Jeremiahchapter 44
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Key verse
Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they have committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem?
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 14.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The last long oracle, spoken to the Jews settled at Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and in Pathros. Look at Judah's ruins, Jeremiah says, they came from this same incense burned to other gods. Why commit so great an evil against your own souls, cutting off name and remnant? The reply is the most brazen speech in the book: the men know their wives burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink-offerings, and they will keep the vows, 'for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.' Judgment falls on the whole colony, with a sign attached: Pharaoh Hophra will be given into the hand of his enemies as Zedekiah was.
Context
Prophecy · Jeremiah · Jeremiah overview
Where the chapter sits
Jeremiah 44 falls in Jerusalem's fall narrated (chapters 34–45). Zedekiah's vacillation; Jehoiakim burns the scroll (36); siege and fall (39); assassination of Gedaliah; flight to Egypt with the remnant.
Before it: Book of consolation, chapters 30–33. After it: Oracles against the nations, chapters 46–51.
The whole shape of Jeremiah→The world behind this chapter
Jeremiah 44The history
The chapter shows how widely Judeans had spread through Egypt: Migdol and Tahpanhes in the north-east, Memphis at the head of the delta, and the land of Pathros, meaning Upper Egypt far to the south. That is not one refugee camp; it is a diaspora. Documents from a Judean military colony at Elephantine, on the southern frontier, show such a community still there generations later, with its own temple and a religion that blended Israel's God with other names.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The argument in this chapter is remarkable because the people answer back at length, and their reasoning is economic. When we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, they say, we had plenty of food, we were well off and saw no disaster; since we stopped, we have lacked everything and been consumed by sword and famine. They date their troubles from Josiah's reform.
The worship described is a family operation: children gather wood, fathers kindle the fire, women knead dough and make cakes bearing the goddess's image. The women add that their husbands knew and approved, a point that matters, because a married woman's vow could be confirmed or cancelled by her husband under the Law, and they are claiming the whole household is in it together.
The sign given to close the argument is the death of Pharaoh Hophra at the hands of his enemies. Egyptian records and the Greek historian Herodotus both report that Hophra was overthrown by Amasis and died around 570 BC.
What it meant to them
First hearers were watching a community read its own history backwards. Prosperity under idolatry and disaster after reform is a real pattern if you start counting at the right year, and they had built a theology out of it.
The reply is that God had in fact been watching those years, and that the incense they burned in the streets of Jerusalem was what he remembered about them. The chapter ends the story of the refugee community with almost no survivors, and with a small handful returning to Judah so someone would know whose word stood.
Sources cited
- Herodotus, The Histories
- Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
A. Remember the Cities You Made Desolate
1. (vv. 1-6)
a.which dwell in the land of Egypt, which dwell at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of Pathros: The address widens to every Jewish colony scattered across Egypt, from the northern garrison towns to Pathros far south, and Jerusalem's own ruin is cited as evidence the hearers have seen with their own eyes, ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem. The ground is given plainly, incense burned to gods that neither they nor their fathers knew, and verse 4 recalls the sending of prophets rising early, a formula repeated through the book at 7:25 and 25:4, which the bench reads as proof against any claim that no warning was given. The fury already poured out and kindled in Judah's cities is the pattern the same colonies are about to repeat on foreign ground.
Jeremiah 44:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 44:1
“The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews - Dahler supposes this discourse to have been delivered in the seventeenth or eighteenth year after the taking of Jerusalem. Which dwell at Migdol - A city of Lower Egypt, not far from Pelusium. Tahpanhes - Daphne Pelusiaca, the place to which the emigrant Jews first went. Noph - מפס Maphes, Targum. Memphis. a celebrated city of Middle Egypt, and the capital of its district. The country of Pathros - A district of Upper Egypt, known by the name of the Thebais. See Bochart, Lib. Phaleg, lib. iv., c.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 44:2, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:2
“But God declares that his name shall no more be thus named by any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt; that is, there shall be no Jews remaining to use this dialect of their country, or, if there be, they shall have forgotten it and shall learn to swear, as the Egyptians do, by the life of Pharaoh, not of Jehovah.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:4, 2 voices
Jeremiah 44:4
“O, do not this abominable thing - A strong specimen of affectionate entreaty. One of the finest figures of poetry, when judiciously managed, the anthropopathia, the ascribing human passions to God, is often used by this prophet: so God is said to grieve, to mourn, to have his bowels moved with compassion, to repent, to be angry, etc. Here he is represented as tenderly expostulating: O, do not; or, I entreat you, do not that abominable thing which I hate. 1. Do it not: your God commands. 2. O, do it not: your Father entreats.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 44:4
“THIS verse portrays what a minister should be and the picture is a burden upon my heart and conscience, for it shows that the true preacher, or Prophet, or man of God, should be one whom God sends early to do His work. It is, as it were, as though his Master were up early in the morning, bidding him make haste to go to His service and not let the grass grow under his feet, for men are sinning—and to suffer them to continue in sin unrebuked, even for an hour, is truly dreadful.”
