Jeremiah 44
Jeremiah 44 is the prophet's last recorded word, and it is spoken in Egypt, among the very people he had warned not to go there. They had survived the fall of Jerusalem; they had fled south certain that Egypt would shelter them; and there, scattered through the Egyptian towns - Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and the whole country of Pathros - they took up again the idolatry that had brought their nation down. The LORD's charge fills the first half of the chapter. He reminds them of all the evil He brought on Jerusalem and why: because of their wickedness… in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other gods. And He reminds them how long and how patiently He had pleaded against it - I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate (v. 4). The exile was not bad luck. It was the harvest of a worship given to gods who could not save.3
Then the chapter does something almost unbearable: the people answer back. To the prophet's face, a great crowd - the men, and the women who had burned the incense, and all the people of Pathros - refuse him outright: As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee (v. 16). And their reasoning is the chapter's dark center. When they served the queen of heaven, they say, then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil (v. 17); it was only after they left off that we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine (v. 18). They have read their own history exactly backwards. They credit the idol for the mercies God gave, and they take their suffering as proof they should never have stopped worshipping her. Comfort, in their hands, has become the measure of truth.
Jeremiah's answer cuts straight through the confusion. That incense the people remember so fondly - the LORD remembered it too. The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah… did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind? (v. 21). It was not the absence of the queen of heaven that ruined the land; it was the presence of her altars. The ruin was the judgment on the very thing they are calling their golden age. And so the chapter ends with a sign. Because the people will not believe whose word is true, the LORD gives them a test they cannot mistake: as surely as He gave Zedekiah into the hand of Babylon, so surely will He give Pharaoh into the hand of his enemies - that the survivors may at last know whose words shall stand, mine, or theirs (v. 28).
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Jeremiah 44:1-14Do Not This Abominable Thing That I Hate
1The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, which dwell at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Noph, and in the country of Pathros, saying, 2Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, and upon all the cities of Judah; and, behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein, 3Because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other gods, whom they knew not, neither they, ye, nor your fathers. 4Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate. 5But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods. 6Wherefore my fury and mine 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. 7Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, to leave you none to remain; 8In that ye provoke me unto wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to dwell, that ye might cut yourselves off, and that ye might be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? 9Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they have committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem? 10They are not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers. 11Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, and to cut off all Judah. 12And I will take the remnant of Judah, that 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 unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine: and they shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. 13For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: 14So that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return but such as shall escape.
The chapter opens by placing the word exactly: it comes to the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, scattered across the country from the frontier forts of the north - Migdol… Tahpanhes… Noph (Memphis) - down into the country of Pathros in the south (v. 1). These are the survivors. They lived through the catastrophe Jeremiah spent forty years announcing, and rather than learn from it they have carried its cause across the border with them. So the LORD begins with the plainest possible statement of what happened and why: Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem… this day they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein, because of their wickedness… in that they went to burn incense, and to serve other gods (vv. 2-3). He does not let them mistake the ruin for an accident of politics or the random cruelty of empires. The desolation had a cause, and the cause was worship misdirected - incense lifted to gods whom they knew not. Before any threat is spoken, the LORD wants the record straight: He is not the author of arbitrary disaster. He is the God whose patience was spent, over generations, trying to keep this very thing from happening.3
The most tender word in the indictment is also the most insistent: Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate (v. 4). The picture in rising early is of someone up before dawn, urgent and unwearied - the LORD sending messenger after messenger, generation after generation, with a plea rather than a sentence. And the plea is almost startling in its directness: Oh, do not… The single syllable Oh carries the ache of it - not the cold pronouncement of a judge but the appeal of one who longs to be heard. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear (v. 5). Then comes the question the LORD presses on the survivors, and it reframes the whole matter: Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls… that ye might cut yourselves off? (vv. 7-8). Notice where the harm lands. Their idolatry is not first an offense that injures God; it is an evil against their own souls - a wound they are inflicting on themselves, a cutting-off they are doing to themselves. The God they keep provoking is the only one who was ever working to save them. To turn from Him is not to escape a tyrant; it is to sever the branch you are standing on.
The LORD widens the charge until no one can stand outside it. He recites a litany of guilt that runs through every rank and both sexes and across the generations: the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives (v. 9). This was not the private failing of a few; it was a national habit, handed down, owned at every level of the society. And the verdict on the present generation is sober: They are not humbled even unto this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law (v. 10). The exile, which should have broken their pride, has not even bent it. So the sentence falls: I will set my face against you for evil, and to cut off all Judah (v. 11), and the remnant in Egypt shall all be consumed… from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine (v. 12). The very escape they trusted becomes the trap. They fled to Egypt to outrun the judgment that fell on Jerusalem, and the LORD tells them plainly: I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem (v. 13). Geography cannot save what the heart will not surrender. They carried their idols to Egypt, and the judgment followed the idols.
Jeremiah 44:15-19For Then Had We Plenty
15Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, 16As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. 17But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. 18But 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. 19And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?
