Jeremiah 44:1-10 – Stay receptive and pliable to God.

In Jeremiah 44, we see the last recorded words of the Prophet Jeremiah before a short prophecy to Baruch in chapter 45. The rest of the books from chapters 46-51 contain the prophecies Jeremiah had previously proclaimed. Then Jeremiah 51:64 ended by saying “Thus far are the words of Jeremiah” indicating to us that whatever he had proclaimed ended here. The last chapter is an appendix that was added.  

In these last recorded words in Jeremiah 44, the prophet sent a warning to the people as they settled down in Egypt. The people had not changed and were behaving like their fathers before them. As soon as they were more settled, they went back to idolatry and false idols and indulged in them as their ancestors did. Verses 1-10 began by reminding them of what happened to Judah, Jerusalem, and their forefathers  and the reason for their destruction.

Their ancestors were punished and sent into exile in Babylon because they engaged in the worship of the gods of Egypt, which neither they nor this present group of Jews Jeremiah was addressing knew. Despite the repeated warning of God’s prophets sent to them yet their ancestors would not listen or change, resulting in their calamitous experiences. Yet this present group of Jews who had escaped to Egypt did not learn from the experiences of their forefathers. While God had promised to preserve a remnant from those whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken captivity in Babylon, with this group in Egypt he guaranteed that none would escape His judgment.  

What was puzzling was why the people could be so blind. In verses 7-10, God asked them two very indicting questions that showed that they had not learned from the experience of their ancestors. Firstly, God asked, “Why are you doing great harm to yourselves, so as to cut off from you man and woman, child and infant, from among Judah, leaving yourselves without remnant, provoking Me to anger with the works of your hands, burning sacrifices to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you are entering to reside so that you might be cut off and become a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? Secondly, “Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? They knew the reason for their forefathers’ catastrophic experiences, yet they could not see.

We see here that some people just never learn. History tells us that man has not learned much from history. It is true that none could be so blind as one who refuses to see. The issue confronts us as we read a passage like this: Are we learning? It is foolish not to listen to God. His call to us today remains the same: Today, if you hear the voice of God, do not harden your heart.