John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 44:1-7

"The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews that dwelt in the land of Egypt, that dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Memphis, and in the country of Pathros, saying, Thus saith Jehovah 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, because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, [and] to serve other gods, that they knew not, neither they, nor ye, nor your fathers. Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate. But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense unto other gods. Wherefore my wrath 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 it is this day. Therefore now thus saith Jehovah, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Wherefore commit ye [this] great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, out of the midst of Judah, to leave you none remaining;" — Jeremiah 44:1-7 (ASV)

Jeremiah had already prophesied against the Jews who had taken refuge in Egypt, as though there would be for them in that rich and almost unassailable land a safe and quiet retreat. But he now speaks against them for another reason and denounces on them something more grievous than before, because they had not only gone into Egypt against God’s will, but when they arrived there, they polluted themselves with all kinds of superstition.

God, no doubt, designed, in due time, to prevent this when He forbade them to go into Egypt, for He knew how prone they were to idolatry and to false and adulterous modes of worship. He was therefore unwilling that they should dwell in that land, where they might learn to corrupt His worship.

And this had happened, as it appears from the present prophecy. Since they had then cast aside all shame and given themselves over to the superstitions of the heathens, the Prophet again testified that God would take vengeance on them.

But we shall see that he had to deal with refractory men, for without showing any respect for him, they attacked him with impetuous fury. The sum of what is said, then, is that the Jews who lived in Egypt were unworthy of any pardon because they had, as it were, intentionally rejected the favor of God, and their obstinacy had become altogether hopeless. We shall now consider the words:

A word is said to have been given to Jeremiah to all the Jews. But God did not speak to Jeremiah in the same way as He did to the Jews, for He entrusted to him the words which He commanded him to deliver to others. Thus, the word was directly given to Jeremiah only; but since Jeremiah was God’s interpreter to the people, the word is said to be given to all in common, although at first, as has been stated, it was entrusted to Jeremiah alone.

For He did not favor the Jews with such an honor as to speak to them directly, but He sent the Prophet as His messenger. He said then to the Jews who lived in Egypt, and afterwards he mentions certain places, first Migdol, then Tahpanhes, and thirdly, Noph. Some have rendered the first name as Magdal.

That city was not as well known at the time when Egypt flourished, but it has been mentioned by heathen writers. Of Tahpanhes we spoke yesterday. Noph has been identified as Memphis; and it is generally agreed that what the Hebrews called Noph was the noble and celebrated city Memphis, which, it is supposed, is now called Cairo (Le Caire). Finally, he mentions the country of Pathros, which some suppose to have been near Pelusium.

But I do not expend much effort on such a matter as this, for even heathen writers have regarded this as an obscure country of no importance. Pathros is elsewhere mentioned as a city, and some think it to have been Petra of Arabia. But the Prophet no doubt refers here to the country in which Memphis and other cities were situated, where the Jews lived.

He says these things because a question might have been raised: "Since the Jews lived in Egypt, and the land was so large, how could the Prophet have announced God’s commands to everyone?" This, then, is why he indicates that they were not dispersed everywhere throughout Egypt, from one end to the other. Instead, they were in one part only and were so gathered that his word could reach everyone. This, then, was the reason why he mentioned the places where the Jews sojourned.

He now begins with reproof because they were so foolish as not to remember the vengeance God had executed on themselves and on the whole nation. They had been left alive for this purpose: that they might acknowledge God’s judgment and thus return to a right mind.

Here, then, the Prophet upbraids them for their insensibility, because they had profited nothing under God's scourges. It is commonly said that fools become wise when they are beaten.

Since the Jews had not repented after being so grievously chastised, it was a proof of extreme perverseness. For if the remnant had possessed even a grain of sound judgment, they would have been humbled at least by the final destruction of their nation, when the city and the temple were demolished.

Since they then followed the same wicked courses for which God had inflicted so severe a punishment, it was evident that they were wholly irreclaimable and destitute of reason and judgment. This is the meaning of all the Prophet's words that we have read.

He says first, “You have seen what great evils I brought on you and the land.” Then you know that you have justly suffered all the evils that have happened to you; for you have not sinned through lack of knowledge, but when I had diligently warned you by My Prophets, you remained ever obstinate; you have therefore fully deserved such punishments. Now, when God spared you and wished that a small number should remain, to preserve a seed, as it were, how is it that these evils, which are still, so to speak, before your eyes, are not remembered by you? We now understand the Prophet's intention.

