Jeremiah 44:21

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, did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

44:20-30 Whatever evil comes upon us, it is because we have sinned against the Lord; we should therefore stand in awe, and sin not. Since they were determined to persist in their idolatry, God would go on to punish them. What little remains of religion were among them, would be lost. The creature-comforts and confidences from which we promise ourselves most, may fail as soon as those from which we promise ourselves least; and all are what God makes them, not what we fancy them to be. Well-grounded hopes of our having a part in the Divine mercy, are always united with repentance and obedience.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Them - The various acts of idolatry involved in burning incense to an image.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21. The incense … did not the Lord remember—Jeremiah owns that they did as they said, but in retort asks, did not God repay their own evil-doing? Their very land in its present desolation attests this (Jer 44:22), as was foretold (Jer 25:11, 18, 38).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

That incense that ye burnt in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem,.... To false gods, to the queen of heaven, to the host thereof:

ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land; on which account they pleaded antiquity, authority, and the general consent of the people, as on their side, which the prophet allows; but it all signified nothing:

did not the Lord remember them, and came it not into his mind? either the incense they offered up to strange gods, or the persons that did it? did he take no notice of these idolatrous practices, and of these idolaters? he did; he laid up these things in his mind; he showed a proper resentment of them, and in due time punished for them.

Geneva Study Bible

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, did not the LORD remember them, and came it not into his mind?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. The incense] See on Jeremiah 44:3; also on Jeremiah 6:20.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 21. - Remember them; i.e. the repeated acts of idolatry. Jeremiah 44:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Refutation of these statements of the people. - Jeremiah 44:20. "And Jeremiah spake to all the people, to the men and women, and to all the people that had given him answer, saying, Jeremiah 44:21. Did not the incense-burning which he performed 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 Jahveh remember them, and did it not arise in His mind? Jeremiah 44:22. And Jahveh could no longer endure it, because of the wickedness of your deeds, because of the abominations which ye committed; thus your land became a desolation, and a waste, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day. Jeremiah 44:23. Because ye burned incense and sinned against Jahveh, and did not hearken to the voice of Jahveh, and in His law, in His statutes, and in His testimonies ye walked not; therefore this evil hath befallen you, as at this day." Jeremiah answers them that their idol-worship, by which they have provoked the Lord their God, is the very cause of the misfortune that has befallen them, because God could no longer endure this abomination which they would not forsake. הקּטּר is a noun, "the burning of incense," which includes, besides, all the other elements of idolatrous worship hence the word is resumed, at the close, under the plur. אותם, "these things." ותּעלה is 3rd pers. sing. neut., lit., "it has come into His mind," i.e., He has carefully considered it, and that in the way of punishment, for He could no longer endure such abomination. The imperf. יוּכל is used for the historic tense (imperf. with ו consec.), because the ו would necessarily be separated from the verb by the לא; and it is employed instead of the perfect, which we would be inclined to expect after the preceding זכר, since that which is treated of is something that endures for a considerable time; cf. Ewald, 346, b. On the expression "because of the evil," etc., cf. Jeremiah 21:12; Jeremiah 4:4, etc.; on the last clause in Jeremiah 44:22, cf. Jeremiah 44:6 and Jeremiah 44:12.