Jeremiah 8:9

Jer 8:9 The wise [men] are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what wisdom [is] in them?

Ver. 9. The wise men are ashamed.] They have cause to be ashamed of their gross ignorance and folly, {Jer 8:7-8} and greater cause than ever humble Augustine had to say, Scientia mea me damnat, My knowledge undoeth me.

Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord.] As to any holy practice, their knowledge is only apprehensive and notional, not affective and practical.

And what wisdom is in them?] q.d., None worth speaking of; they lose their civil praises, because not wise to salvation.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jer 8:9. The wise men are ashamed — That is, they have reason to be so, who have not made a better use of their wisdom, and reduced their knowledge to practice. They are confounded and taken — All their wisdom has not served to keep them from those courses that will issue in their ruin. They shall be taken in the same snares that others of their neighbours, who have not pretended to so much wisdom, are taken in, and filled with the same confusion. Those that have more knowledge than others, and yet provide no better than others for their own souls, have reason to be ashamed. They have rejected the word of the Lord — They would not be governed or guided in their conduct by it, would not act as it directed them, nor comply with their duty as there set forth; and what wisdom is in them? — None to any purpose: none that will yield them comfort in life, support in death, or boldness at the day of final accounts: none that will be found to their praise when God shall bring every work into judgment, how much soever it may exalt them in their own opinion in the present world.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8:9-10 The phrase wise teachers is sarcastic—the Lord called their teachings foolishness and exposed their motivation as greed (cp. Job 28:28). This sin ruled the lives of the prophets and priests, making all of them frauds.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

They that seem wise, may be ashamed of their ignorance, for all wisdom consisteth in God’s word.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

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 (Psa 119:98-100; Pro 1:7; Pro 9:10).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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: 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, (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.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(9) They have rejected the word of the Lord.—The “wise men” are apparently distinguished from the scribes, probably as students of the ethical or sapiential books of Israel, such as the Proverbs of Solomon, as distinct from the Law. The reign of Hezekiah, it will be remembered, had been memorable for such studies (Pro_25:1). They, too, kept within the range of traditional maxims and precepts, perhaps with stress on ceremonial rather than moral obligations; and when the word of Jehovah came to them straight from the lips of the prophets, they refused to listen to it, and with that refusal, what wisdom could they claim?

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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 Mar 7:13.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Them. Those who understand, and do not observe the law, are not wise. (Worthington)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken; they trusted to their refuge of lies, but when God shall bring the judgment threatened, the wisest among them will find that they shall be confounded among themselves, not knowing what to do for all their wisdom, but shall be taken with the rest, Jer 4:9; by wise men he means the scribes in the former verse. The same said of Babylon, Isa 47:10.

What wisdom is in them? or, What is wisdom to them? How can they say they are wise, when they have no fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, Pro 1:7; when they have no respect at all to the word of God, as to any holy practice, which is the fountain of all wisdom? Deu 4:6; Psa 19:7; 2Ti 3:15.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. Rejected the word of the Lord — “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The wise men are ashamed. It is the perfect of prophetic certitude, equivalent to "the wise men shall certainly be ashamed." And why? Evidently because they have not foreseen the calamities impending ever their nation. They have preached, "Peace, peace; when there was no peace" (Ver. 11); and hence they find themselves "taken" in the grip of a relentless power from which there is no escape. What wisdom; literally, wisdom of what? i.e. in respect of what?

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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. Jer 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, Deu 4:6.

The threatening in Jer 8:10 includes not only the wise ones, but the whole people. "Therefore" attaches to the central truth of Jer 8:5 and Jer 8:6, which has been elucidated in Jer 8:7-9. The first half of Jer 8:10 corresponds, in shorter compass, to what has been said in Jer 6:12, and is here continued in Jer 8:10-12 in the same words as in Jer 6:13-15. יורשׁים are those who take possession, make themselves masters of a thing, as in Jer 49:2 and Mic 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 Jer 8:13 connects remarkably well with Jer 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 Jer 6:13.; nor is the connection of Jer 8:13 with Jer 8:10 at all closer than with Jer 8:12. And Hitz., in order to defend the immediate connection between Jer 8:13 and Jer 8:10, sees himself compelled, for the restoration of equilibrium, to delete the middle part of Jer 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 Jer 8:10 we have מקּטן ועד־גּדול instead of the מקּטנּםof Jer 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., Jer 7:31-33 with Jer 19:5-7; Jer 10:12-16 with Jer 51:15-19; Jer 15:13-14, with Jer 17:3-4; Jer 16:14-15, with Jer 23:7-8, Jer 23:5-6, with Jer 33:15-16; Jer 23:19-20, with Jer 30:23-24, and other shorter repetitions.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Wise men were ashamed i.e., wise men like you. And what is the shame? Behold, they rejected the word of the Lord, now what wisdom have they?

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.