But it may be well to examine every part. “You have seen,” he says, “all the evil which I have brought (evil here means calamity) on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah; and, behold, they are now a waste, and no one dwells there.” There is here an emphatic comparison between Jerusalem and Memphis, between the cities of Judah and Heliopolis and the whole country of Pathros. If then God had not spared the holy city which He had chosen, if He had not spared the cities of Judah which were under His protection, how foolish it was for the Jews to think that they would be safe in the cities of Egypt? By what privilege could these be secure, since the cities of Judah had been reduced to a waste? We now perceive why the Prophet mentioned Jerusalem and the cities of Judah; it was so that he might expose the foolishness of the Jews, because they thought themselves safe in Egypt, a land which God had ever held in abomination.

He afterwards adds, “For the evil which they did to provoke Me.” He refers to the sins by which the Jews had provoked God's wrath, for the people whom Jeremiah addressed had relapsed into those superstitions which had been the cause of their ruin. If the Prophet had spoken generally, saying that it was strange that the Jews had forgotten the punishment God had inflicted on the whole nation, his teaching would not have been so impressive.

But when he now points out as if with his finger how they had brought such calamities upon themselves, he presses and urges them more forcefully to acknowledge their madness. They continually provoked God in this way, and sinned not through ignorance, but offended Him by the same sins for which they had already suffered such grievous and dreadful punishment.

This is the reason why the Prophet says, “For the evil which they did to provoke Me, even to go,” he says, “to offer incense and to serve alien gods.” To go here intimates the care and diligence they exercised in false worship. God had shown the Jews a certain way in His Law which they ought to have followed: if they had then continued in the teaching of the Law, they would have kept to the right way and proceeded to the right destination. But they are said to go because they disregarded the Law and went here and there, like those who wander aimlessly, not knowing where they are going.

Therefore, a contrast is to be understood between going and remaining under the teaching of the Law. In short, to go is to weary oneself by an erratic course when God's word is neglected and the way it points out is forsaken. This is one point.

Then he adds, “to offer incense and to serve alien gods.” Incense here is mentioned as a particular thing; then, what is general is added, for incense, as is well known, was an evidence of worship. Thus, the Prophet, by this one thing, condemns the idolatry of his own nation. But finally, he shows that they were given to other abominations, that they had devoted themselves to the false worship of alien gods.

This passage, and those like it, deserve particular notice; for from this we learn that men depart from God and alienate themselves from His true worship whenever they mix something of their own with it and dream of this and that according to their own will—the very thing intended, as we have said, by going as used by the Prophet.

As soon, then, as men devise new modes of worship for themselves, it is as if they turned backward or willfully wandered, for they do not keep to the right and legitimate way. We also learn from the second clause that idolaters offer excuses in vain to excuse themselves.

For if they transfer to another what belongs uniquely to God, and what He claims for Himself, it is more than sufficient proof of idolatry; and incense, as I have said, was a symbol of divine worship. Since they offered incense to their idols, they robbed the true God of His own honor, and chose new gods, and adorned them with the prerogatives of the only true God.

In vain, then, and foolishly do Papists today seek evasions when we object to them, saying that gross idolatries prevail among them: “He! It is not our intention to transfer the worship that uniquely belongs to the only true God to saints or to images; but we apply all this to God.” Since they burn incense to saints, images, and pictures, and even offer incense to the dead, there is surely no further need to dispute the point. And when they try to evade, whatever they may bring forward is refuted by this one expression of the Prophet, for when he speaks of incense, he condemns the Jews for their idolatry.

But as I have said, he speaks afterwards generally, and says, “and to serve alien gods.” Then it follows, “whom they knew not, neither you nor your fathers.” Here the Prophet amplifies the sin of his own nation, because they had devoted their attention to unknown gods. Here again, a contrast is to be understood: between God, who had revealed Himself by His Law, by His Prophets, and by so many miracles and blessings, and the fictitious gods, whom the Jews had invented and contrived without thought and judgment.

Now, it was evidence of a base and intolerable ingratitude that the Jews should have forsaken the true God after He had made Himself known to them. For if the Law had never been given, if God had allowed them, like other nations, to be entangled in their own errors, their offense would have been lighter.