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2684: “Two Arguments Against Sin” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
2. (vv. 7-10)
a.Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls: The question is framed as self-harm rather than mere rebellion, to cut off man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, leaving none to remain. Verse 9 recites the wickedness across generations and both sexes, the kings' own wives named beside the ordinary people, so that no class escapes the reckoning. Verse 10's diagnosis is stated flatly, not humbled even unto this day, the exile itself having taught nothing, which the bench sets against the new covenant's promise of a circumcised heart given only three chapters earlier as the reason the old arrangement could not hold this company.
Jeremiah 44:8, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:8
“Egypt--where they polluted themselves to ingratiate themselves with the Egyptians. ye be gone--not compelled by fear, but of your own accord, when I forbade you, and when it was free to you to stay in Judea. that ye might cut yourselves off--They, as it were, purposely courted their own ruin.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:9, 3 voices
Jeremiah 44:9
“The wickedness of their wives - Many accept the reading of the Septuagint: the “wickedness of your princes.” “The kings, the princes, the people,” and finally “their wives,” is a summary enumeration of all classes, by whose united persistence in sin the ruin of their country had been consummated.”
Jeremiah 44:9
“Have you forgotten how the wickednesses of your fathers were the source of the greatest calamities to you? their wives--The Jews' worldly queens were great promoters of idolatry (1Ki 11:1-8; 16:31). the land of Judah--They defiled the land which was holy unto God.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:9
“In the original it is, And of his wives, which, Dr. Lightfoot thinks, tacitly reflects upon Solomon's wives, particularly his Egyptian wives, to whom the idolatry of the kings of Judah owed its original. "Have you forgotten this, and what came of it, that you dare venture upon the same wicked courses?" See Neh. xiii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:10, 2 voices
Jeremiah 44:10
“They are not humbled even unto this day,.... Not contrite under a sense of their sins, nor truly penitent for them; not humbled before God nor man, so as to acknowledge them, mourn over them, and forsake them. The Targum is, "they cease not unto this day;'' that is, from committing the same things; which shows they had no true humiliation and contrition for them.”
Jeremiah 44:10
“They . . . you--The third person puts them to a distance from God on account of their alienating themselves from Him. The second person implies that God formerly had directly addressed them. humbled--literally, "contrite" (Ps 51:17). neither . . . feared-- (Pr 28:14).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (vv. 11-14)
a.Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will set my face against you for evil: The sentence is formally pronounced, set my face against you for evil, courtroom language the book reserves for total judgment. Verse 12's scope, from the least even unto the greatest, matches the sweep already used of the whole nation at Jerusalem's own fall. Verse 14 closes the door on return except by bare escape, so the very flight to Egypt that was meant to secure the remnant's future becomes, in the Lord's word, the means of losing it.
Jeremiah 44:11, 2 voices
Jeremiah 44:11
“All Judah - i. e., all Judah in Egypt, yet even there with exceptions (see Jer 44:14, Jer 44:28), while Judah in Babylon was entirely exempt from this denunciation.”
Jeremiah 44:11
“Behold, I will set my face against you for evil--(See on Le 17:10). and to cut off all Judah--that is, all the idolaters; Jer 44:28 shows that some returned to Judea (compare Jer 42:17).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:12, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:12-13
“They shall not be wasted by natural deaths, as Israel in the wilderness, but by these sore judgments, which, by flying into Egypt, they thought to get out of the reach of.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:14, 2 voices
Jeremiah 44:14
“When God inflicts the punishment, no one can save those in harm's way. Wherever they go, his wrath will follow.”
