(15) All the men which knew that their wives had burned incense.--The fact thus mentioned incidentally shows that the prophet's words in Jeremiah 44:9 had not missed their mark. As of old--as, we may add, in the Rome of the Empire (Juvenal, Sat. vi. 526?534)--the women practised a cultus in which their husbands acquiesced, even though they did not join in it.
Verses 15-19. - The reply of the people. The special mention of the women suggests that the occasion of the gathering was a festival in honour of the Queen of Heaven. Verse 15. - Had burned incense; rather, were burning incense. The practice was still going on.
44:15-19 These daring sinners do not attempt excuses, but declare they will do that which is forbidden. Those who disobey God, commonly grow worse and worse, and the heart is more hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Here is the real language of the rebellious heart. Even the afflictions which should have parted them from their sins, were taken so as to confirm them in their sins. It is sad when those who should quicken each other to what is good, and so help one another to heaven, harden each other in sin, and so ripen one another for hell. To mingle idolatry with Divine worship, and to reject the mediation of Christ, are provoking to God, and ruinous to men. All who worship images, or honour saints, and angels, and the queen of heaven, should recollect what came from the idolatrous practices of the Jews.
Then all the men which knew that their wires had burnt incense unto other gods,.... Which was a rite God appointed to be used in his worship; and is here put for the whole of religious worship, which was given to idols by the Jewish women; this their husbands knew of, and winked at, and did not restrain them from it, as they should; they seem to be themselves irreligious persons, a sort of atheists, who had no regard for the true God, nor any other gods, and cared not who were worshipped:
and all the women that stood by; the wives of the men that stood by their husbands, and other women that stood and heard Jeremiah's sermon, and were conscious to themselves of being guilty of what they were charged with by him:
a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt,
in Pathros; in that part of Egypt so called, which was Thebais: here it seems Jeremiah was with that part of the people that took up their residence there; and by this it appears there was a large number of them, men and women, and who were all become idolaters, or connivers at, and encouragers of, such as were: these
answered Jeremiah, saying, one in the name of the rest made a reply, as follows:
and all the women that stood by; the wives of the men that stood by their husbands, and other women that stood and heard Jeremiah's sermon, and were conscious to themselves of being guilty of what they were charged with by him:
a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt,
in Pathros; in that part of Egypt so called, which was Thebais: here it seems Jeremiah was with that part of the people that took up their residence there; and by this it appears there was a large number of them, men and women, and who were all become idolaters, or connivers at, and encouragers of, such as were: these
answered Jeremiah, saying, one in the name of the rest made a reply, as follows: