Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 44:4
Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending [them], saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.
4. Cp. Jer 7:25 and elsewhere. We should perhaps read for “you” them, although “you” implies in a significant way the continuous personality of the nation.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Howbeit I sent – And I sent.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 44:4
Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.
The thing which God hates
I. What sin itself is.
II. God hates it.
1. Because it is contrary to His own nature.
2. Because it is unnatural in His creatures.
3. Because it transgresses holy, just, and good laws.
4. Because it defiles and injures the entire human nature. It brings a withering curse upon every stage of life, and upon every development of life, and upon every phase of life, and upon every department of life.
5. Because it makes men curses to each other.
6. Because it ignores or it rejects the Divine government.
7. Because wherever sin exists, except as it is checked by Gods mercy, it has the dominion.
8. Because wherever it is introduced, it spreads.
9. Sin requires God to inflict upon men of every class and kind, that which He assures us, upon His oath, He has no pleasure in.
10. Their continuing in sin tramples under foot the blood of Jesus. (S. Martin.)
The popular estimate of sin
I. What is sin? Theology is determined by the answer. Sin is only negation as cold is the negation of heat; darkness, of light; disease, of health. So we are told. Well, I know that I shiver to-night under the negation of heat. I grope under the negation of light, and feel a very positive thorn in the flesh. Away with this juggling of words! Sin is a fact and must be dealt with.
II. What do you mean by the new life? If Sin be easy to control, no helplessness is felt, no great change of being is accepted, no outside help is needed. If you fancy that one bad deed is cancelled by another good one, and that you are all right at heart, although often wrong in action, you will not seek salvation.
III. What disclosure does Scripture make? An abominable thing. What does sin propose to do? It defies God and would usurp His throne were it possible. The smallest infringement of the principle of honesty in social life breaks up the confidence of man in man and introduces destructive tendencies. The greater the transgression, the more destructive are the results.
IV. What about the remedy of sin? We know not all the counsels of God, but we know enough of the covenant He made with His Son Jesus Christ to say that by His vicarious atonement we are freed from the penalty of sin, and by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Ghost we are made pure–the past and future are covered by His meritorious work. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Gods expostulation with sinners
I. The description of sin here given by God.
1. We call those objects abominable which excite in us the sensations of loathing and abhorrence. That such is the nature of sin, even in its most agreeable forms, may be learned from the various figures under which it is represented in the Word of God. Whatever is revolting in corruption, loathsome in uncleanness, or hideous in deformity, is there brought forward, in order to give us some idea of its abominable nature.
2. It must be considered not only as loathsome to God, but as exciting in Him the desire of its destruction, and an inclination to execute vengeance upon all to whom it is an object of delight. From an abominable object we naturally turn away; but what we hate we seek to destroy.
(1) Sin is hateful to God, as it is the very reverse of His nature.
(2) Sin is hateful to God, as it is a transgression of His law.
(3) Sin is hateful to God, as it opposes His designs.
(4) Sin is hateful to God, as it is an expression of enmity in the heart against His very being.
II. The manner in which God beseeches us to abstain from sin.
1. We are naturally prone to wickedness.
2. God hath designs of mercy towards our guilty race.
3. The salvation of sinners is accomplished in a way perfectly consistent with their freedom as moral agents.
4. God is deeply concerned for the salvation of sinners.
III. Some considerations that ought to induce us to hearken to the voice of God, and do what He requires.
1. It is God why, expostulates with you,. and beseeches you to abstain from sin.
2. The extreme folly of sin is another consideration, that may induce you to abstain from it.
3. The fatal consequences of continuing in sin, especially after we haven been called to repentance, is a consideration that ought to induce you to hear, and do what the Lord requires. (G. Campbell.)
Argument against sinning
I. God denounces sin with abhorrence. He calls it an abominable thing. Sin is represented in the Bible as a loathsome, odious, revolting, execrable thing. All kinds of sin are an abomination. Lying lips (Pro 12:22). Pride (Pro 16:5). Wicked thoughts (Pro 15:26). Wickedness in all its forms (Pro 15:9). Sin is essentially an abomination. Three things show this:–
1. The misrepresenting conduct of the sinner. Sin has a self-hiding, self-dissimulating instinct.
2. The universal conscience of mankind. Injustice, falsehood, self-seeking impiety, with all their kindred sins, the conscience of the world abhors.