Cyril of Alexandria· written before 444· FRAGMENTS ON JEREMIAH IN CATENApatristic
Jeremiah 44:14
“Literally, “And there shall not be to the remnant of Judah, which are going to sojourn there in the land of Egypt, one that escapes or remains etc.” The word rendered “escapes” means one who slips away, saves himself by a stealthy flight Gen 14:13; the word “remains,” one who survives when all the rest perish Job 18:19. Of all those now going down to Egypt none shall return to Judaea except a few miserable fugitives, who shall steal away as men who flee in battle 2Sa 19:”
B. We Will Surely Burn Incense to the Queen of Heaven
1. (vv. 15-19)
a.Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods: The whole assembly answers Jeremiah at once, men and the great multitude of women together, and their refusal is flat, as for the word thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. Their argument runs from experience rather than doctrine, plenty of victuals when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, want and the sword since we stopped, the astral cult named in 7:18 now defended by the very people it ruined. Verse 19 adds the women's own defense, that the cakes made in her image were baked without our men, a plea of shared and sanctioned guilt rather than innocence.
Jeremiah 44:15, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:15
“Had burned incence - Omit “had;” burned incense. This appeal of the prophet was made at a public festival held somewhere in Pathros, i. e., Upper Egypt: for the women are assembled in a great congregation (compare Jer 26:9), here formed for religious purposes. As they advance in regular procession to worship the moon-goddess, in accordance as it seems with a vow Jer 44:17, Jeremiah meets them, makes the procession halt upon its way, and pronounces in Yahweh’s name words of solemn warning.”
Jeremiah 44:16, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:16
“As for the word that thou has, spoken unto us in the name of the Lord,.... Which they did not believe that it came from the Lord, but was a device of the prophet's, and a lie, as in Jer 43:2; and if it did come from the Lord, their impudence was risen to such a pitch, that they were determined not to regard it: we will not hearken unto thee: to thy words; neither to thy exhortations, reproofs, or menaces, even though thou comest and speakest in the name of the Lord.”
Jeremiah 44:17, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:17
“Ashtaroth or Astarte. we . . . fathers . . . king, &c.--The evil was restricted to no one class: all from the highest to the lowest shared the guilt. then had we plenty--Fools attribute their seeming prosperity to God's connivance at their sin: but see Pr 1:32;”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:18, 3 voices
Jeremiah 44:18
“The suppression of this popular idolatry had apparently been regarded with much ill-will in Josiah’s time, and many may even have ascribed to it his defeat at Megiddo. Probably Jehoiakim had again permitted it, but Zedekiah, during the miseries of his reign, had forbidden it, and the people ascribed the fall of Jerusalem to the neglect of their favorite goddess.”
Jeremiah 44:18
“They impute their calamities to their service of God, but these are often marks of His favor, not of wrath, to do His people good at their latter end (De 8:16).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:18
“Since we forsook our idolatries we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword, the true reason of which was because they still retained their idols in their heart and an affection to their old sins; but they would have it thought that it was because they had forsaken the acts of sin.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:19, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:19
“Burned ... poured ... did - Or, burn ... pour ... do. To worship her - Rather, to represent her image. The cakes Jer 7:18 were made in the shape of a crescent to represent the moon. Our men - i. e., our husbands (margin). They had the authority of their husbands for what they were doing. Jeremiah must leave them alone, and discuss the matter with those who alone had the right to interfere.”
C. Perform Your Vows Then: Pharaoh-hophra Given to His Enemies
1. (vv. 20-23)
a.Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women: Jeremiah's answer reverses their causality rather than arguing their facts: did not the Lord remember them, and came it not into his mind, the very incense they credit with plenty is named as the provocation itself. Verse 22 states that the Lord could no longer bear it, so the desolation they have lived through is the direct consequence of the sin, not its disproof. The bench reads this as meeting their empirical case, that things went well while they served the queen of heaven, with a theological one, that delayed judgment is not the same as innocence proven.
