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44. Disaster Because of Idolatry

¹ This word came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews living in Lower Egypt—in Migdol, Tahpanhes and Memphis—and in Upper Egypt: ² “This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You saw the great disaster I brought on Jerusalem and on all the towns of Judah. Today they lie deserted and in ruins ³ because of the evil they have done. They aroused my anger by burning incense to and worshiping other gods that neither they nor you nor your ancestors ever knew. ⁴ Again and again I sent my servants the prophets, who said, ‘Do not do this detestable thing that I hate!’ ⁵ But they did not listen or pay attention; they did not turn from their wickedness or stop burning incense to other gods. ⁶ Therefore, my fierce anger was poured out; it raged against the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem and made them the desolate ruins they are today.

⁷ “Now this is what the LORD God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Why bring such great disaster on yourselves by cutting off from Judah the men and women, the children and infants, and so leave yourselves without a remnant? ⁸ Why arouse my anger with what your hands have made, burning incense to other gods in Egypt, where you have come to live? You will destroy yourselves and make yourselves a curse That is, your name will be used in cursing (see 29:22); or, others will see that you are cursed; also in verse 12; similarly in verse 22. and an object of reproach among all the nations on earth. ⁹ Have you forgotten the wickedness committed by your ancestors and by the kings and queens of Judah and the wickedness committed by you and your wives in the land of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰ To this day they have not humbled themselves or shown reverence, nor have they followed my law and the decrees I set before you and your ancestors.

¹¹ “Therefore this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am determined to bring disaster on you and to destroy all Judah. ¹² I will take away the remnant of Judah who were determined to go to Egypt to settle there. They will all perish in Egypt; they will fall by the sword or die from famine. From the least to the greatest, they will die by sword or famine. They will become a curse and an object of horror, a curse and an object of reproach. ¹³ I will punish those who live in Egypt with the sword, famine and plague, as I punished Jerusalem. ¹⁴ None of the remnant of Judah who have gone to live in Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah, to which they long to return and live; none will return except a few fugitives.”

¹⁵ Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were present—a large assembly—and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt, said to Jeremiah, ¹⁶ “We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD! ¹⁷ We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. ¹⁸ But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine.”

¹⁹ The women added, “When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cakes impressed with her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?”

²⁰ Then Jeremiah said to all the people, both men and women, who were answering him, ²¹ “Did not the LORD remember and call to mind the incense burned in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem by you and your ancestors, your kings and your officials and the people of the land? ²² When the LORD could no longer endure your wicked actions and the detestable things you did, your land became a curse and a desolate waste without inhabitants, as it is today. ²³ Because you have burned incense and have sinned against the LORD and have not obeyed him or followed his law or his decrees or his stipulations, this disaster has come upon you, as you now see.”

²⁴ Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including the women, “Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah in Egypt. ²⁵ This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You and your wives have done what you said you would do when you promised, ‘We will certainly carry out the vows we made to burn incense and pour out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven.’

“Go ahead then, do what you promised! Keep your vows! ²⁶ But hear the word of the LORD, all you Jews living in Egypt: ‘I swear by my great name,’ says the LORD, ‘that no one from Judah living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name or swear, “As surely as the Sovereign LORD lives.” ²⁷ For I am watching over them for harm, not for good; the Jews in Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed. ²⁸ Those who escape the sword and return to the land of Judah from Egypt will be very few. Then the whole remnant of Judah who came to live in Egypt will know whose word will stand—mine or theirs.

²⁹ “‘This will be the sign to you that I will punish you in this place,’ declares the LORD, ‘so that you will know that my threats of harm against you will surely stand.’ ³⁰ This is what the LORD says: ‘I am going to deliver Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hands of his enemies who want to kill him, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the enemy who wanted to kill him.’”

Jeremiah pursues the same subject, and not only bitterly reproves the ungodly men who so pertinaciously despised his doctrine, but also shews that they could gain nothing by their audacity, because they would at length be violently broken down, as they could not bear to be corrected, he says at the beginning, Ye and your wives have spoken; the men are also included, Ye have spoken both men and women, and with your hands have fulfilled it; that is, your obstinacy is complete, for, as you have spoken insolently against God, so there has been a performance; for by hands he designates the work done. he then shews that they had advanced to the highest pitch of impiety, for they hesitated not to vomit forth these impious words, We will not obey God, and they joined their hands to their mouth, for they strenuously executed what they had said. The thought itself was sufficient to condemn them; but when they thus spoke with their tongues, and then employed their hands against God, it was a proof of desperate audacity, as though they willfully designed to provoke him.

But he shews what issue awaited these impious men, who so presumptuously rebelled against God. When he bids them to hear what God on the other hand had sworn, he compares God with themselves, as though he had said, “You may a hundred times increase in your madness, yet God will be the conqueror; for he is an adversary who will surely subvert all schemes and efforts.” But before he comes to this, he mentions what they said, Doing we shall do our vows which we have vowed, to burn incense, etc. Here Jeremiah relates what we have before seen, that the Jews, under the pretext of doing what had been before done, continued thus rebellious against God. We perceive this by the word vows; and the superstitious, when they are pressed, are wont always to flee to this pretext, that to persevere in one’s resolution is a great virtue. While, then, they avoid the charge of fickleness, they harden themselves against God.

The same thing we see at this day under the Papacy: The older any one is, the more obstinate he is. “What! have I not learned during forty or fifty years what religion is, and how to worship God? I have been thus taught from a child, and have by a long habit followed this way: it would be now a disgraceful thing for me to change my course and to relinquish the faith which I have professed for so many years.”

There is, then, no doubt but the Jews made a pretense of this kind against Jeremiah, when they said that they had vowed. For hypocrites make no distinction when they vow anything, but indiscriminately obtrude on God whatever comes to their minds; they afterwards stand fixed in their foolish fancies, and say that a. vow is inviolable, a sacred thing. Such was the excuse of the people. But we see from the Prophet’s answer how vainly they did bring forward in opposition to God their vows, which had been made without judgment and without reason.

And this passage ought to be carefully noticed; so that we may especially know, that it is a folly in no way pleasing to God, when men indiscriminately vow whatever they may dream according to their own fancies. God then would have sobriety and regard to his will to be observed as to vows. But when any one has made an inconsiderate vow, pertinaciously to persist in it is no less displeasing to God than the vow itself. The Jews had vowed; the warning of the Prophet ought to have constrained them to change their resolution. But while they avoided every kind of fickleness, we see that instead of constancy they set up their own perverseness and diabolical obstinacy in opposition to God. When, therefore, we rashly make vows, disapproved by God, nothing is better than immediately to retract them; for we have already sinned more than enough in having abused the holy name of God. For this reason the Prophet says, that the Jews spoke thus, Doing we shall do the vows we have vowed; and what were these? To offer incense to the stars and to hosts of Heaven. Had they vowed anything to God, they ought not to have broken their pledged faith; but they had made vows to the devil; then they ought to have immediately changed their purpose. When I say that vows made to God ought to be performed, I mean lawful vows; for he who makes a vow without judgment, does not vow to God; but those vows which God sanctions ought to be deemed sacred; and whatever vows God repudiates, ought to be counted as nothing. We hence see that the Jews were justly condemned, for they pertinaciously paid their vows to their own idols.

He adds by way of irony, Confirming ye will confirm your vows, doing ye will do your vows Here the Prophet sharply checks their insolence, because they thus set up themselves against God, as though it were a great virtue to persevere in their wicked purpose; ye cannot change, he says, but confirming ye will confirm your vows!