3. The history of the Divine conduct towards our world.
(1) Look at the judicial inflictions recorded in the Bible: expulsion from Eden, the deluge, the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of Jerusalem, &c.
(2) Merciful interpositions. How has mercy wrought, through all past ages, to sweep abominations from the world! through patriarchs, prophets, apostles, holy ministers, and Christ Himself. He came to put away sin:
II. God hates sin with intensity. He says, I hate it. The Infinite heart revolts from it with ineffable detestation.
1. He hates it, for it is deformity, and He is the God of beauty. How offensive to the artist of high aesthetic taste and culture, are figures introduced into the realm of art, unscientific in their proportions, and unrefined in their touch!
2. He hates it, for it is confusion, and He is the God of order. Order, says the poet, is Heavens first law.
3. He hates it, for it is misery, and He is the Cod of love. Every sin has in it the sting of the serpent, which, if not extracted, will rankle with fiery anguish in the soul for ever. God hates this evil, for He desires the happiness of His creatures.
III. God prohibits sin with earnestness. Oh, do not this abominable thing. What depths of fervid loving solicitude are in this Oh!
1. Do it not; you are warring against your own highest interest.
2. Do it not; you are warring against the well-being of the creation.
3. Do it not; you are warring against Me. Every sin is a war against My ideas, My feelings, My plans, My institutions. (Homilist.)
Lifes lameness: the character of sin
The church bells were ringing out a merry peal of welcome as a bride and bridegroom left the church after the marriage service. The bride was given some flowers as she passed to her carriage, and a small drop of water fell from a flower on to the brides light dress. Soon after, a slight stain was noticed there, and the remark was made: A spot of sin as small as this would shut either of us out of heaven. That remark was perfectly true. A little speck of dust on the lens of a telescope will mar its powers of vision. A tiny hair in the mainspring of a watch will suffice to stop the machinery, So one little sin, secretly cherished and wilfully indulged, will choke up our soul s communion with God and destroy our spiritual comfort. What, then, is sin? Sin is rebellion against God. Self-love is the secret of sin. The hidden principle of all sin is rejection of the will of God. None of Gods commands are grievous, and therefore the question of our obedience is made to turn precisely on the will of God. God alone is independent. He has made us for Himself; and the more we seek to bring our wills into subjection to His, and our lives into complete dependence upon Him, the happier and the holier shall we become. As a train was speeding along the railroad in the north of England the other day, a spark from the engine set fire to a shrub in a plantation near the line, and then the fire spread to a forest, where it raged for two days, doing immense damage. Who would have thought that such a result would arise, from a little spark? Yet so it is in the world of life–great results spring from the most trivial causes. Our hearts are, like those dry trees, ready to burst into a blaze when touched by the spark of sin. Therefore we must beware of sin. When Canova, the great Italian sculptor, was about to commence his famous statue of the great Napoleon, his keenly observant eye detected a tiny red line running through the upper portion of the splendid block of marble which had been brought from Paros at enormous cost. Others saw no flaw, but the great sculptor detected it, and he refused to lay chisel upon it. The very perfection he aimed at compelled him to reject the marble block. Now if there is a flaw in your life, others may not see it, but God most assuredly will. And that there is such a flaw God declares. His Word asserts, All have sinned (Rom 3:23). There is none that doeth good, no, not one (Psa 14:3). During a naval engagement off Copenhagen, Admiral Parker signalled the ships to cease action. Nelson did not wish to retire his ship. When informed of the Admirals signal, he looked through the telescope with his blind eye, and exclaimed, I see no such signal He persistently deceived himself in order that he might continue the fight. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1Jn 1:8). But we deceive no one else. It is no excuse for a man to say he does not steal, does not lie, does not swear, does not covet. Neglect of known duty is sin. Man has a duty to God (Mat 22:37). Not to love God is sin. And the Bible not only charges man with not loving God, but it speaks of man as being in a state of enmity against God (Rom 8:7). Therefore he cannot restore himself. It is a stormy night by the sea-shore. The wind is howling and moaning, and ever and anon with boisterous gusts threatening violence to the shipping in the harbour. The sea is lashed into a seething foam. On the beach are scattered groups of people–men hurrying to and fro with excited determination, and women wringing their hands in mute agony and mingled prayer. You look out to sea. In the darkness of the night you can see nothing, but you can tell by the whirr and rush of the rocket apparatus, by the cries of the life boatmen, that a vessel is in danger. You know there is a ship in distress by these signs, though you may not know the extent or reality of her danger. So, when I see the Lord Jesus Christ leaving His throne in glory, living a life of anguish, and dying a cruel death, I learn that sin is a terrible reality. Oh, what a hideous, fiendish monster is sin, when it turns its cursed enmity against the blessed Son of God, and imbrues its cruel hands in His precious blood! The Emperor Arcadius and his wife Eudoxia had a very bitter feeling towards St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople. One day, in a fit of anger, the Emperor said to some of his courtiers, I would I were avenged of this bishop! Several then proposed how this should be done. Banish him and exile him to the desert, said one. Put him in prison, said another. Confiscate his property, said a third. Let him die, said a fourth. Another courtier, whose vices Chrysostom had reproved, said maliciously, You all make a great mistake. You will never punish him by such proposals. If banished the kingdom, he will feel God as near to him in the desert as here. If you put him in prison and load him with chains, he will still pray for the poor and praise God in the prison. If you confiscate his property, you merely take away his goods from the poor, not from him. If you condemn him to death, you open heaven to him. Prince, do you wish to be revenged on him? Force him to commit sin. I know him; this man fears nothing in the world but sin. Is there no lesson here for you and me? (A. Finlayson.)
