Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

8:4-5 Normally people get up after they fall and return after they walk away. Judah has entered into perpetual backsliding through a refusal to return (repent).

8:6 paid attention. God has patiently waited and listened carefully for words of repentance, to no avail. relents. Regrets and thus changes.

8:8 The Judeans possess God's law, just as they possess the temple. But their scribes, the professional copiers and teachers of the Scriptures, have altered God's word to fit their own desires. Thus, they have made it into a lie.

8:9 These so-called wise men will be put to shame (2:26; 6:15) because of their changing of God's word. Rejecting God's word proves they are really unwise.

8:10 When prophet and priest deal falsely with God's word, the nation becomes greedy for unjust gain, and enemies take their wives and fields.

8:11 Peace, peace. See 6:12-15. The wicked prophets and priests are like incompetent doctors who tell a patient he or she is healthy when in fact the patient is desperately sick (17:9). Contrast Isa. 57:18-21.

8:12 they committed abomination. Prophets and priests engaged in idolatry (6:12-15).

8:13 God finds no good "fruit" in Judah, so the people will be "picked" by Babylon (5:10, 17; 6:9).

8:14 The people give lip service to having sinned against the Lord when the Babylonian invasion drives them into the fortified cities (4:5). Ultimately, they claim God has doomed them to perish no matter what they do.

8:15 Israel looked for peace, but only the peace offered by false teachers (v. 11). Such healing brings only terror.

8:16-17 Babylon's horses are so numerous and powerful (4:13; 6:23) that the whole land quakes. Its soldiers are like serpents (Num. 21:6-9) that resist charming (Ps. 58:4-5).