Jeremiah 8:1 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 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:
time · preposition with the article + noun, common both genders singular absolute
saith
נְאֻםne.'um-
H5002
an oracle · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֡הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
out
יוֹצִ֣יאוּve.yo.tzi.'u
H3318
to go (causatively · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
bones
עַצְמ֣וֹתatz.Mot
H6106
a bone (as strong) · noun, common feminine plural construct
kings
מַלְכֵֽיmal.khei-
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine plural construct
Judah
יְהוּדָ֣הye.hu.Dah
H3063
Jehudah (or Judah) · proper noun, a place name
bones
עַצְמוֹת'atz.mot-
H6106
a bone (as strong) · noun, common feminine plural construct
princes
שָׂרָיו֩sa.Rav
H8269
a head person (of any rank or class) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
bones
עַצְמ֨וֹתatz.Mot
H6106
a bone (as strong) · noun, common feminine plural construct
priests
הַכֹּהֲנִ֜יםha.ko.ha.Nim
H3548
literally one officiating · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
bones
עַצְמ֣וֹתatz.Mot
H6106
a bone (as strong) · noun, common feminine plural construct
prophets
הַנְּבִיאִ֗יםha.ne.vi.'Im
H5030
a prophet or (generally) inspired man · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
bones
עַצְמ֥וֹתatz.Mot
H6106
a bone (as strong) · noun, common feminine plural construct
inhabitants
יוֹשְׁבֵֽיyo.she.vei-
H3427
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
Jerusalem
יְרוּשָׁלִָ֖םye.ru.sha.Lim
H3389
Jerushalaim or Jerushalem · proper noun, a place name
graves
מִקִּבְרֵיהֶֽםmi.kiv.rei.Hem
H6913
a sepulchre · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Ezekiel 6:5 And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.
1 Kings 13:2 And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto th…
2 Kings 23:16 And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and…
2 Kings 23:20 And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.
2 Chronicles 34:4-5 And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the…
Jeremiah 7:32-34 Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valle…
Ezekiel 37:1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of…
Amos 2:1 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bone…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 8:1-3
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, Psa 141:7. It was threatened in the close of the former chapter that the slain should be unburi…
At that time, saith the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah,.... That is, either the Chaldeans or the Romans would do this; for this refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, either by the former or the latter; and it is certain that Jerusalem was ploughed up by the Romans, whereby the prophecy in Micah 3:12 was accomplished; when it is highly probable the graves were dug up, and the bones of the dead brought out, and scattered abroad by way of revenge; or it may be that graves were opened, especially the graves of kings and great men, for the sake of finding treasure in them: it follows,
and the bones of his princes; of the princes of Judah:
and the bones of the pries…
Jeremiah 8:1-2
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:
1. In die illo, dicit Jehova, extrahent ossa regum Jehudah et ossa principum ejus, et ossa sacerdotum, et ossa prophetarum, et ossa civium Jerosolymae (habitantium,) e sepulchris suis;
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 gath…
The Church Fathers
(Chapter 8, verses 1 and following) In that time, says the Lord, the bones of the king of Judah and the bones of his princes and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets and the bones of those who lived in Jerusalem will be thrown out of their tombs. And they will spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of the heavens, which they loved and served and after which they walked and which they sought and worshiped. They shall not be gathered nor buried; they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth. And all those who remain from this wicked kinship will choose death over life, in all the places that have been abandoned, to which I have cast them out," says the Lord of Hosts. "We witness in our time that everything that the prophetic word describes has happened: not only to Jerusalem, which suffered these things from the Chaldeans and Romans, but to the whole world, so that tears have dried up, and everything is filled with the bones of the dead. And because they used to bury gold and certain ornaments, either of women or men, in tombs according to the ancient custom, greed also broke and dug them up so that they would be exposed to the sky and light. And therefore the bones of the kings of Judah, and its princes, and of the priests and prophets, and of all the people who had been in Jerusalem, were brought forth from the tombs, exposed to the sun and moon, and to the sight of all the stars, so that those whom they had served, abandoning God, would be exposed to their sights, and consumed in dung and ashes. But if anyone were able to escape from the crowd and go to whatever place, he would prefer death to life: and he would think that the destruction of an unfortunate soul is a remedy.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Moon, The · Worshipping of: Jews punished for — Worshipping of: Jews punished for
Prophets, False · Judgments denounced against — Judgments denounced against
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Scattering the bones of the dead was the ultimate act of contempt for a defeated nation. Jerusalem’s favorite pagan deities—the sun, moon, and stars—would be unable to prevent it from happening.