Divine pleading
If anyone suffers very keenly from nervous exhaustion, it seems sometimes almost impossible for him to bear the noise of a child who persists in running heavily overhead. He will adopt a pleading rather than an angry tone: My child, do not do this again; I cannot bear it. Let us think of Gods holy nature as more sensitive to sin than the most highly-strung nerves to noise, and hear Him saying, whenever we are on the point of committing sin, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate. (F. B. ,Meyer, B. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. O, do not this abominable thing] A strong specimen of affectionate entreaty. One of the finest figures of poetry, when judiciously managed, the anthropopathia, the ascribing human passions to God, is often used by this prophet: so God is said to grieve, to mourn, to have his bowels moved with compassion, to repent, to be angry, c. Here he is represented as tenderly expostulating: O, do not or, I entreat you, do not that abominable thing which I hate.
1. Do it not: your God commands.
2. O, do it not: your Father entreats.
3. It is an abominable thing, and should not be done.
4. I hate it, and on that account ye should abstain from it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
4. (2Ch36:15).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Howbeit, I sent unto you all my servants the prophets,…. As many as he raised up, and employed in the work and service of prophesying; and these were many; and as many as they were, he sent them to them, one after another, to warn them of their sin and danger; but all to no purpose; which was a further aggravation of their wickedness: nay, though he was
rising early, and sending [them]; was very early in his messages to them; gave them timely warning, and let slip no opportunity of admonishing them; and this he did constantly; see Jer 7:13;
saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate; all sin is abominable in itself, and hateful to God, especially idolatry; and therefore should not be done; it should be abominable to men, and hateful to them, because it is so to God; and after such a remonstrance as this, to commit it must be very aggravating and provoking.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Now follows a circumstance by which their impiety was still further enhanced, that God had sent them Prophets who stretched forth their hands to them to draw them from their errors. For had they never been warned, their condemnation would have been just; for God had once shewn to them by his Law what was right. The teaching, then, of the Law ought to have been sufficient for all ages. But when God had never ceased to send Prophets, one after another, it was a sign of hopeless obstinacy to reject so many and so constant warnings. God then added this circumstance that it might appear that the Jews were wholly inexcusable, and worthy of a hundred and of a thousand deaths, because they had so perversely despised all the means of salvation.
But God says, that he had sent to them all his servants What is universal has its own peculiar importance; for if one or two Prophets had been sent, the Jews would have been proved guilty; for the law does not require more than two or three witnesses to condemn those who have done wrong. (Deu 17:6.) But God shews here that there had been a vast number of those, through whom, had they been believed, the Jews might have been preserved in safety. They might, then, have been proved guilty, not only by three or four witnesses, but even by a great number; for the Prophets had continually succeeded one another. And thus had been fulfilled what God had promised in the Law,
“
A Prophet will I raise up from the midst of thy brethren, him shalt thou hear; and every one who will not hear that Prophet shall be cut off from his people.” (Deu 18:18)
For God shews in his proclaimed Law, that this would be one of his chief blessings, ever to keep the Jews in the knowledge of their duty, by never leaving them destitute of Prophets and faithful teachers, here then he shews that he had ever really performed what he had promised by Moses; for he does not say that he had only sent a few, but, as I have said, that there had been a copious abundance; for in every age there were several Prophets, and some, when it became necessary, succeeded others. But what had been the fruit? He afterwards complains that all the Prophets had been rejected.
