And Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people that had given him that answer, saying,
The people had just refused to listen, vowing to keep burning incense to the queen of heaven. Jeremiah answered the whole crowd, men and women, and named the real cause of their ruin.
Verse 20 is a response, so it only makes sense against what the people had just said. They had read their own history backwards. They thought Judah fell because they had neglected their goddess, not because they had served her.
So they gloried in their shame. They took no notice of the works of the Lord or the work of His hands, and it led to their own destruction. They blamed their troubles on slighting the queen of heaven, because they had handed their will completely over to a so-called religion. That religion made mere depravity and passion sacred.
Such open defiance did not come from pressure outside the nation. Its source was closer to home.
It is painful but useful to trace how religious corruption grows. It does not come from outside, but from within. It seems no outward temptation could have made the people of Judah rebel so openly. But corrupt prophets and a corrupt priesthood did just that.
The title the people kept using was not a Jewish one. It belonged to a female idol worshipped in the nations around them.
They had taken up the worship of a female idol. This worship was common among the idol-worshipping nations around them: the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Babylonians. The Babylonians called their Venus, Ishtar, the queen of heaven. The Assyrians called her Beltis, the female form of Baal. In their sculpture they placed a star over her head and called her "the mistress of the heavens." The Phoenicians worshipped this "queen of heaven" under the name Ashtoreth or Astarte. The women made cakes to present to this goddess.
The wrong object of worship was not the only problem.
This was the female form of Baal or Bel. Her names included Beltis, Ashtaroth, Astarte, Alitta, Mylitta and Aphrodite. Her worship involved the grossest immorality.
Jeremiah does not argue about their goddess. He points them to the hand behind their troubles.
Why did they not credit their troubles, as was the truth, to the chastening hand of God?
Another writer sets the same exchange side by side — their claim, then his correction:
They tell him openly that they will continue their idolatry and burn incense to the queen of heaven. Why? Because, they say, when we did these things in Judah and Jerusalem we had plenty of bread, we were well, and we saw no trouble (vv. 15-19). Jeremiah points out that this was the very thing which brought God's judgment on Judah and Jerusalem (vv. 20-23).
Their whole case rested on remembered comfort: things went well while we did this. Commentators warn that outward conditions prove nothing, in either direction.
Outward troubles do not prove that a man is in the wrong place. Outward persecution rather tends to prove that he is in the right place (2 Timothy 3:12). And outward success is not a necessary proof of God's approval. This is a very basic lesson, yet it needs saying again and again. We have such a strong tendency to judge in that crude and childish way. So we are likely to accept the verdict of Job's comforters when we judge other people's lives. Such tests can also mislead us about our own course.
Jeremiah's reply does not stop at correcting their history. It ends with a test.
The answer is plain enough. They heard what their fate would be for their deliberate unbelief and disobedience. These are solemn words. The Lord said, "They shall know whose word will stand, Mine or theirs." God's word will always stand. So will those who stand by the word of God and put their trust in it.
- Answer — Verse 20 is Jeremiah's reply to a crowd that had just refused him. He speaks to men and women together, because the whole company had answered him.
- Inside — That bold refusal did not come from outside pressure. Corrupt prophets and priests bred it inside the nation.
- Idol — The queen of heaven was a borrowed foreign goddess. The women baked cakes for her, and her worship carried gross immorality with it.
- Cause — They claimed the incense brought them good days. Jeremiah answers that this same incense brought God's judgment on Judah and Jerusalem.
- Standing — Comfort is no proof of God's approval. The whole dispute ends on one line: they will learn whose word stands, God's or theirs.
Is it not the 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, that Jehovah remembered, and that came into his mind?
The last survivors of Judah have taken Jeremiah with them into Egypt, and there they refuse to stop burning incense to the queen of heaven. His reply asks one question: did God forget the offerings they and their kings once made in Judah?
The people looked everywhere but one place for the cause of their troubles. Jeremiah's question puts that cause in front of them.
Why did they not attribute their troubles, as was the truth, to the chastening hand of God? This is exactly what the prophet presses home with the simplicity and force of truth.
Their explanation of their suffering left God out. It made the disaster itself an argument for the idol.
So they gloried in their shame. They took no notice of the works of the Lord or the working of His hands, to their own destruction. They blamed their disasters on slighting the queen of heaven. Their will was set on a so-called religion which made mere depravity and passion sacred.
