What is the meaning of Jeremiah 44:3? Because of the evil they have done “Because of the evil they have done” (Jeremiah 44:3) signals the direct cause of God’s coming judgment on the remnant in Egypt. Scripture consistently ties calamity to persistent sin: • 2 Kings 21:11–15 records how Judah’s earlier descent into evil under Manasseh set the stage for exile. • Jeremiah 7:9–15 shows the same pattern—when people “steal, murder, commit adultery,” judgment follows. • Deuteronomy 28:15–68 lays out covenant curses for evil choices. God’s dealings are never arbitrary; He responds to real moral rebellion. They provoked Me to anger The phrase highlights God’s personal reaction: “They provoked Me to anger.” His wrath is holy, not impulsive. • Exodus 34:14 warns, “For you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” • Deuteronomy 4:24 reminds, “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire.” • Psalm 78:56–59 recounts Israel provoking God and losing His favor. Rejecting His revealed will inevitably stirs righteous anger, because idolatry is spiritual adultery against a covenant-keeping God. By continuing to burn incense and to serve other gods The people’s sin is specific and ongoing: “by continuing to burn incense and to serve other gods.” • Jeremiah 7:18 exposes families baking cakes for the “queen of heaven.” • Jeremiah 11:12–13 counts the altars of incense as numerous as Judah’s towns. • 2 Chronicles 33:3–5 shows Manasseh doing the same on Judah’s hills. Incense, meant in Exodus 30:7–9 exclusively for the LORD, had become an act of treachery. The word “continuing” underscores habitual, unrepentant practice—sin they refused to forsake. That neither they nor you nor your fathers ever knew These “other gods” were unknown to the patriarchs and to Yahweh’s revelation: foreign, invented, powerless. • Deuteronomy 32:16–17 says they sacrificed “to gods they had not known.” • Jeremiah 19:4 calls such deities “foreign gods, whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah had known.” • Galatians 4:8—“When you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.” The phrase underscores the absurdity: Israel abandoned the God who saved them for figments of imagination, severing themselves from covenant history and identity. Summary Jeremiah 44:3 exposes a chain: persistent evil → provocation of God’s holy anger → ongoing idolatrous worship → total abandonment of the God their ancestors knew. The verse is a sober reminder that God responds personally to sin, that idolatry invites His judgment, and that true safety lies in unwavering loyalty to the LORD alone. |
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