Jeremiah 44:18

But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) To burn incense to the queen of heaven.—This form of worship, characterised specially by its offerings of crescent-shaped cakes, would seem to have been the dominant fashion of the idolatry of the time. (See Note on Jeremiah 7:18.) The men who felt themselves condemned by the prophet’s words vindicate their line of action. They had practised this worship of old, and would practise it still, and they set their experience of the prosperity of those past days against the prophet’s picture of the evil that had followed. Might they not argue, as the Romans did in the calamities that fell on the Empire (Tertull. Apol. c. 40; August. De Civ. Dei, I. c. 36), that they suffered because they had left off the worship under the influence of a different teaching?

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

44:15-19 These daring sinners do not attempt excuses, but declare they will do that which is forbidden. Those who disobey God, commonly grow worse and worse, and the heart is more hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Here is the real language of the rebellious heart. Even the afflictions which should have parted them from their sins, were taken so as to confirm them in their sins. It is sad when those who should quicken each other to what is good, and so help one another to heaven, harden each other in sin, and so ripen one another for hell. To mingle idolatry with Divine worship, and to reject the mediation of Christ, are provoking to God, and ruinous to men. All who worship images, or honour saints, and angels, and the queen of heaven, should recollect what came from the idolatrous practices of the Jews.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

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).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven,.... Or were restrained from it, as the Targum, through the force of the prophet's sermons, or by the authority of their governors: this Abarbinel thinks was in the times of Jehoiakim, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah; but perhaps it only regards some space of time in the latter part of Zedekiah's reign, a little before the destruction of Jerusalem, when they refrained from their idolatry; fearing the wrath of God, and what was coming upon them; though Kimchi is of opinion that they never ceased; but they would say, when any evil came upon them, it was because they ceased to burn incense to the queen of heaven, of were not so ready to it as at first:

and to pour out drink offerings to her: another part of worship they performed to her but for a while left off: and from that time they say,

we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword, and by the famine; wanted all the necessaries of life, meat and drink, and clothing and a habitation to dwell in; and multitudes were destroyed by the sword of the king of Babylon; and others perished with famine during the siege; these evils they imputed to their cessation from idolatry, when it was the very thing that brought them on them.

Geneva Study Bible

But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. See introd. note on Jeremiah 7:16-20. The v. alludes to the misfortunes reaching from Josiah’s death at Megiddo to the flight into Egypt. The passage is important “as shewing the view taken of these misfortunes by Jews of the average type. Jeremiah regarded the misfortunes of his country as proofs of the displeasure of Jehovah: these Jews on the other hand of His impotence.” Cheyne, ad loc. It also shews the popular opposition to Josiah’s reform and its superficiality.

Jeremiah 44:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The answer of the people to this threatening address. - Jeremiah 44:15. "Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense to other gods, and all the women standing [there], a great multitude, and all the people who dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, Jeremiah 44:16. [As for] the word which thou hast spoken unto us in the name of Jahveh, we will not hearken unto thee: Jeremiah 44:17. But we will certainly perform every word that has proceeded out of our own mouth, by burning incense to the queen of heaven, and pouring out libations to her, just as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; and we were filled with bread, and became prosperous, and saw no evil. Jeremiah 44:18. But since we ceased to offer incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out libations to her, we have been in want of everything, and are consumed by sword and famine. Jeremiah 44:19. And when we [women] have been burning incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out libations to her, have we made cakes to her without our husbands, making an image of her, and offering libations to her?" To the word of the prophet the men and women oppose their pretended experience, that the adoration of the queen of heaven has brought them comfort and prosperity, while the neglect of this worship, on the other hand, has brought want and misfortune. No doubt they inferred this, by the argument post hoc, ergo propter hoc, from the fact that, after idolatry had been rooted out by Josiah, adversity had befallen the land of Judah; while, up till that time, the kingdom of Judah had been independent, and, for more than a century before, had been spared the suffering of misfortune. Thus, through their blindness, peculiar to the natural man, they had overlooked the minor transient evils with which the Lord visits His people when they sin. Not till near the end of Josiah's reign did misfortune fall on Judah: this was when the Egyptian army, under Pharaoh-Necho, marched through Palestine; Josiah was slain in the battle he had lost, the land was laid waste by the enemy, and its inhabitants perished by sword and famine. In Jeremiah 44:15, those who are represented speaking are all the men who knew of their wives' idolatry, i.e., who permitted it, and all the women, "a great company," i.e., gathered together in great numbers, and all the rest of the people who lived in Egypt. The specification "in Pathros" is not in apposition to the words "in the land of Egypt," but belongs to the verb ויּענוּ; it tells where the gathering took place, viz., in a district of Upper Egypt. From the presence of a large number of women, we may conclude that the assembly was a festival in honour of the queen of heaven. The former portion of Jeremiah 44:16 forms an absolute clause, from הדּבר to בּשׁם, "as regards the word which...we will not listen to thee," i.e., with regard to this word we obey thee not. The expression, "the word which has gone forth out of our mouth," points to the uttering of vows: cf. Numbers 30:13; Deuteronomy 23:24. 'כּל־הדּבר means "all that we have uttered as a vow," every vow to offer incense, etc., i.e., to present meat and drink offerings to the queen of heaven, - that shall we keep, fulfil, as we and our fathers have done in the land of Judah. On this mode of worship, cf. Jeremiah 7:17., and the remarks there made. "And we were satisfied with bread," i.e., in consequence of this worship we had amply sufficient food. Towbiym טובים, "good," well, comfortable; cf. Jeremiah 22:16. מן אז, "from that time" equals since. תּמנוּ is for תּמּנוּ, from תּמם, as in Numbers 17:1-13 :28; cf. Ewald, 197, a. To this statement on the part of the men, the women further add, Jeremiah 44:19, that they do not engage in this sacrificial worship or prepare the sacrificial cakes without their husbands, i.e., without their knowledge and approval. This is put forward by the women in the way of self-vindication; for, according to the law, Numbers 30:9., the husband could annul, i.e., declare not binding, any vow which had been made by his wife without his knowledge. Although it is women who are speaking, the masc. מקטּרים is used as being the gender which most commonly occurs; it also pretty often stands for the feminine. The inf. constr. וּלהסּך (with ל) is here employed, in conformity with later usage, instead of the inf. abs., for the finite verb, by way of continuation; cf. Ewald, 351, c, where, however, many passages have been set down as falling under this rule that demand a different explanation. The meaning of להעצבה is disputed; the final ה is a suffix, written with Raphe, though Mappik also occurs in some MSS. The Hiphil of this verb is found elsewhere only in Psalm 78:40, and there in the signification of vexing, grieving, like the Piel in Isaiah 63:10; Psalm 66:6. Ewald translates "in order to move her," i.e., make her well-disposed, - but quite arbitrarily, for to provoke is the very opposite of rendering propitious. The verb עצּב also signifies "to form, shape," Job 10:8; and in this sense the Hiphil is used here, "in order to put them into shape," i.e., to form the moon-goddess (queen of heaven) in or on the sacrificial cakes (Kimchi, Raschi, Dahler, Maurer, Graf, etc.). The sacrificial cakes (כּוּנים, see on Jeremiah 7:18) probably had the form of a crescent, or even of the full moon, like the σελῆναι of the Greeks, which used to be offered in Athens at the time of the full moon in the month of Munychion, to Artemis, as goddess of the moon; cf. Hermann, gottesdienstliche Alterthmer der Griechen, 2 Ausg. S. 146, Anm. 13, u. S. 414.