Monday, May 6, 2024

Jeremiah 44: Who is the god to fear: the Queen of Heavens or the Lord?

 In Chapter 44, Jeremiah is in Egypt with the remaining Jews. They seem to fear the Lord but also other gods, but for the Lord wants to be the only one God to his people:

2 This is what Yahweh Tsebaoth, the Elohim of Israel, says: You have seen all the disasters I brought on Jerusalem and on all the cities of Judah. Today they are deserted ruins. 3 It is because their people did evil, and they made me angry. They went to burn incense and serve other gods that neither you nor your ancestors heard of. 4 I have sent my servants the prophets to you again and again to tell you not to do these detestable things that I hate. 5 But you wouldn’t listen or pay attention. You wouldn’t turn from your wicked ways and wouldn’t stop burning incense as an offering to other gods. 6 That is why my fury and anger were poured out and continued to burn in the cities of Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem. So they became the desolate ruin that they are today.
7 Now, this is what Yahweh Elohim Tsebaoth, the Elohim of Israel, says: Why do you bring this terrible disaster on yourselves? Why do you keep destroying men, women, children, and babies from Judah until none are left? 8 Why do you make me angry by burning incense to other gods in Egypt, where you have come to live. You will destroy yourselves and be cursed and ridiculed by all the nations on earth. 9 Have you forgotten the wicked things done by your ancestors, by the kings of Judah and their wives, and by you and your wives in Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem? 10 You have not humbled yourselves even to this day. You haven’t feared me or lived your lives by my teachings or by my decrees that I gave your ancestors.

Despite this message, they resoned the opposite:

15 Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, all the women who were standing there, and all the people who lived at Pathros in Egypt answered Jeremiah. They said, 16 “We won’t listen to the message that you have spoken to us in Yahweh’s name. 17 We will do everything we said we would do. We will burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out wine offerings to her as our ancestors, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem. We had plenty to eat then, and we lived comfortably and saw no disaster. 18 But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out wine offerings to her, we have had nothing but wars and famines.”
19 The women added, “When we burned incense to the queen of heaven, poured out wine offerings to her, and made cakes for her with her image on them, do you think our husbands didn’t approve?”

They said that they should be more careful with the queen of heaven and less careful with the Lord, because, in their mind, the queen of heaven was angry with them. Jeremiah replies that it is the Lord who is charge of everything, and he gives a sign:

30 This is what Yahweh says: I’m going to hand Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt, over to his enemies and to those who want to kill him, just as I handed over King Zedekiah of Judah to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to those who wanted to kill him.’”

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