John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 44:8

"in that ye provoke me unto anger with the works of your hands, burning incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye are gone to sojourn; that ye may be cut off, and that ye may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?" — Jeremiah 44:8 (ASV)

In the last lecture, I was obliged to cut short the subject of the Prophet, for this verse depends on the preceding one and is to be read together with it. The Prophet asked why the Jews willingly cut themselves off from every hope of safety and were seeking their own ruin. He now expresses the matter more fully: that they were provoking God’s wrath by their superstitions. He then points out the cause of all evils—the pollution of God’s true worship by idolatries.

Here we see that there is no end to sinning when men despise God and allow themselves every license in doing evil. God was unwilling that the Jews should go to Egypt, for He had promised to cherish them, as it were, under His own wings. Thus, He intended to show them mercy so that they might remain in safety, even in a country then miserable and desolate.

But against His command, they went into Egypt. When they arrived there, in order to gain favor with the Egyptians, they polluted themselves with vain superstitions.

They could have worshipped God in purity in the land of Judah without any danger. Distrusting the favor of God, they fled into Egypt, and the fear of men led them to deny their religion. Hence, we see how one evil proceeds from another; when the Jews coveted the favor of that heathen nation, they polluted themselves with many ungodly superstitions.

This is the sin to which the Prophet now refers—To provoke me, he says, by the works of your hands. Here, a contrast is to be understood between the works God had commanded and those which men had devised for themselves.

The altar and the whole Temple were indeed works done by the hand and art of men; but as God had commanded the altar to be made and the Temple to be built, the Temple was not, properly speaking, a human work but a divine work, since it had been commanded.

But whatever men devise for themselves for the purpose of worshipping God is what is called the work of their hands, for they invent things themselves and follow only their own fancies. They do not attend to what pleases God but give license to their own imaginations, so that according to their own will, they mingle together any sort of worship they please.

This, then, is the reason, and it is in this sense, that the Prophet says that the Jews provoked God by the works of their hands: they corrupted His lawful worship and departed from true religion when they attached themselves to heathen actions and corruptions.

He then adds, To offer incense to alien gods. Under this specific example, as has already been said, the Prophet includes what is general, for the Jews sinned not only by offering incense but also through various other superstitions. But by stating a part for the whole, he clearly intimates that they denied the true God when they worshipped idols.

And then he adds, in the land of Egypt, into which ye have entered, that ye might dwell there. He takes away the excuse they might have made: that they were constrained by fear because they were unhappy exiles and saw that their own religion would not be tolerated by that proud nation. The Prophet says that they had come into Egypt when God commanded them to remain in the land of Judah. That plea, then, could not have been admitted—that, being terrified by danger, they sought to please the Egyptians—for they had brought themselves into that bondage when they could have been free in the land of Judah to worship God in purity. This is the reason why he says that they came into Egypt to sojourn there.

At length, he adds, to cut you off. The construction is indeed different, but the meaning is clear. He intimates, in short, as he said in the preceding verse, that they willingly and, as it were, intentionally, rushed headlong into their own ruin. He then adds, and ye shall be a curse and a reproach among all nations. By these words, he means that their destruction would be memorable, and this was harder than if their memory were buried with their life. But the Prophet says that their death would be such an example that they would be deemed execrable by all. In short, he declares that they would be exposed to all kinds of reproaches even after their death.