1The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Judahites dwelling in the land of Egypt, dwelling in Migdol and in Tahpanes and in Noph and in the region of Pathros, saying, 2“Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: You have seen all the evil that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the towns of Judah, and look, they are a ruin to this day and none dwells in them 3because of their evil that they did to Me, to go to burn incense to serve other gods which neither you nor your fathers knew. 4And I sent to you all My servants the prophets, continually sent, saying, ‘Pray, do not do this abhorrent thing that I hate.’ 5But they did not heed and did not bend their ear to turn back from their evil, not to burn incense to other gods. 6And My wrath and My anger poured out and burned through the towns of Judah and through the streets of Jerusalem, and they became a ruin and a desolation as on this day. 7And now, thus said the LORD God of Armies, God of Israel: Why are you doing this great evil to yourselves to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, from the midst of Judah, so as not to leave for yourselves a remnant, 8to vex Me with the work of your hands, to burn incense to other gods in the land of Egypt where you came to sojourn, so as to cut off for yourselves and so that you become a curse and a disgrace among all the nations of the earth? 9Have you forgotten the evils of your fathers and the evils of the kings of Judah and the evils of their wives and your own evils and the evils of your own wives that they did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.? 10They have not been contrite to this day and they have not feared, and they have not walked by My teaching and by My statutes that I set before them and before their fathers. 11Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: I am about to set My face against you for evil to cut off all of Judah. 12And I will take the remnant of Judah who set their face to go to the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and all shall come to an end in the land of Egypt. They shall fall by the sword and come to an end by famine. From the least to the greatest, by sword and by famine they shall die, and they shall become an imprecation and a desolation and a curse and a disgrace. 13And I will reckon with those dwelling in the land of Egypt, as I reckoned with Jerusalem, by the sword and by famine and by pestilence. 14And there shall be no fugitive and no survivor for the remnant of Judah coming to sojourn there in the land of Egypt to go back to the land of Judah to which they long to go back to dwell there, for they shall not go back except as fugitives.” 15And all the men knowing that their wives were burning incense to other gods and all the women standing, a great assembly, and all the people dwelling in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, 16“The word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD—we will not heed you. 17For we will surely do every word that comes out of our mouth, to burn incense to the Queen of the Heavens and to pour out libations to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our nobles, in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and we ate our fill of bread, and we were good, and evil we did not see. 18And ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of the Heavens and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything, and by the sword and by famine we have come to an end. 19And when we burn incense to the Queen of the Heavens and pour out libations to her, is it without our husbands that we have made cakes for her, framing her image and pouring out libations to her?” 20And Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the men and all the women and all the people who answered in speech, saying, 21“Why, the incense that you have burned in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your nobles and the people of the land, that is what the LORD recalls and brings to mind. 22And the LORD shall no longer bear it because of the evil of your acts, because of the abominations that you have done, and your land has become a ruin and a desolation and a curse with no dweller as on this day 23because you have burned incense and have offended the LORD and have not heeded the voice of the LORD, and by His teaching and His statutes and His precepts you have not gone. Therefore has this evil befallen you as on this day.” 24And Jeremiah said to all the people and to all the women: “Listen to the word of the LORD, all Judah that is in the land of Egypt. 25Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, saying, you and your women, who have spoken with your mouths and with your hands you have fulfilled it, saying, ‘We will surely carry out our vows to burn incense to the Queen of the Heavens and to pour out libations to her.’ Then indeed fulfill your vows, you women, and carry out your vows. 26Therefore listen to the word of the LORD, all Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt. Look, I vow by My great name, said the LORD, that My name shall no longer be called by the mouth of any man of Judah, saying, ‘As the LORD lives,’ in all the land of Egypt. 27Look, I am vigilant over them for evil and not for good, and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall come to an end by the sword and by famine until they are no more. 28And the fugitives of the sword shall come back from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah as a handful of men. And all the remnant of Judah who have come to the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall know whose word shall be fulfilled, Mine or theirs. 29And this is the sign for you, said the LORD, that I am reckoning with you in this place, so you may know that My word concerning you shall surely be fulfilled for evil. 30Thus said the LORD: I am about to give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, his enemy and the one who sought his life.”
