Scripture Daily

Context No. 72 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 44:20-25: in context

20Then Jeremiah said to all the people—to the men and to the women, even to all the people who had given him an answer, saying, 21“The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, didn’t the LORD remember them, and didn’t it come into his mind? 22Thus the LORD could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land has become a desolation, an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is today. 23Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the LORD’s voice, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil has happened to you, as it is today.” 24Moreover Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, “Hear the LORD’s word, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt! 25The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘You and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, “We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her.” “‘Establish then your vows, and perform your vows.’

Jerusalem has fallen, and a group of Judeans has fled to Egypt against Jeremiah's advice, taking him with them. This passage is his last recorded confrontation, and the argument he is answering is unusual because the people state it so clearly.

They had told him: we will go on burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, as we and our ancestors did in the cities of Judah, because back then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no trouble. Since we stopped, we have had nothing but disaster. The Queen of Heaven was a goddess worshipped by whole households, with the women baking cakes for her.

Jeremiah's reply inverts their whole reading of the evidence. The LORD did remember that incense, he says, and could bear it no longer, and that is precisely why your land is a desolation today. They are looking at the same fifty years and drawing the opposite causal line. Prosperity while they burned incense, ruin after they stopped, so the goddess must be the cause. Where am I reading a run of good years as proof that I was right, and what would the same years look like told the other way?

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