Jeremiah 44:20, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:20
“Then Jeremiah said unto all the people,.... Immediately, being influenced, directed, and assisted by the Spirit of God; though what he says, in Jer 44:21; he does not declare as coming from the Lord; but what was upon his mind, and was a full refutation of all that had been said: and which he delivered to the men, and to the women, and to all the people which had given him that answer; in which they all agreed, though delivered by one; and to which he made a reply: saying; as follows:”
Jeremiah 44:21, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:21
“The incense . . . did not the Lord remember--Jeremiah owns that they did as they said, but in retort asks, did not God repay their own evil-doing? Their very land in its present desolation attests this (Jer 44:22), as was foretold (Jer 25:11, 18, 38).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2. (vv. 24-28)
a.Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the Lord: The oath is renewed with the women addressed by name a second time, since their vows drove the defense in the verses before. Verse 26 has the Lord swear by his own great name that it will no longer be truly invoked by this company in Egypt, a bitter answer to their own vows to the queen of heaven in verse 25. Verse 28 turns the outcome into a public verdict rather than a further argument, that the small number who escape shall know whose words shall stand, mine, or theirs, settling the dispute by what actually happens, the same test set at Deuteronomy 18:22.
Jeremiah 44:24, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:24
“Earnest as was the preceding expostulation, Jeremiah sees that it has produced no effect. He therefore utters his last warning, and with this last resistance to the sins of a debased and godless people, his earthly ministry closed. Jer 44:25 And fulfilled with your hand - Your hands. Jeremiah pointed to their hands, in which they were carrying the crescent-shaped cakes which they had vowed to the goddess. Their idolatry therefore was an accomplished deed, as the symbols held in their hands testified. Ye will surely accomplish - Or, Accomplish then your vows.”
Jeremiah 44:25, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:25
"Well" (says God), " you will accomplish, you will perform, your wicked vows: now hear what is my vow, what I have sworn by my great name; " and, if the Lord hath sworn, he will not repent, since they have sworn and will not repent.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:26, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:26
“Since ye will not hear Me speaking and warning, hear Me swearing. by my great name--that is, by Myself (Ge 22:16), the greatest by whom God can swear (Heb 6:13, 14). my name shall no more be named--The Jews, heretofore, amidst all their idolatry, had retained the form of appeal to the name of God and the law, the distinctive glory of their nation;”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:28, 2 voices
Jeremiah 44:28
“A band easily counted, whereas they were expecting to return triumphantly in large numbers. shall know--most of them experimentally, and to their cost. whose words . . . mine, or theirs--Hebrew, "that from Me and them." Jehovah's words are His threats of destruction to the Jews; theirs, the assertion that they expected all goods from their gods (Jer 44:17), &c.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:28
“They said that they should recover themselves when they returned to worship the queen of heaven; God said they should ruin themselves; and now the event will show which was in the right. The contest between God and sinners is whose word shall stand, whose will shall be done, and who shall get the better.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3. (vv. 29-30)
a.And this shall be a sign unto you, saith the Lord: The sign given is checkable rather than vague, Pharaoh-hophra delivered into the hand of his enemies exactly as Zedekiah was delivered to Nebuchadnezzar, naming the parallel so plainly that the two kings stand as one proof. The bench notes the historical outcome, Apries' overthrow by his own general Amasis, as the fulfilment that closes the book's Egyptian chapters. The parallel with Zedekiah is the oracle's final word to the whole company, that Egypt offers no safer ground than the Jerusalem they were so certain to escape.
Jeremiah 44:29, 1 voice
Jeremiah 44:29
“The Jews being "punished in this place" will be a sign that their view is false, and God's threat true. He calls it "a sign unto you," because God's prediction is equivalent to the event, so that they may even now take it as a sign. When fulfilled it would cease to be a sign to them: for they would be dead.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:30, 2 voices
Jeremiah 44:30
“Thus saith the Lord, behold, I will give Pharaohhophra king of Egypt,.... Pharaoh was a common name of the kings of Egypt, who usually had some surname, by which they were distinguished; and the surname of the then present king of Egypt was Hophra; whom the Septuagint and others call Vaphres; and, Herodotus (l) Apries.”
Jeremiah 44:30
“Behold I will give Pharaoh-hophra - That is, Pharaoh Apries. How this and the prophecies in the preceding chapter were fulfilled, we learn from ancient historians. The sum of such information is this: the subjects of Pharaoh Apries rebelling, he sent Amasis, one of his generals, to reduce them to their duty. But no sooner had Amasis begun to make his speech, than they fixed a helmet on his head, and proclaimed him king.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Jeremiah 44. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2684: “Two Arguments Against Sin” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Cyril of Alexandria, FRAGMENTS ON JEREMIAH IN CATENA; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill and Matthew Henry.
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