Now the chapter turns, and we hear something rare in all the prophets: the people answer back, out loud, to the prophet's face. It is a crowd - the men who knew their wives burned incense, the women who burned it, a great multitude, even all the people… in Pathros (v. 15). And their reply is flat refusal: As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee (v. 16). There is no argument about whether Jeremiah really speaks for God - they concede the word came in the name of the LORD - and there is no plea for time or a sign. They simply will not obey. We will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth (v. 17): their own word, their own vow, is the authority they choose to live by. It is one thing to disobey God in weakness, stumbling and ashamed. It is another thing entirely to disobey Him on principle, having heard Him clearly, and to announce it. This is the chapter's most chilling moment - not idolatry done in the dark, but idolatry defended in daylight, a people who have stopped pretending they want to be told. The will has dug in. They have made their own mouth their god.
Then comes the reasoning, and it is the dark heart of the whole chapter. Why will they keep worshipping the queen of heaven? For then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil (v. 17). And the flip side: since we left off to burn incense… we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine (v. 18). Here is their entire theology in two sentences, and it is built on a simple, deadly mistake. They have lined up their history and drawn a straight line from cause to effect: we worshipped her, and times were good; we stopped, and times went bad - therefore she was the source of our good. But they have read the chart upside down. The years of plenty they remember so warmly were the years the prophets were crying out against the idolatry that would destroy them; the prosperity was God's patience, not the idol's reward. And the disaster did not come because they stopped - it came as judgment on the very worship they are calling their golden age. They have confused two things that look alike from the inside and could not be more different: correlation and blessing. Because the comfortable years happened to coincide with their idolatry, they credit the idol - and they take their later suffering as proof they should never have stopped. It is the oldest confusion of the human heart: to thank the gift we can see for the mercy of the Giver we will not.
Jeremiah 44:20-23Did Not the LORD Remember Them?
20Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people which had given him that answer, saying, 21The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind? 22So that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day. 23Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as at this day.
Jeremiah does not flinch at the crowd's defiance. He answers their argument on its own ground, and undoes it with a single question: The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah… ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind? (v. 21). The people had appealed to the past as their evidence; Jeremiah appeals to the same past and reads it rightly. That incense they remember so fondly - the LORD remembered it too, but not as the source of their plenty. He remembered it as the provocation it was. They thought their idolatry had earned them good years and that the LORD had taken no notice. Jeremiah tells them the LORD noticed every grain of it; it came into his mind, and it is precisely what He has now answered. The brilliance of the reply is that it accepts the people's own timeline and simply assigns the right cause. The disaster is not evidence that they stopped worshipping the queen of heaven too soon. The disaster is the LORD's response to their having worshipped her at all. Their golden age and their ruin are not two unrelated facts; they are the sin and its harvest, and the harvest has come in.
The prophet's answer reaches its weight in a phrase of terrible restraint: So that the LORD could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land a desolation (v. 22). Could no longer bear. The words reveal how long the LORD had borne it. The judgment was not a quick temper; it was the end of an immense patience, the snapping of a cord that had held under strain for generations while prophet after prophet was sent and refused. There is a limit, this verse says, not because God's mercy is small but because persistent, defended, celebrated evil cannot coexist forever with His holiness. And Jeremiah names the cause four times over, so it cannot be dodged: because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, nor walked in his law (v. 23). Therefore this evil is happened unto you. The repetition is mercy of a strange kind - he will not let them comfort themselves with a lie about why their world fell apart, because the lie is exactly what is about to destroy the remnant too. The truth, however hard, is the only door back. They had blamed their suffering on having abandoned the idol; Jeremiah lays the suffering squarely where it belongs, on having served it.
Jeremiah 44:24-30Whose Words Shall Stand, Mine, or Theirs
24Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the LORD, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt: 25Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows. 26Therefore hear ye the word of the LORD, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt; Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the LORD, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, The Lord GOD liveth. 27Behold, I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until there be an end of them. 28Yet a small number that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose words shall stand, mine, or theirs. 29And this shall be a sign unto you, saith the LORD, that I will punish you in this place, that ye may know that my words shall surely stand against you for evil: 30Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give Pharaohhophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, his enemy, and that sought his life.
Jeremiah takes up the people's own boast and turns it into the indictment. They had bound themselves with vows: We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven (v. 25). So the LORD answers their resolve with a grim permission - ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows. There is a chilling courtesy in it. They have insisted on their own way with such determination that the LORD, in effect, hands them over to it: go ahead, then; keep every vow you swore to the idol - and reap what those vows bring. A vow is a serious thing, made to bind the soul; these people have made theirs to a god who is nothing, and they intend to keep faith with the lie at all costs. It is one of Scripture's quiet pictures of judgment: not always a thunderbolt from outside, but sometimes simply being given fully over to the thing you demanded. The people swore to serve the queen of heaven. Very well, the LORD says - you shall.
The sentence that follows is among the most sorrowful in the book. The LORD swears by my great name - the strongest oath He can take - that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, The Lord GOD liveth (v. 26). These people still used the LORD's name. They could still say The Lord GOD liveth, the old oath-formula of the covenant, even while burning incense to another god - keeping His name on their lips while giving their hearts elsewhere. The LORD will end even that. The double-mindedness that lets a person invoke God with the mouth while serving an idol with the life cannot stand forever; here it is brought to a close. I will watch over them for evil, and not for good (v. 27). That phrase deliberately overturns a promise from earlier in the book, where the LORD said He would watch over His people to build, and to plant. The same vigilant attention that meant blessing now, for the defiant remnant, means the opposite. God's watchfulness never sleeps; the question is only whether a life is set toward Him or against Him - and these have set themselves against.