Older translations read "the incense that you burned" where the ESV has "the offerings that you offered." Either way, this was one particular worship, borrowed from the nations around Judah.
They had provoked Him by making cakes to the queen of heaven. They had taken up the worship of a female idol. That worship was common among the idol-worshipping nations around them: the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Babylonians. The Babylonians called their Venus, Ishtar, the queen of heaven... The Phoenicians worshipped this "queen of heaven" under the name of Ashtoreth or Astarte. The Jews had taken up this wicked worship, and all kinds of immoral ceremonies went with it. The women made cakes to present to this goddess.
Commentators differ on which heavenly body the title points to.
Jeremiah also says that in Judah and Jerusalem people made cakes to the QUEEN OF HEAVEN. Many take this to mean the moon, worshipped as Astarte.
Jeremiah's charge names kings, officials, fathers and the people alike. One writer pauses on the wives, and on what their zeal for a false god signals.
Notice that the prophet stresses the wickedness of wives, and the part it played in bringing on the disasters of Israel, both before and now. Women are more ready to hear and feel, for good or ill, than men... It is a great grace from the Lord when they receive the truth and are saved. When they renounce the truth and are bold and shameless in their resolve to serve a false god, it is an awful sign that judgment is near.
These people had fled to Egypt for safety. Another group of survivors had been carried off to Babylon, and the two ended very differently.
These go down into Egypt against the word of the Lord, and sword, famine and plague will consume them. Those at Babylon have peace and prosperity and plenty promised to them for a time. These carry Jeremiah with them into Egypt, though he pronounces their doom... At the beginning God redeemed the people out of Egypt. Babylon became the place of their captivity after they turned away from the Lord. To return to Egypt therefore was fatal, but from Babylon there was deliverance.
They had made their choice in open defiance. Jeremiah tells them what it will cost.
The answer is plain enough. They heard what their fate would be for their deliberate unbelief and disobedience. These are solemn words. The Lord said, "They shall know whose word will stand, Mine or theirs." God's Word will always stand, and so will everyone who stands by the Word of God and trusts in it.
- Remembered — God never overlooked what they burned in Judah's cities and Jerusalem's streets. Jeremiah's question takes that for granted.
- Misread — They credited the idol for their good years and blamed its neglect for their ruin. The real cause was the chastening hand of God.
- Shared — Kings, officials, fathers, people and wives all stood charged. The guilt ran through every rank, and bold false worship signalled judgment near.
- Chosen — They chose Egypt over the word of the Lord, and Egypt proved fatal. The remnant in Babylon had deliverance promised.
- Settled — The issue closes with whose word will stand; God's Word stands, and so do those who trust it.
And Jehovah could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, [and] because of the abominations that ye had committed; and your land is become a waste, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as at this day.
The Jewish refugees in Egypt had just told Jeremiah that their troubles began when they stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven. He turns their history right side up: that incense is the reason their land now lies empty.
The refugees had the same facts as Jeremiah and drew the opposite conclusion. One writer shows where their conclusion came from:
So they gloried in their shame. They took no notice of the works of the Lord or the work of His hands, to their own destruction. They blamed their troubles on slighting the queen of heaven. That was because their will was fully set on a so-called religion — one that made mere depravity and passion sacred.
This verse makes the opposite claim. The desolation is God's answer to their conduct. The same writer puts Jeremiah's counter-question in one line:
Why did they not trace their troubles to God's chastening hand, which was the truth? This is exactly what the prophet drives home with the simplicity and force of truth.
The opening words mark the end of long restraint, not a flash of anger. One writer shows what God did the moment that restraint ended:
While God still tolerated the people of Israel and the house of David, He let no other power become supreme among the nations... The time came when God could no longer bear with the evil ways of the chosen nation. Then He Himself raised up Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. He strengthened him to subdue first Assyria and then Egypt. All the smaller neighbouring kingdoms fell an easy prey to his armies.
"A curse" here means more than a wrecked economy. An empty land puts a question in the mouths of outsiders — and answers it:
With such curses coming on Israel, their children and foreigners too would be shocked. They would see the whole land given over to sulphur, salt and burning, with no seed sown and no grass growing. It was a reminder of the terrible overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. The nations would ask why the Lord had caused such devastation in the land of Israel. They would be told, "Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt."
