‘At least it can’t get any worse’ is an expression usually stated by some fictional character who is on the precipice of finding out that he or she was mistaken – it can indeed get worse. And if you thought chapter seven described how Judah’s obscene religion brought them to the bottom of the barrel of judicially-imposed indignity, well, the opening verses of Jeremiah chapter eight correct that assessment by depicting greater indignity still.

Upon reading the opening three words of chapter eight, an appropriate question to ask is – when the LORD says, “At that time” (vs.1a), what time is He is referring to? The answer is found in the concluding verses of the previous chapter: a time where the Valley of Tophet would be called the Valley of Slaughter (7:32), when the corpses of the people would be food for bird and beast (vs.33), when the sounds of gladness would cease to be heard in the cities of Judah (vs.34a), and when the land would become desolate (vs.34b). In short, what follows is depicted as happening at the time when the Babylonians conquer Judah and the city of Jerusalem.

At that time they [the Babylonian conquerors] shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, …its princes, …priests, …prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their grave (vs.1b). If you take a moment to even partially conceptualize that visual, it’s easy to see why you wouldn’t want to see it. It was graphic and dreadful. Simply put, the Babylonians would excavate the dead bones and rotting corpses of those Israelites who held offices of esteem during the course of their lives, and subject their remains to this great indignity in death. The likely motivation for this was ‘grave-robbing.’ Since it was not uncommon for the upper class to have some measure of treasure placed within their sepulchers, the Babylonians likely thought, ‘Why only pillage the dwellings of the living when we can also pillage the tombs of the dead?’

There was a bitter irony in this. The text continues saying, “They [the Babylonians] shall spread them [the dug-up corpses] before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they [again, the dug-up corpses] have loved…served… walked…sought and… worshiped (vs.2). The bodies of the once-buried dignitaries would be scattered like refuse on the face of the earth (vs.2b), under the hot sun, and before all the supposed celestial deities they trusted in. The people had a wicked propensity for worshipping ‘the starry host.’ And even though they were warned against such idolatry from the days of Moses (Deut. 4:19), not to mention by a recent contemporary like Zephaniah (Zeph. 1:4-5) or Jeremiah himself (Jer. 7:18), they nonetheless continued to lift their eyes to the skies and used their rooftops to honor created things that could not save or deliver them.

Sadly, they even had zeal for their idolatry. You can see the way the prophet communicated the affection the people had for these false deities: they loved, served, walked, sought and worshiped them. This definitively contradicts the modern motif that the object of one’s belief doesn’t really matter as long as one is sincere. These people were very sincere. And all it earned them was punishment and disgrace; disgrace that even followed them to the grave. This temporal consequence upon their lifeless physical corpses is, I think, emblematic of the fact that the punishment for idolatry goes beyond the temporal life and into the grave, spiritually-speaking.

Furthermore, the punishment is seen to extend not only to those who die in the Babylonian invasion, or upon the corpses of those who were previously buried, but even to those who survived and were scattered. Verse 3 says:

 

Then death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of those who remain of this evil family, who remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says the Lord of hosts (vs.3).

 

The idea being – even surviving would carry with it dire consequences. For them, death shall be chosen rather than life, not because the survivors had an Old Testament equivalent of a “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” mentality, but because life had become so unbearably miserable in the places where they had been driven whether by captivity or, to a much lesser extent, by flight.

Now someone should not make the mistake of thinking that such a prophecy is strictly relegated to the personality of the God of the Old Testament as though He were distinguished from the God of the New Testament. In the ninth chapter of Revelation, following the torment brought about by the frightful-looking locusts, similar language is used to describe the unrepentant afflicted:

 

In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them. (Rev. 9:6)

 

It has always been, and will always be, a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31). And as immeasurably terrible as it is to reject Him, it is as, if not more, inexhaustibly blessed to receive the Son whom He has sent as a sacrificial substitute for repentant sinners. Yes, the promised judgment upon Judah is graphic but we shouldn’t turn our eyes away too fast lest we miss catching a better glimpse of how graphic the judgment was that Jesus bore on behalf of sinners like us. As great an indignity as these corpses suffered, the indignity that Jesus bore was greater still. He was put to open shame on a cross (Heb. 12:2), humbling Himself to the lowest place (cf. Phil. 2:8), so that all who believe on Him would not be put to shame (Rom. 9:33; 10:11), but would rather be exalted to sit with Him in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6). He willingly chose death rather than life so that through His death, His people would never taste of the second death in the lake of fire, but would, instead, receive everlasting life. Yes, these opening verses of Jeremiah chapter eight remind us of the judgment and disgrace that sin brings upon nations and persons, but it should also remind us of the Savior who bore disgrace and judgment on behalf on sinners.