CHAPTER 44 NOTES
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1. concerning all the Judahites dwelling in the land of Egypt. There was an expatriate Judahite population in Egypt before 586 B.C.E., and this wording here—with “all the Judahites” and “dwelling,” the term for permanent settlement—suggests that Jeremiah is addressing all these people, not just the group with whom the prophet had been brought down.
Noph. This is the Egyptian city generally called Memphis.
3. to burn incense. The ritual act of burning incense, though part of most cults, is particularly associated with the worship of the Assyrian goddess Ishtar (known in Greek as Astarte), which was widespread among the Israelites in the last two centuries before the destruction. This identification will be made clear later in the prophecy, where Ishtar is named by her epithet “Queen of the Heavens.”
6. burned through the towns of Judah and through the streets of Jerusalem. The Hebrew word for “wrath” suggests heat, and so the transformation into burning, which is actually what the invaders have done, is direct.
9. the evils of the kings of Judah. As is clear in the Book of Kings, several Judahite monarchs encouraged pagan practices, even introducing them into the temple precincts.
the evils of their wives. Again by the account of the Book of Kings, the wives, some of them foreigners, were sometimes especially active in pagan worship, and the cult of Ishtar had a strong attraction for women.
10. contrite. The basic meaning of the Hebrew term is “crushed,” but a convincing exegetical tradition going back at least to Rashi links it with contrition, or a crushed spirit.
11. set My face. The idiom here indicates measure-for-measure justice to be meted out to the people who “set their face to go to the land of Egypt” (verse 12).
14. except as fugitives. This of course contradicts the statement at the beginning of the verse that “there shall be no fugitive and no survivor.” Either an editor or perhaps Jeremiah himself seeks to qualify the total grimness of the prophecy of destruction.
16. we will not heed you. The people’s response is unrepentant defiance.
17. we ate our fill of bread, and we were good, and evil we did not see. The people present an empirical theological justification for their worship of Ishtar: over the many decades that they observed her cult, they were never in want. After the religious reforms of Josiah, beginning in 622 B.C.E., the cult was suppressed, and then disaster after disaster came upon them, culminating in the destruction of the kingdom.
19. And when we burn incense to the Queen of the Heavens . . . is it without our husbands. Although the verb is masculine, the content of the clause indicates that the women are speaking, and a certain freedom in grammatical gender is sometimes observable in biblical Hebrew. The women are saying that they always had the support and perhaps participation of their husbands when they worshipped Ishtar.
made cakes for her. This was a prominent part of the cult. Archaeologists in fact have found numerous clay molds with the image of a naked female, presumably, Ishtar. The verb rendered as “framing her image” appears to refer to this practice, and Rashi, long before the advent of archaeology, understood it precisely in this way. The people appear to report the specific details of the cult of the Queen of the Heavens with relish.
21. Why, the incense that you have burned . . . that is what the LORD recalls. Jeremiah flings their own words back in their face: you take such pleasure in recalling how you have burned incense to Ishtar, but it is precisely this that God will bring to mind to punish you.
24. and to all the women. They are singled out for mention because of their special attachment to the cult of the Queen of the Heavens.
25. fulfill your vows, you women. Although the beginning of the verse refers to “you and your women,” the verbs used sarcastically here are conjugated in the feminine, and so “you women” has been added in the translation to make it clear that Jeremiah is addressing the women.
26. My name shall no longer be called by the mouth of any man of Judah. In all likelihood, the cult of Ishtar among the Judahites was not an exclusive practice but part of syncretistic worship, so that people might well still invoke the name of YHWH in their vows even as they burned incense to the Queen of the Heavens. God now announces that He will put an end to this hypocrisy—presumably, by destroying all the paganizers, as the verse goes on to say.
28. And the fugitives of the sword shall come back from the land of Egypt. This is the same contradiction of the prophecy of total destruction that is noted above in verse 14.
29. And this is the sign for you. If the Pharaoh who is the protector of the refugees from Judah is killed, their dream of a safe haven in Egypt will be shattered.
30. I am about to give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies. Even though the enemies are not specified, the prime candidate would be Babylonia. Some classical sources say that Hophra (Apries) came to a violent end, but not at the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, who did not invade Egypt until 568 B.C.E., two years after Hophra’s death.