But God had made Himself so intimately known to them that He was pleased to give them His Law to be a sure rule of religion; He had also exercised His miraculous powers among them. Since, then, the knowledge of the true God had been made so remarkably clear to them, how great and how base was their ingratitude to reject Him and to depart from Him in order to run after idols, when they contrived for themselves vain gods that were nothing but fictions!

If anyone had inquired what sort of god Baal was, or what their Baalim were, they would have said that they had Baalim as their patrons, who obtained favor for them with the supreme God. But from where had they derived their vain notion? It was nothing but superstition founded on no reason.

This ought to be carefully observed; for if anyone today were to ask Papists by what right they have devised for themselves so various and so many modes of worship, devotion alone, they say, will suffice, or a good intention. Let us then know that religion separated from knowledge is nothing but the sport and delusion of Satan. It is therefore necessary that men should know with certainty what god they worship. And Christ thus distinguishes the true worship of God from that of vain idols:

“We know,” He says, speaking of the Jews, “whom we worship” (John 4:22).

He then says that the Jews knew—even those who worshipped God according to what the Law prescribes—He says that they knew whom they worshipped. He then condemns all good intentions in which the superstitious delight, for they do not know whom they worship. And I have said that religion ought not to be separated from knowledge; but I call that knowledge not what is innate in man, or what is acquired by diligence, but that which is delivered to us by the Law and the Prophets.

We now, then, understand why the Prophet says that the Jews devoted themselves to alien gods, whom they had not known, nor their fathers.

Now follows a circumstance by which their impiety was still further enhanced: God had sent them Prophets who stretched out their hands to them to draw them from their errors. For if they had never been warned, their condemnation would have been just, for God had once shown them by His Law what was right. The teaching, then, of the Law ought to have been sufficient for all ages.

But when God had never ceased to send Prophets, one after another, it was a sign of hopeless obstinacy to reject so many and so constant warnings. God then added this circumstance so that it might appear that the Jews were wholly inexcusable and worthy of a hundred or a thousand deaths because they had so perversely despised all the means of salvation.

But God says that He had “sent to them all His servants.” What is universal has its own particular importance, for if one or two Prophets had been sent, the Jews would have been proven guilty, as the law does not require more than two or three witnesses to condemn those who have done wrong (Deuteronomy 17:6).

But God shows here that there had been a vast number of these prophets, through whom, if they had been believed, the Jews might have been preserved in safety. They might, then, have been proven guilty not only by three or four witnesses but even by a great number, for the Prophets had continually succeeded one another. And thus had been fulfilled what God had promised in the Law:

“A Prophet will I raise up from the midst of your brethren, him shall you hear; and every one who will not hear that Prophet shall be cut off from his people” (Deuteronomy 18:18–19).

For God shows in His proclaimed Law that this would be one of His chief blessings: always to keep the Jews in the knowledge of their duty by never leaving them destitute of Prophets and faithful teachers.

Here then He shows that He had always really performed what He had promised by Moses, for He does not say that He had sent only a few, but, as I have said, that there had been a copious abundance. In every age there were several Prophets, and some, when it became necessary, succeeded others. But what had been the fruit? He afterwards complains that all the Prophets had been rejected.

But to render their sin still more heinous, He says, “rising up early and sending.” An explanation of this kind of speaking has been given elsewhere (Jeremiah 7:13; Jeremiah 11:7). It is metaphorical language, for God does not rise, nor does He change places; but here He applies to Himself what uniquely belongs to men. For one who is attentive to business does not wait until the sun rises but anticipates the morning dawn. So also the Prophet says that God had been vigilant, for He had been solicitous concerning the well-being of the people.

We further learn from this mode of speaking how invaluable is the benefit God bestows when He raises up honest and faithful teachers; for it is the same as when the head of a family rises early from his bed, calls up his children, and takes care of them. Let us, then, know that teaching, when it is communicated to us, is evidence of God’s paternal solicitude, because He would not have us perish, but comes down to us and sees what is needful, as though He were present with us. And as a father towards his children, He takes care of us and our affairs. This is the meaning.

He now adds the substance of His message: “Do not the thing of this abomination which I hate.” God intimates, in short, that it was not His fault that the Jews did not return from their errors to the right way, because He had stretched out His hand to them and had, as it were, imploringly requested them to provide better for themselves and not knowingly and willfully seek their own destruction.

