seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Jeremiah 44:1 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[a] 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.’”
Footnotes:
a. Jeremiah 44:8 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.
Up until now.... it was the men who were bucking against God's rules.... but now the women are getting mouthy too. I am reminded of something my Grandmother would say ..... "Well all I know is this"...... had she been commenting back then [having been pregnant during the great depression].... "Well all I know is this.... as long as I was burning that incense.... we had food.... and I'm going to keep right on burning it" My grandmother was a good woman who thrived on living by the rules..... unless living by the rules would take the food out of the mouths of her babies.
This is from Bible-studys.org.
The prophet summarized what had occurred in Judah as a basis for what he predicted coming on the refugees in Egypt.
Parents’, idolatry had brought tragic consequences into the lives of their children. Sin often has a multigenerational impact.
Ironically, the Jews taken to Babylon were weaned from idolatry and restored to their land; those taken to Egypt for their obstinate idolatry, perished there.
The people’s view of reality was so twisted that they believed Josiah’s reforms that had put an end to pagan practices were the cause of the calamity that had befallen them. They were disloyal to the Lord because they were convinced that the pagan gods could protect them in a way that He could not.
Queen of heaven” The Jews’ twisted thinking credits the idol with the prosperity of pre-captivity Judah, further mocking the goodness of God.
Jeremiah set the record straight, saying the idol was not the source of their prosperity, but it was the cause of their calamity.
Jeremiah’s ministry concludes with the relationship between God and His people still broken, awaiting the future restoration.
The “sign” of punishment (was described in verse 30), as the strangulation of Pharaoh-hophra in 570 B.C. by Amasis, which paved the way for Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion in the 23rd year of his reign (568/567 B.C.).
“Pharaoh-hophra” had fought against Babylon when Jerusalem was under siege (37:5; 47:5; and in 570 B.C.), the Babylonians killed him in battle. Escape to Egypt was not the solution for the Jews who had fled there; their real need was to return to the Lord.
This Hophra had fled to Egypt himself. He was not in the will of the LORD either. The very same thing that happened to Judah and Jerusalem will happen to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and Judah. This evil pharaoh would do no better. History tells us he was strangled to death after the fall of Egypt.
This is from Bibletrack.org.While we're here, let's review those facts. Judah prospered under their last good king, Josiah, for 31 years (640 B.C. to 609 B.C. (II Kings 22-23). Immediately upon Josiah's death, his evil 23-year-old son, Jehoahaz, becomes king and leads Judah back to their old pre-Josiah wicked ways. The Egyptian Pharaoh takes him captive and appoints his brother Jehoiakim as the new King of Judah. He's also just a puppet king to the Pharaoh. Then, when the Babylonian army shows up, Jehoiakim becomes his puppet king. In reality, through Jehoiachin and Zedekiah all the way down to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., life in Judah was miserable. Wow! What a flawed memory these people have! Nevertheless, they intend to continue that pagan sacrifice during their stay in Egypt.
Jeremiah then prophesies that Egypt will be given into the hand of the Babylonians just like Jerusalem was along with Pharaohhophra, the King of Egypt. It's a very harsh prophecy. Except for a small remnant, all of these Jewish refugees will die by the sword here in Egypt.
As an interesting observation in this chapter, notice that the women seem to be exerting the greater influence here; the men speak on their behalf in verses 15 and following. Notice also that the deity they are worshipping is referred to as the "queen of heaven." Only Jeremiah refers to this goddess in these terms (aka Ishtar, Astarte, Astoreth or Ashtaroth). She was the goddess of fertility, the female counterpart to Baal. The women seem to be fed up with those masculine gods and are opting for a kinder, gentler alternative. And the men...well...they're following the women on this one.
It's noteworthy that these women apparently viewed life differently. Reality aside, they obviously viewed as insignificant that they had not known peace in their land since the God-honoring King Josiah some 23+ years ago. Apparently it meant nothing to them that their nation had been kicked around by the Egyptians and Babylonians - friends and relatives deported, temple ransacked. Jeremiah's Book of Lamentations relates to us the horrible conditions in Jerusalem leading up to and after the fall - their men doing slave labor, their children starving and even being eaten by their parents. Their paradigm for the good life was totally out of touch with reality. That, combined with selective memory loss, caused them to influence their husbands to make a very bad decision here. You've heard that old saying, "When mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!"
Women were meeting and women decided that the best way to keep from eating their own children was to worship the "queen of heaven". I guess it didn't dawn on them that stupid humans came up with the "queen of heaven" while God actually created the stupid humans who came up with the stupid idea. I read about this cannibalism.
2 Kings 6:26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
27 The king replied, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” 28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”
I remember when my grandmother, Nannie, taught me to drink coffee. She said "we drink our coffee black.... that way the babies can have cream and sugar in their cereal". My Nannie knew what it was like to worry where the next meal for her babies was coming from. Whenever she cooked from scratch.... she made two.... one for today and one for the freezer. That way she always had food. She told me that she use to have terror nightmares about people breaking in to steal the food she put away for her babies.
People throw the word "depression" around so much. I don't know if our children have a clue what "The great depression" was. I bet our children don't know that people were jumping out of skyscrapers because they "lost it all". I bet our children don't know that there was a time in the United States was in such a financial crisis that men could not find work..... and selling pencils was a real thing.
Those women in Egypt..... I blame their demise on those warped men..... who wouldn't keep the Temple at the center of everything. They neglected the Theocracy. God warned us.... God told us He is jealous.
