Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 44:7

Therefore now thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel; Wherefore commit ye [this] great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, to leave you none to remain;

7. against your own souls ] See on Jer 42:20, and cp. Jer 26:19.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Your souls – i. e., your own selves.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 7. This great evil against your souls] Will not self-interest weigh with you? See what ruin your conduct has brought upon your country. Your fathers sinned as you are doing; and where are they now? Either destroyed, or in captivity. And you are now taking the same way to your own destruction.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

What prudence can guide you to do such actions as these, by which you cannot hurt God, but yourselves only? You are now but a few of many; what love have you for your country, in taking courses which will certainly tend to the utter extirpation of those few, so as there shall be neither man, nor woman, nor child, nor suckling remaining of all the Jews?

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

7. nowafter so many warnings.

commit . . . this . . . evilagainst your souls (Jer 7:19;Num 16:38; Pro 8:36).It is not God whom you injure, but yourselves.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Therefore now thus saith the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel,…. The same epithets as before, Jer 44:2; with an addition, that his words might carry more weight with them:

wherefore commit ye [this] great evil against your souls; the sin of idolatry, which is a great evil; a sin against God; a giving the glory to another, that belongs to him and not only so, but is against the souls of men; pernicious and ruinous to them, which brings destruction, even eternal wrath and damnation, on them; and this is an interesting argument why it should not be committed; nay, it was not only against God, and against themselves, but against their families, and the interest of them:

to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, out of Judah, to leave you none to remain; not that they did this great evil or committed idolatry with this intention, to ruin their families and posterity; but so it was eventually; hereby they provoked the Lord to anger, to cut off the men that offered incense to idols; and the women their wives, whom they allowed so to do; and their children, who were brought up in the same practices; so that they would have none to succeed them, to bear their name, and inherit their land; unless God should be merciful, and not deal according to their deserts; for such was the nature of their crime, as to deserve an utter extirpation of them.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Vs. 7-14: THEY ARE COURTING DISASTER

1. Though they have seen what God did to Judah and Jerusalem, the Jews who have fled to Egypt, are inviting similar calamity upon themselves, (vs. 7; Eze 33:11).

2. In burning incense to gods which their own hands have made, they are so provoking the Lord to anger that He is about to destroy them – making them a curse and reproach among all nations, (vs. 8; 2Ki 17:15-17; Jer 7:8-11; Jer 11:12; Jer 11:17; Hos 4:12-14; 1Ki 9:7-8).

3.Seeing that they are fearlessly rejecting the law of their God, He inquires if they have totally forgotten the wickedness that brought Judah and Jerusalem to their bitter end, (vs. 9-10; Jer 6:16; Jer 8:12-13; Jer 26:46; 32:23).

4. Because these who have fled to Egypt will not be brought to repentance and contrition, God is determined to punish them in that land, (vs. 11-12; Jer 21:10; Jer 42:15-18; Lev 26:17; Isa 1:28); their punishment will be like that which fell upon Judah and Jerusalem -sword, famine and pestilence, (vs. 13).

5. Except for a very few fugitives, none of them will survive to return to their own land, (vs. 14; comp. vs. 27-28; Jer 22:10; Jer 22:26-27; Isa 10:20).

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

He then adds, Why then do ye now this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, from the midst of Judah, that nothing may remain for you? he re at length the passage is finished; for what we have hitherto read would have kept the reader in suspense, had not this been added. He then says, “Since the sin of your fathers ought to have been detested by you, and since God’s judgment had been dreadful, and that punishment ought at this day to fill, you with fear, how is it, that ye seek to bring on yourselves again the vengeance of God?” Why then, he says, now, etc. This now is emphatical, that is, after so many and so remarkable examples, after so many admonitions, after the most grievous punishment inflicted on the obstinate. He says, against your own souls; and by this he touched them very sharply, reminding them that what they were doing would be to their ruin, as though he had said, that God would receive no loss from their wickedness, but that they would become the authors of their own destruction, he indeed intimates, as I have already said, that their impiety would not be without its punishment; but he shews at the same time that God could, if he thought proper, look down with indifference on their impieties; for he would remain perfect even if they were the worst. For when God is robbed by men of his just and legitimate worship, there is nothing taken away from his greatness; for he ever remains the same, and is neither advanced nor diminished through the will of men. Then the Prophet shews that the Jews were acting madly for their own ruin, when he says, that they did evil against their own souls

And this he explains more fully by adding, To cut off man and woman, child and suckling, from the midst of Judah He intimates that God still manifested his mercy, while there was any remnant. They might have remained in Judea, even in their own inheritance; and the country might have been inhabited till the time of seventy years had elapsed, which God had fixed for the exile. Now the Prophet shews that they fought as it were against the goodness of God, for they sought to extinguish their own name, so that nothing should remain of that people, to whom God had still left some seed, that they might not wholly perish.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

7. Against your souls Lives. This is more fully set forth in the language to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling. Sin is simply an all-comprehending suicide!

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments