Jeremiah 44:6

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.

Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth,.... Like melted metal, scalding lead, liquefied pitch, or anything of a bituminous and sulphurous nature, which spreads, is consuming, and very intolerable; see Jeremiah 42:18 ; and was kindled in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; which, like a fire, burnt up and destroyed these cities, and particularly the large and spacious city of Jerusalem: and they are wasted and desolate, as at this day; now lie in ruins, as may be seen by everyone; the thing is notorious; this is their present case; they are become desolate, and so continue.

Jeremiah 44:6-7 . Wherefore my fury, &c., was poured forth, &c. — As if he had said, For these very reasons, their idolatry and contempt of my word by my prophets, the very sins you are now committing, I gave Judah and Jerusalem into the hand of the king of Babylon, and they are, as you see this day, waste and desolate. Wherefore commit ye this great evil? &c. — What sort of prudence is it that influences you to do such actions as these, by which you cannot injure God. but yourselves only? You are now but a few of many; what love can you have for your country while you take courses which will certainly tend to the utter extirpation of those few, so that there shall be none remaining of all the Jews? God designed that this remnant should have remained in Judea, and kept possession of it, when the rest of their brethren were carried away captive, Jeremiah 42:10 . But by their going into Egypt and defiling themselves with the idolatries of that nation, they provoked God to make an utter destruction of them.

Wherefore {c} my fury and my anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as at this day. (c) He sets before their eyes God's judgments against Judah and Jerusalem for their idolatry that they might beware by their example, and not with the same wickedness provoke the Lord: for then they would be double punished.

The warning and threatening. - "Thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Ye yourselves have been all the evil which I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah; and, behold, they are a desolation this day, and there is no inhabitant in them; Jeremiah 44:3 . Because of their wickedness which they have done, by provoking me through going to burn incense, (and) to serve other gods whom they knew not, (neither) they (nor) ye, nor your fathers. Jeremiah 44:4 . And I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending (them), to say, Do not this abominable thing which I hate. Jeremiah 44:5 . But they did not hear, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, by not burning incense to other gods. Jeremiah 44:6 . Therefore my wrath and mine anger poured itself out, and burned up the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem; so that they have become a desolation and a waste, as at this day. Jeremiah 44:7 . Now therefore thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Why do ye great evil against your souls, by cutting off from yourselves man and women, child and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, so leaving no remnant for yourselves; Jeremiah 44:8 . Through provoking me by the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye have gone to sojourn, that ye might bring destruction on yourselves, and that ye might become a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? Jeremiah 44:9 .

Have ye forgotten the evil deeds of your fathers, and the evil deeds of the kings of Judah, and the evil deeds of their wives, and your own evil deeds, and the evil deeds of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem? Jeremiah 44:10 . They have not been contrite to this day, and are not afraid, nor do they walk in my law, and in my statutes, which I have set before you and before your fathers. Jeremiah 44:11 . Therefore thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, and to cut off all Judah. Jeremiah 44:12 . And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go to the land of Egypt in order to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall, by sword and famine shall they be consumed; small and great, by sword and famine shall they die, and they shall become an execration and an astonishment, and a curse and a reproach. Jeremiah 44:13 . And I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I punished Jerusalem, by sword, and famine, and pestilence. Jeremiah 44:14 .