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Jeremiah's First Warning
v. 1. The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, where they had settled in spite of the earnest remonstrances of Jeremiah, which dwell at Migdol, on the northeastern boundary of Egypt, and at Tahpanhes, in the delta of the Nile, and at Noph, or Memphis, the capital of Lower Egypt, and in the country of Pathros, that is, Upper Egypt,—for in the intervening years the Jews had selected different parts of Egypt for temporary homes, but Jeremiah was still the faithful messenger of God and here addressed them in a large assembly, possibly upon the occasion of some great festival,—saying,
v. 2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Ye have seen all the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah, most of the Jews addressed having been witnesses of the terrible catastrophe which brought destruction to the southern kingdom; and, behold, this day they are a desolation, and no man dwelleth therein, the entire land, formerly so rich, fruitful, and populous, had become an uninhabited desert,
v. 3. because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke Me to anger, in that they went, leaving the path of right and duty set before them by the Word of God, to burn incense and to serve other gods, by such act of worship, whom they knew not, neither they, ye, nor your fathers. That was the first cause of the calamity which came upon Jerusalem.
v. 4. Howbeit, I sent unto you all My servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them, full of merciful eagerness to prevent the threatened catastrophe, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate, which filled Him with loathing.
v. 5. But they hearkened not nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, they paid not the slightest attention to Jehovah's admonitions and warnings, to burn no incense unto other gods.
v. 6. Wherefore My fury and Mine anger was poured forth, like an overturned vessel spilling all its contents at once, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, for the fire of destruction was a manifestation of the divine anger; and they are wasted and desolate, as at this day, their ruin being entirely the fault of the stubbornness of the rebellious Jews, and the consequences were still evident.
v. 7. Therefore, now, thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, Wherefore commit ye this great evil against your souls, to the destruction of their own lives, for they were not injuring the Lord, but merely themselves, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, in a judgment of complete extermination, to leave you none to remain,
v. 8. in that ye provoke Me unto wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense unto other gods in the land of Egypt, whither ye be gone to dwell, having profited nothing by the example of Jerusalem's destruction, that ye might cut yourselves off, and that ye might be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?
v. 9. Have ye forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, their manifold evil doings, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they have committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The queens of Judah, together with the women throughout the country, had been the chief promoters of idolatry; for just as women may be the chief upholders of virtue, they may also be the chief agents for the spreading of wickedness.
v. 10. They are not humbled, even unto this day, they had not yet learned to turn to the Lord with contrite hearts, neither have they feared, nor walked in, My Law nor in My statutes that I set before you and before your fathers. They had deliberately ignored the norm and rule which the Lord had given them to follow, and the Lord speaks of them partly in the third person to give expression to the supreme disgust which filled His heart at their behavior.
v. 11. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will set My face against you for evil and to cut off all Judah, namely, those who had gone to Egypt against His will. The Lord was absolutely determined to carry out His plans in this instance, to exterminate the rebels who had been so flagrantly disobedient to His will.
v. 12. And I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed and fall in the land of Egypt, in a total destruction; they shall even be consumed by the sword and by the famine, they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine, and they shall be an execration, an object of cursing, and an astonishment, an object of surprise, and a curse, and a reproach.
v. 13. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence,
v. 14. so that none of the remnant of Judah which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall escape or remain that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there, they were literally, "lifting up their souls with eagerness" and hoped to make Judea their home once more; for none shall return but such as shall escape. Since the Lord was speaking in general terms. He pictured the destruction as so universal that practically no one would escape, and the heaping of similar expressions heightens the impression of grim determination on His part. He is a jealous God, who visits the iniquity of sinners upon them with all the sternness which His justice demands.