Jeremiah 44:19

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁵Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, all the women standing by-a great assembly-along with all the people who were living in the land of Egypt at Pathros, answered Jeremiah, ¹⁶"As for the word you spoke to us in the name of the LORD, we will not listen to you! ¹⁷Instead, we will do everything we said: We will burn incense to the queen of heaven and offer drink offerings to her, just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and good things, and we saw no disaster. ¹⁸But from the time we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been perishing by sword and famine." ¹⁹"Moreover," said the women, "when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands' knowledge that we made sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?"

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

we burned: Jeremiah 44:15, Jeremiah 7:18

without: Genesis 3:6, Genesis 3:11, Genesis 3:12, Genesis 3:16, Genesis 3:17, Deuteronomy 7:3, Deuteronomy 7:4, 1 Kings 21:25, 2 Chronicles 21:6, Proverbs 11:21, Mark 6:19-27

men: or, husbands

Reciprocal: Leviticus 10:1 - put incense

Cross-References

Genesis 43:7
They replied, "The man questioned us in detail about ourselves and our family: 'Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?' And we answered him accordingly. How could we possibly know that he would say, 'Bring your brother here'?"

Genesis 43:29
When Joseph looked up and saw his brother Benjamin, his own mother's son, he asked, "Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about?" Then he declared, "May God be gracious to you, my son."

Genesis 44:7
"Why does my lord say these things?" they asked. "Your servants could not possibly do such a thing.

Genesis 44:10
"As you say," replied the steward. "But only the one who is found with the cup will be my slave, and the rest of you shall be free of blame."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And when we burnt incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her,.... Which they owned they did, and which they were not ashamed of, and were determined to go on with; and were only sorry that they had at any time omitted such service:

did we make cakes to worship her; or, "to make her glad" g, as Kimchi; interpreting the word by an antiphrasis; it having a contrary signification, to grieve or to make sorrowful; and from hence idols have their name sometimes, because in the issue they bring grief and trouble to their worshippers; hence some render it, "to make her an idol" h; or them, the cakes, an idol; these had, as Jarchi says, the likeness of the idol impressed upon them:

and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men? they own they did these things but not without the knowledge and consent at least, if not with the presence, of their husbands; hence these words seem to be the words of the women. Some indeed think they speak all along, from

Jeremiah 44:16; or one in the name of the rest; it may be one of Zedekiah's daughters; but however, if the men spoke what is said in the preceding verses, the women, being provoked, could hold their peace no longer, but broke in, and uttered these words; though some render the last clause, "without our principal men" i; and so take them to be the words of the people in general; who urge, in their own defence, that what they did they did with the direction, approbation, and leading example of their kings and governors.

g להעצבה "ad exhilarandum illud", Calvin; "ad laetificaudum eam", Munster, Pagninus. h "Idolificando", Piscator; so Ben Melech; "ut faciamus illas idolum", Cocceius. i המבלעדי אנשינו "absque praestantibus viris nostris", Junius & Tremellius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Burned ... poured ... did - Or, burn ... pour ... do.

To worship her - Rather, to represent her image. The cakes Jeremiah 7:18 were made in the shape of a crescent to represent the moon.

Our men - i. e., our husbands (margin). They had the authority of their husbands for what they were doing. Jeremiah must leave them alone, and discuss the matter with those who alone had the right to interfere.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 44:19. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven — The MOON seems to have been called מלכת melecheth, as the SUN was called מלך molech. The Hindoos pour out water to the sun thrice a day; and to the moon whenever they worship her.

The idolatrous worship of these people was a sort of imitation of the worship of the true God; only sacrifice was not common in it. The factious women here tell us in what it consisted.

1. They burnt incense to the moon, and perhaps to the sun and the planets.

2. They poured out libations to her.

3. They made and consecrated cakes to her.

All these were prescribed in the worship of the true GOD. See, among others, Exodus 29:23, c. Leviticus 2:4; Leviticus 23:16; and Numbers 6:15. And the women vindicate their conduct by asserting that they did all this by the consent of their husbands: "Did we worship her without our men?"