Commentary - Jeremiah 44:20-23

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, Jeremiah delivers God's final, devastating rebuttal to the defiant remnant in Egypt. They had just declared their firm intention to continue in their idolatry, brazenly arguing that it used to work for them (Jer. 44:17). Jeremiah's response is a direct and unsparing lesson in covenantal cause and effect. He reminds them that the very desolation they now inhabit is the direct result of the very practices they are vowing to continue. God did not forget their generations of idolatry; His patience simply ran out. The evil that has befallen them is not a random tragedy but a direct, predictable, and fully earned consequence of their rebellion against His law.

Outline

Context In Jeremiah

This section is the climax of Jeremiah's ministry to the remnant that fled to Egypt after the assassination of Gedaliah. Against God's explicit command, they dragged Jeremiah and Baruch with them into a land synonymous with bondage and idolatry. Here, in the land of Tahpanhes, the people have not repented but have instead doubled down on their apostasy, particularly the worship of the "queen of heaven." Jeremiah's sermon in verses 20-23 is not a plea for them to return; it is a judicial sentence. It is God's explanation for why judgment has fallen and a declaration that, because of their unrepentant defiance, more is on the way.

Key Issues

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 20 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and women, even to all the people who were answering him with such a word, saying,

Jeremiah is not intimidated. He has just been met with a wall of unified, corporate rebellion. It wasn't just a few malcontents; it was "all the people," explicitly including both men and women. They had given him their answer, which was a flat "no" to the word of the Lord. So Jeremiah, the faithful prophet, stands up to address them all once more. This is not a negotiation. This is the prosecutor's closing argument before the sentence is passed. He is making sure that every last person understands exactly why their world has fallen apart.

v. 21 “As for the smoking sacrifices that you offered in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not Yahweh remember them and did not all this come upon His heart?

Jeremiah begins by calling their sin to the stand. He is specific: the "smoking sacrifices." This refers to their burning of incense to false gods, the very acts of worship they were so proud of. This was not a recent fad. It was a deeply ingrained, generational sin. Notice the roll call: "you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land." This was a top-to-bottom societal corruption. No one was innocent. The leadership led the way into apostasy, and the people gladly followed. Then Jeremiah asks two rhetorical questions that are heavy with divine fury. First, "did not Yahweh remember them?" The answer is a terrifying yes. God is not forgetful. Every idolatrous act was recorded. Sin accrues. It fills up a cup of wrath. Second, "did not all this come upon His heart?" God is not a stoic, impassive deity. Their constant spiritual adultery grieved Him, provoked Him, and angered Him. Their worship of false gods was a personal affront to the God who had married them at Sinai.

v. 22 So Yahweh was no longer able to bear it, because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations which you have done; thus your land has become a waste place, an object of horror, and an imprecation, without an inhabitant, as it is this day.

Here is the consequence. God's patience has a limit. The phrase "no longer able to bear it" is an anthropomorphism to help us understand that a line was crossed. The covenant had terms, and those terms included curses for high-handed, persistent disobedience. God makes it plain why He acted: "because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations which you have done." Their actions were not just mistakes; they were morally evil and religiously abominable. The result is a textbook description of the curses found in Deuteronomy 28. Their land, the promised land, had vomited them out. It was now a "waste place," an "object of horror," a byword for curses ("an imprecation"), and desolate. And Jeremiah drives the point home with the hammer blow: "as it is this day." He is telling them to simply open their eyes. Their current miserable reality was not bad luck; it was the bill for their sin coming due.

v. 23 Because you have burned incense and have sinned against Yahweh and not listened to the voice of Yahweh or walked in His law, His statutes, or His testimonies, therefore this evil has befallen you, as it has this day.”

This verse is the summary, the inescapable logic of their situation. Jeremiah lays it out with the clarity of a mathematical proof. "Because you did X, therefore Y has happened." The cause is twofold. There were sins of commission: "you have burned incense and have sinned against Yahweh." And there were sins of omission: you have "not listened to the voice of Yahweh or walked in His law, His statutes, or His testimonies." They rejected God's revealed will in its entirety. They would not listen to His prophetic voice, and they would not walk in His written Word. The conclusion is therefore unavoidable: "therefore this evil has befallen you." And once more, for emphasis, he points to their present circumstances: "as it has this day." You cannot argue with the smoking ruins of your capital city. The evidence of their guilt was all around them.

Application

The principle of covenantal cause and effect is as true today as it was in Jeremiah's time. God is not mocked; whatsoever a man, a church, or a nation sows, that will it also reap. The Jews in Egypt were engaged in a particularly foolish form of pragmatism. They remembered a time when their idolatry seemed to coincide with prosperity, and so they concluded that the idolatry was the cause of the prosperity. This is the logic of superstition, not faith.

We must be vigilant against this in our own lives and churches. Whenever we begin to measure our worship by what "works" for us, by the feelings it produces, or by the crowds it draws, we are on dangerous ground. True worship is defined by God in His Word, not by our perceived results. We are to walk in His law, His statutes, and His testimonies, whether it feels prosperous or not.

Furthermore, this passage is a stark reminder that sin is corporate and generational. We inherit tendencies, and we participate in the sins of our culture. God's patience with a rebellious nation is not infinite. We should look at the moral and spiritual desolation in our own land and ask the same question Jeremiah did: Is this not because we, and our fathers, have offered up smoking sacrifices to the idols of secularism, materialism, and sexual revolution? The only escape from the curses we have earned is to flee to the one who became a curse for us, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only one whose sacrifice is a pleasing aroma to God, and only in Him can our abominations be forgiven and our land healed.