Jeremiah 44:12

44:1-14 God reminds the Jews of the sins that brought desolations upon Judah. It becomes us to warn men of the danger of sin with all seriousness: Oh, do not do it! If you love God, do not, for it is provoking to him; if you love your own souls, do not, for it is destructive to them. Let conscience do this for us in the hour of temptation. The Jews whom God sent into the land of the Chaldeans, were there, by the power of God's grace, weaned from idolatry; but those who went by their own perverse will into the land of the Egyptians, were there more attached than ever to their idolatries. When we thrust ourselves without cause or call into places of temptation, it is just with God to leave us to ourselves. If we walk contrary to God, he will walk contrary to us. The most awful miseries to which men are exposed, are occasioned by the neglect of offered salvation.

And I will take the remnant of Judah,.... Such as remained of that tribe in the land of Judea after the captivity: and not all of them, but such that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there: who were bent upon going thither, notwithstanding all the remonstrances made to them to the contrary; and were gone thither, and were now actually sojourners there: this describes such persons who wilfully, and of their own accord, went thither; and excepts those who were over-persuaded or over-powered to go along with them: and they shall all be consumed, and fall in the land of Egypt; not by natural death, one after another; but by the judgments of God, as follows: they shall even be consumed by the sword and by the famine; by the sword of the king of Babylon; and by famine, occasioned by a foreign army and sieges: they shall die; from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; which is repeated for the confirmation of it, and to express the universality of the destruction; that it should reach to persons of every age, state and condition, rank and degree, young and old, high and low, rich and poor: and they shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; See Gill on Jeremiah 42:18.

And I will take the remnant of Judah, that {e} have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed, and fall in the land of Egypt; they shall even be consumed by the sword and by the famine: they shall die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine: and they shall be an execration, and an horror, and a {f} curse, and a reproach. (e) Which have fully set their minds and are gone there on purpose. By which he excepts the innocents as Jeremiah and Baruch that were forces: therefore the Lord shows that he will set his face against them: that is, purposely destroy them. (f) Read Jer 26:6,41:18.

In Jeremiah 44:7-10 follows the application of what has been said to those present, who are asked how they come to continue in the old sins, to their own destruction, "doing evil in regard to your souls," i.e., for the injury, destruction of your souls, yourself; cf. Jeremiah 26:19 , where על־נ' stands for אל־נ'. This is immediately afterwards more exactly specified by 'להכרית וגו, to exterminate the whole of you, without an exception. As to the enumeration "man and woman," etc., cf. 1 Samuel 15:3 ; 1 Samuel 22:19 . The infs. להכעיסני and לקטּר are used as gerundives: "inasmuch as (through this that) ye provoke me." For the expression "the works of your hands," see on Jeremiah 1:16 . In Jeremiah 44:8 , an object must be supplied from Jeremiah 44:7 for the expression למען הכרית לכם; for, to take לכם (with Hitzig) in a reflexive sense is a very harsh construction. On 'לקללה וגו, cf. Jeremiah 42:18 ; Jeremiah 26:6 . The answer to the question now asked follows in Jeremiah 44:9 and Jeremiah 44:10 , in the form of the further question, whether they have forgotten those former sins, and that these sins have been the cause of the evil which has befallen the land. The interrogation expresses the reproach that they have been able to forget both, as is evidenced by their continuance in sin. In Jeremiah 44:9 , the expression "the evil deeds of his wives" (נשׁיו) is remarkable.

Hitzig and Ngelsbach, following Kimchi, refer the suffix to the kings, since there was always but one king at a time. But this is an unnatural explanation; the suffix refers to Judah as a nation, and is used in order to comprehend the wives of the fathers and of the kings together. It is quite arbitrary in Ewald and Graf to change נשׁיו to שׂריו, following the lxx τῶν ἀρχόντων ὑμῶν; for these translators have mutilated the text by the omission of the following ואת רעתיכם. רעות נשׁיו is not merely conserved, but even required, by ואת רעת נשׁיכם. But the prophet gives special prominence to the evil deeds of the wives, since it was they who were most zealous in worshipping the queen of heaven; cf. Jeremiah 44:15 and Jeremiah 44:19 . לא דכּאוּ, "they have not been crushed," viz., by repentance and sorrow for these sins. The transition to the third person is not merely accounted for by the fact that the subject treated of is the sins of the fathers and of the present generation, - for, as is shown by the expression "till this day," the prophet has chiefly his own contemporaries in view; but he speaks of these in the third person, to signify the indignation with which he turns away from men so difficult to reform. On the expression, "they had not walked in my law," cf. Jeremiah 26:4 ; Jeremiah 9:12 . For this the Lord will punish them severely, Jeremiah 44:11-14 . All those who have fled to Egypt, with the intention of remaining there, will be quite exterminated.

et this people know that God is able to make good his word, and to bring the threatened evils upon them; and partly to let them know that the dealing thus with them would not make him quit his relation to Israel, but he was and still would approve himself the God of those who were his true Israel. ## Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, and to cut off all Judah; the meaning is, My full design against you is to bring evil upon you; this is expressed under the notion of setting his face, and, Amo_9:4, setting his eyes against them. ## Jeremiah 44:12 This is no more than the prophet had told these very persons before they went unto Egypt, Jer_42:16 ,17 ; here he doubleth his words for the confirmation of the truth of them to them now that they were there. Jeremiah 44:13 No text from Poole on this verse. Jeremiah 44:14 There is a great variety in the reading of the words, Jer_44:14; some reading besides such as have a desire to return; others, although they have a desire to return; others, for they have a desire to return.