Another writer traces the same cause behind all of Israel's sorrows:
Their cities are now without inhabitants. The land is completely desolate, and the Lord has removed her children far away... one reason and one only can be given for their sorrows in every period.
These people had run from the wreckage instead of facing what caused it. One writer puts the warning plainly for anyone tempted by the same move:
There is a limit to patience, and judgment follows from which there is no escape. If people think that by going into the world they will escape trouble, they make a great mistake. We get tired of strife and divisions and weakness, but going into the world does not mend matters. We see here the sad effect of going into the world: it left them without heart or conscience.
Even a chapter this dark does not close with everyone consumed. Another writer points to the promise God keeps for His own:
In the midst of wrath — righteous wrath — He remembers mercy. How comforting it is to hear Him say even at such a time, "And those who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number." The blessed Lord knows the godly, and knows too how to deliver them. Some, no doubt, like the prophet and Baruch, had been carried into Egypt by the proud and wilful. They were few and feeble. They were not there with a happy mind.
- Patience. God bore with the nation for generations. The desolation dates from the moment He could bear it no longer, not from the first offence.
- Cause. The incense they defended was the very thing that emptied their land. They read their history backwards and blamed the idol they had dropped.
- Curse. A stripped land becomes a public answer to a public question. It tells the nations that its people had forsaken the covenant.
- Flight. Running to Egypt changed their address, not their state. Going into the world mended nothing; it left them without heart or conscience.
- Mercy. Even under judgment God still knows the few and feeble that others dragged along. He opens a way back for them.
Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against Jehovah, and have not hearkened unto the voice of Jehovah, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil hath come upon you, as at this day.
The Jews who had fled to Egypt told Jeremiah they would go on burning incense to the queen of heaven. Life had gone well while they did it, they said. This verse is the prophet's reply. He names the real cause of their ruin, and pins it on the very practice they were defending.
The people explained their troubles by their own experience. Jeremiah points them to the hand behind the ruin.
Why did they not trace their troubles to the chastening hand of God, which was the truth of it? That is exactly what the prophet presses home, with the simplicity and force of truth.
The people claimed their idolatry had made them prosper. Another writer names the reversal.
Jeremiah points out to them that it was the very thing that brought God's judgment on Judah and Jerusalem.
"Because you made offerings" sounds mild until you learn who received them.
This was the female form of Baal or Bel. She was called Beltis, Ashtaroth, Astarte, Alitta, Mylitta, Aphrodite, and other names. Her worship went hand in hand with the grossest immorality.
They did more than sin. They read their own disasters backwards.
So they gloried in their shame, taking no notice of the works of the LORD or of the work of His hands, and it destroyed them. They blamed their disasters on slighting the queen of heaven. They did so because they had given their will completely to a so-called religion that made depravity and passion sacred.
The verse does not stop at incense. It adds that they had not obeyed His voice or walked in His law, His statutes and His testimonies. These are the terms of a covenant, and that covenant carried a curse from the days of Moses.
The time has now come to carry out the curse. The curse spoken in the days of Moses fell in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. So a vast change took place in the people's relationship with the LORD. Until then they had been under chastening only. Now they came just as clearly under the curse. It was something new; they had broken the covenant.
The evidence was in front of them. What stopped them was not a lack of proof. One commentator traces the blindness to the will, not the mind.
Self-will had already fixed on a certain course, and it deceived them. Nothing warps the understanding and blocks the grasp of truth like self-will. It will not see what it does not want to see.
The habit Jeremiah is correcting is not unique to Egypt. One commentator turns the lesson on every reader.
This was tracing the evil up to its right source. It was departure from God and His holy commandments that had brought all this trouble on them. People are always inclined to forget the sin that caused the trouble and to think only of the trouble. But true wisdom will always lead us to look past the trouble to the cause that produced it.
- Cause. Jeremiah meets a false explanation with the true one. The ruin came from the chastening hand of God.
- Content. They burned their incense to the female form of Baal, known by many names, and her worship carried gross immorality with it.
- Confusion. They read the same events in reverse, blaming their ruin on neglect of the goddess instead of on God.
- Covenant. Behind the incense lay disobedience to His voice, His law, His statutes and His testimonies. The curse spoken in the days of Moses fell in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.
- Correction. Self-will refuses to see what it does not want to see; wisdom looks past the trouble to the cause that produced it.