He acted as if He were a husband who, anxious to preserve his wife's fidelity, might say to her—“Behold, you know that I cannot endure unchasteness; beware, then, lest you prostitute yourself to adulterers.” So God shows here that He had testified by all His servants that all kinds of idolatry were displeasing to Him, so that the Jews might keep themselves from idolatry.

And He adds, “But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense to alien gods.” Here God charges the Jews with irreclaimable obstinacy, for the teaching of the Law did not keep them in obedience, nor did they pay attention to it, though often and at different times warned and admonished by the Prophets.

And He still more clearly sets forth their perverseness by the second clause, when He says that they did not incline their ear. If He had said, “They have not hearkened,” it would have been quite sufficient; but when He adds, “They have not inclined their ear,” He expresses, as I have said, something worse than contempt: that they intentionally rejected the teaching of the Prophets.

They disdained to hear the Prophets or to listen to their admonitions, but willingly became deaf, indeed, closed up their ears, as rebels do, who are said elsewhere to harden their hearts. We now understand the meaning of this verse.

Now He adds, “On this account My wrath and My fury has been poured forth, and has burned through the cities of Judah and through the streets of Jerusalem; and this day they are a waste and a desolation.” The word שממה, shimme, sometimes means amazement, as has been stated before; but when it is connected with חרבה, cherebe, as here, it means desolation.

“As at this day.” A dreadful waste was then apparent; he again refers to this truth: that the Jews ought to have been so touched by that remarkable and memorable instance of God’s displeasure as not to abandon themselves afterwards to new idolatries. They ought to have remembered so recent an example of punishment.

Since, then, they still persevered in their hardness, it was evidence of extreme impiety. The Prophet says that the perverseness of the Jews had not been unpunished, for God’s wrath had been poured forth against the cities of Judah, indeed, against Jerusalem itself, the sanctuary of God, so that all things had been reduced to desolation.

The Jews, then, ought, on the one hand, to have seriously considered how inexcusable their impiety had been in so perversely despising God; and then, on the other hand, they ought to have felt fear and dread, since they saw that God had taken such vengeance on those who had despised His teaching and violated His worship.

He then adds, “Why then do you now do this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, from the midst of Judah, that nothing may remain for you?” Here at length the passage is finished, for what we have read until now would have kept the reader in suspense if this had not been added.

He then says, “Since the sin of your fathers ought to have been detested by you, and since God’s judgment was dreadful, and that punishment ought to fill you with fear today, how is it that you seek to bring God’s vengeance on yourselves again?” Why then, he says, now, etc.

This now is emphatic; that is, after so many and so remarkable examples, after so many admonitions, after the most severe punishment inflicted on the obstinate.

He says, “against your own souls;” and by this He touched them very sharply, reminding them that what they were doing would be their ruin. It is as though He had said that God would suffer no loss from their wickedness, but that they would become the authors of their own destruction.

He indeed intimates, as I have already said, that their impiety would not be without its punishment; but He shows at the same time that God could, if He thought proper, look down with indifference on their impieties, for He would remain perfect even if they were the worst.

For when God is robbed by men of His just and legitimate worship, nothing is taken away from His greatness; for He always remains the same and is neither advanced nor diminished by the will of men. Then the Prophet shows that the Jews were acting madly to their own ruin when he says that they did evil against their own souls.

And this He explains more fully by adding, “To cut off man and woman, child and suckling, from the midst of Judah.” He intimates that God still manifested His mercy while there was any remnant.

They could have remained in Judea, even in their own inheritance, and the country could have been inhabited until the seventy years God had fixed for the exile had elapsed. Now the Prophet shows that they fought, as it were, against the goodness of God, for they sought to extinguish their own name, so that nothing would remain of that people to whom God had still left some seed, that they might not wholly perish.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that since You unceasingly show us Your paternal love and care,—O grant that we may not be so insensitive as to turn a deaf ear to Your teaching and admonitions; but as You watch over our safety, may the constancy of our faith and obedience so respond to You that we may reverently receive Your word, allow ourselves to be ruled by it, and follow the way which You have set before us, until we attain complete salvation and enjoy that blessed inheritance which has been prepared for us in heaven by Christ our Lord.—Amen.