Jeremiah 44:15-19 Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude… I. A SUPPOSED REASON. What is the calamity? Sword and famine. Certainly a calamity to be removed and as far as possible averted for the future. And casting about to discover a reason for the calamity, the men of Judah, or rather the women, for it is they who appear most prominently in this declaration, discover that the reason is to be found in the discontinuance of their offerings to the queen of heaven. What a family matter this offering was is shown by Jeremiah 7:18. The women kneaded dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven. These offerings must have been very generally given up when the migration into Egypt took place, and then, on the coming of the sword and famine, what was more natural than for these women to connect the calamity with the discontinued offerings? In one thing they were quite right; there was a supernatural reason for the calamity. Wrong as they were, it was well they did not rest in any mere natural reason. They were sure that a Divine Being of some sort or other had to do with their troubles. The direction of thought is different now. When calamity comes upon people, if they connect it with God at all, they very often do so in an arbitrary kind of way, as if nothing but a mere superior will, without reason or purpose of any sort, had sent calamity to them. It is easy to pity what we call the ignorance and superstition of this crowd of women, but always we can see the errors of other times far more easily than those of our own. The causes of suffering need to be inquired for very carefully, very patiently; for wrong conclusions only bring more suffering than ever. II. THE REAL REASON. They had forsaken Jehovah. Not that there is any necessary connection between the forsaking of Jehovah and the sword and famine. Nothing but our faith in the reality of a prophet's predictions can enable us to see this connection. There is oftentimes an utter forsaking of God, yet neither sword nor famine follow. The true and necessary result of going after something else than God is found in the consequent misery and emptiness of the life. Continually we suffer from our inability to see things in their right proportions. Bad as sword and famine may be, there are things infinitely worse. The fact that this multitude was debasing itself by worshipping the queen of heaven pointed to a state of things far worse than any physical suffering could be. Physical suffering may at any time be removed, if desirable, by a miracle. But that darkness of the heart producing essential idolatry, a darkness so loved and cherished, who is to remove that? Nay, the very fulness of temporal comforts may become a veil between God and the soul. The very thing which helped to deceive the people here as to the real causes of things lay in this, that at the time when they were worshipping the queen of heaven they had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: Then 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, |
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