Jeremiah 8:1,2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

At that time, &c. The first three verses of this chapter properly belong to the preceding, and ought not to have been separated from it. They shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah “The Chaldeans shall regard neither the living nor the dead. They shall put the living to death without remorse; and shall break open and defile the tombs of the dead, in hopes of finding riches deposited there. They shall cast them out of their sepulchres, and leave them upon the ground, without staying to collect them together, and replace them.” We learn from Josephus (Antiq, lib. 7, cap. ult.) that King Solomon laid up vast treasures in his father's sepulchre, which remained untouched till the pontificate of Hyrcanus, who, on a public emergency, opened one of the cells, and took out at once three thousand talents of silver. And afterward Herod the Great opened another cell, out of which he also took considerable wealth. That it was no uncommon practice at the sacking of cities to open the monuments of the great, and scatter their bones abroad without concerning themselves to cover them again, the learned reader may see in Horace's 16th Epod. Jeremiah 50:13. And they shall spread, or expose, them before the sun and the moon, &c. The idols which they have worshipped, but which shall not be able to help them in their misery. Whom they have loved, served, walked after, sought, worshipped The prophet multiplies words to express their extraordinary zeal in the service of their idols, and to ridicule the folly and madness of their idolatry. And they shall not be gathered, &c. The bones which shall be thus scattered about shall not be gathered again, or laid up in their sepulchres.