The prophet has reached the conviction that Judah will be driven into banishment; but the details of the destruction which he contemplates are obviously of an imaginative and rhetorical character. It is, therefore, superfluous to ask whether a great battle was actually fought afterwards in the valley of ben Hinnom, and whether the slain apostates of Judah were buried there in heaps, and whether the conquerors violated the tombs. Had the Chaldeans or any of their allies done this last, in search of treasure for instance, we should expect to find some notice of it in the historical chapters of Jeremiah. But it was probably known well enough to the surrounding peoples that the Jews were not in the habit of burying treasure in their tombs. The prophet's threat however, curiously corresponds to what Josiah is related to have done at Bethel and elsewhere, by way of irreparably polluting the high places (2 Kings xxiii. 16 _sqq._); and it is probable that his recollection of that event, which he may himself have witnessed, determined the form of Jeremiah's language here.[31] In the second part of this great discourse (viii. 4-23) we have a fine development of thoughts which have already been advanced in the opening piece, after the usual manner of Jeremiah. The first half (or strophe) is mainly concerned with the sins of the nation (vv. 4-13), the second with a despairing lament over the punishment (14-23 = ix. 1). _And thou shalt say unto them: Thus said Iahvah, Do men fall and not rise again? Doth a man turn back, and not return? Why doth Jerusalem make this people to turn back with an eternal_ (or perfect, utter, absolute) _turning back? Why clutch they deceit, refuse to return?_ (The LXX. omits "Jerusalem," which is perhaps only a marginal gloss. We should then have to read שֹׁובַב _shobab_ for שֹׁובְבָה _shobebah_, as "this people" is masc. The _He_ has been written twice by inadvertence. The verb, however, is transitive in l. 19; Isa. xlvii. 10, etc.; and I find no certain instance of the intrans. form besides Ezek. xxxviii. 8, participle.) _I listened and heard; they speak not aright_ (Ex. x. 29; Isa. xvi. 6); _not a man repenteth over his evil, saying_ (_or thinking_), _"What have I done?" They all_ (lit. _all of him_, _i.e._ the people) _turn back into their courses_ (plur. Heb. text; sing. Heb. marg.), _like the rushing horse into the battle_.