקדתּים, are but the more usual forms used by Jeremiah elsewhere. So the omission of the א in ירפּוּ for ירפּאוּ, as coming either from the writer or the copyist, clearly does not make against the genuineness of the verses. And there is the less reason for making any difficulty about the passage, seeing that such repetitions are amongst the peculiarities of Jeremiah's style: cf. e.g., Jeremiah 7:31-33 with Jeremiah 19:5-7; Jeremiah 10:12-16 with Jeremiah 51:15-19; Jeremiah 15:13-14, with Jeremiah 17:3-4; Jeremiah 16:14-15, with Jeremiah 23:7-8, Jeremiah 23:5-6, with Jeremiah 33:15-16; Jeremiah 23:19-20, with Jeremiah 30:23-24, and other shorter repetitions.
*More commentary available at chapter level.