Because the people will not believe whose word is true, the LORD gives them a test that history itself will settle: a small number that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt… and… shall know whose words shall stand, mine, or theirs (v. 28). That is the question the whole chapter has been circling. Two words have been set against each other - the people's confident we will certainly do, and the LORD's thus saith the LORD - and only one of them can prove true. So the LORD attaches a sign that cannot be mistaken: I will give Pharaohhophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies… as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar (v. 30). The people had fled to Egypt trusting in Pharaoh's protection; the LORD points to that very Pharaoh and says he will fall just as Judah's last king fell. The comparison is exact and devastating - the refuge is no safer than the home they left. History records that Hophra was indeed overthrown, given into the hands of those who sought his life. The sign came true, and with it the answer to the chapter's question. The people's word, sworn so loudly, came to nothing; the LORD's word stood. It always does. Heaven and earth shall pass away, a later voice would say, but my words shall not pass away.3
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Jeremiah 44 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for meleket ha-shamayim (vv. 17-19, 25, the “queen of heaven”), for the verb qatar (“to burn incense,” the recurring word of the chapter), and for the closing name Pharaoh-hophra in verse 30.
- Jeremiah 44 ↔ Matthew 6 · Luke 12 · John 4 & 6Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Jeremiah 44 to the rest of Scripture - the people crediting their idol for plenty (vv. 17-18) read beside the warning that none can serve God and mammon (Matt. 6:24) and the rich fool whose barns were full (Luke 12:19-20), and the false worship of the queen of heaven set over against worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24) and the One who is the bread of life (John 6:35).
- Jeremiah 44 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Jeremiah 44 - the Egyptian towns named in verse 1, the meaning and worship of the “queen of heaven” in verses 17-19, the people's argument from past prosperity, and the historical identity of Pharaoh-hophra in verse 30.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Do Not This Abominable Thing That I Hate
- 2 Chronicles 36:15-16And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes... but they mocked the messengers of God.The same patience as verse 4 - the LORD rising early to send prophets, and a people who would not hear.
- Matthew 21:34-37he sent his servants to the husbandmen... last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.The long line of rejected messengers of verse 4 retold by Jesus - ending with the Son sent last.
- Jeremiah 7:18the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods.The same idolatry the LORD charges here (vv. 3, 8) - the worship of the queen of heaven that ruined Judah.
- Deuteronomy 4:27-28the LORD shall scatter you among the nations... And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands.The warning fulfilled in verses 8-13 - a scattered people serving the works of their own hands.
- Proverbs 8:36he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.The truth behind verse 7 - that turning from God is finally a wound against one’s own soul.
For Then Had We Plenty
- Matthew 6:24No man can serve two masters... Ye cannot serve God and mammon.The heart behind verse 17 - we end up serving whatever we credit for our security and plenty.
- Luke 12:19-20Soul, thou hast much goods laid up... But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.The error of verses 17-18 - mistaking a full barn for the favor of God.
- Hosea 2:8For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil... which they prepared for Baal.The exact mistake of verse 17 - crediting the idol for the harvest the LORD Himself supplied.
- Deuteronomy 8:17-18thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth.The corrective to verse 17 - remembering who actually gives the plenty we are tempted to credit elsewhere.
- John 6:35I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.The answer to the hunger the queen of heaven promised to feed (vv. 17-18) - the One who alone satisfies.
Did Not the LORD Remember Them?
- Ezekiel 36:26A new heart also will I give you... and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.The answer to the unhearing heart of these verses - the new heart God gives that the prophet could not.
- Hebrews 3:7-8To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.The warning this whole scene embodies - a heart hardened against a word it has plainly heard.
- Galatians 6:7Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.The principle behind verses 21-23 - the harvest of the very thing that was sown.
- Numbers 32:23behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.The truth of verse 21 - the sin the people thought unnoticed had come fully into the mind of God.
- 2 Peter 3:9The Lord is not slack concerning his promise... but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish.The patience that finally reached its limit in verse 22 - long-borne mercy meant to lead to repentance.
Whose Words Shall Stand, Mine, or Theirs
- Matthew 7:24-27whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them... built his house upon a rock... and every one that heareth... and doeth them not... upon the sand.The two words of verse 28 made into two houses - the one that stands and the one whose fall is great.
- Matthew 24:35Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.The settled answer to verse 28 - the word of the LORD that always, in the end, stands.
- Isaiah 40:8The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.The truth the sign of verses 28-30 was given to prove - that God’s word, against every rival, endures.
- Ezekiel 29:3Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers.The fall of Pharaoh foretold in verse 30 - the Egypt the remnant trusted, judged by the LORD.
- Joshua 24:15choose you this day whom ye will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.The choice the remnant made wrongly (v. 25) - the daily decision of whom a life will finally serve.