Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 44:20–end
Daring sinners may speak many a bold word and many a big word, but, after all, God will have the last word; for he will be justified when he speaks, and all flesh, even the proudest, shall be silent before him. Prophets may be run down, but God cannot; nay, here the prophet would not.
I. Jeremiah has something to say to them from himself, which he could say without a spirit of prophecy, and that was to rectify their mistake (a wilful mistake it was) concerning the calamities they had been under and the true intent and meaning of them. They said that these miseries came upon them because they had now left off burning incense to the queen of heaven. "No," says he, "it was because you had forme…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Jeremiah 44:23
law--the moral precepts.
statutes--the ceremonial.
testimonies--the judicial (Dan 9:11-12).
John Gill on Jeremiah 44:23
And because ye have burnt incense,.... Not to Jehovah, but to the queen of heaven; which they owned they did, and determined they would; asserting it was better with them when they did it than when they omitted it; for which reason the prophet particularly mentions it, and assigns it as the cause of the present ruin and destruction of their land, city, and temple:
and because ye have sinned against the Lord; by worshipping idols; all sin is against the Lord, but especially idolatry:
and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord; by his prophets, who cautioned them against idolatry, reproved them for it, and told them what would be the consequence of it; but this they hearkened not unto, which…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Jeremiah 44:20-23
Jeremiah 44:20-23
20. Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people which had given him that answer, saying,
20. Et dixit Jeremias ad totum populum, ad viros et mulieres, et ad totum populum, qui responderant ipsi sermonem, dicendo,
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?
21. An non suffitus quem vos suffiebatis (vel, adolebatis) in urbibus Jehudah et compitis Jerusalem, vos et patres vestri, reges vestri et duces vestri, et populus terre, eorum (hoc est,…