But to render their sin still more heinous, he says, rising up early and sending Of this kind of speaking an explanation has been elsewhere given. (Jer 7:13; Jer 11:7) It is a metaphorical language; for God rises not nor does he change places; but here he applies to himself what peculiarly belongs to men. For he who is attentive to business, does not wait till the sun rises, but anticipates the morning dawn. So also the Prophet says, that God had been vigilant, for he had been solicitous concerning the wellbeing of the people.
We further learn from this mode of speaking how invaluable is the benefit which God bestows when he raises up honest and faithful teachers; for it is the same as when the head of a family rises early from his bed, calls up his children, and takes care of them. Let us, then, know that teaching, when it is communicated to us, is an evidence of God’s paternal solicitude, because he would not have us to perish, but comes down to us and sees what is needful, as though he were present with us, and as a father towards his children, he takes care of us and of our affairs. This is the meaning.
He now adds the substance of his message, Do not the thing of this abomination which I hate God intimates, in short, that it had not been through him that the Jews did not return from their errors to the right way, because he had stretched forth his hand to them, and had, as it were, sup-pliantly requested them to provide better for themselves, and not knowingly and willfully to seek their own destruction, having acted as though he were a husband, who, being anxious to preserve the fidelity of his wife, might thus say to her, — “Behold, thou knowest that I cannot endure unchaste-ness; beware, then, lest thou shouldest prostitute thyself to adulterers.” So God shews here that he had testified by all his servants, that all kinds of idolatry were displeasing to him, in order that the Jews might keep themselves from idolatry.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(4) Rising early and sending them . . .The prophet uses the same anthropomorphic language as of old (Jer. 7:25; Jer. 25:4; Jer. 26:5; Jer. 29:19). The term abominable thing, or abomination, though common in many of the books of the Old Testament, as in the Proverbs, where it is applied to moral enormities (e.g., Pro. 3:32; Pro. 6:16), is specially characteristic, as applied to idolatry, of Deuteronomy (Deu. 27:15; Deu. 32:16), Jeremiah (here and Jer. 7:10; Jer. 8:12; Jer. 32:35), and Ezek. (Eze. 5:11, and some forty other passages).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Rising early Expressive of his personal care and solicitude.
This abominable thing Literally, the thing of this abomination, idolatry. The language is emotional, and shows the intensity of God’s hatred of it.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 44:4 Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending [them], saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.
Ver. 4. Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants. ] Here the badness of men and goodness of God come equally to be considered.
Saying, O do not this abominable thing which I hate.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jeremiah
GOD’S PATIENT PLEADINGS
Jer 44:4
The long death-agony of the Jewish kingdom has come to an end. The frivolous levity, which fed itself on illusions and would not be sobered by facts, has been finally crushed out of the wretched people. The dreary succession of incompetent kings-now a puppet set up by Egypt, now another puppet set up by Babylon, has ended with the weak Zedekiah. The throne of David is empty, and the long line of kings, which numbered many a strong, wise, holy man, has dwindled into a couple of captives, one of them blind and both of them paupers on an idolatrous monarch’s bounty. The country is desolate, the bulk of the people exiles, and the poor handful, who had been left by the conqueror, flitting like ghosts, or clinging, like domestic animals, to their burnt homes and wasted plains, have been quarrelling and fighting among themselves, murdering the Jewish ruler whom Babylon had left them, and then in abject terror have fled en masse across the border into Egypt, where they are living wretched lives. What a history that people had gone through since they had lived on the same soil before! From Moses to Zedekiah, what a story! From Goshen till now it had been one long tragedy which seems to have at last reached its fifth act. Nine hundred years have passed, and this is the issue of them all!
The circumstances might well stir the heart of the prophet, whose doleful task it had been to foretell the coming of the storm, who had had to strip off Judah’s delusions and to proclaim its certain fall, and who in doing so had carried his life in his hand for forty years, and had never met with recognition or belief.
Jeremiah had been carried off by the fugitives to Egypt, and there he made a final effort to win them back to God. He passed before them the outline of the whole history of the nation, treating it as having accomplished one stadium-and what does he find? In all these days since Goshen there has been one monotonous story of vain divine pleadings and human indifference, God beseeching and Israel turning away-and now at last the crash, long foretold, never credited, which had been drawing nearer through all the centuries, has come, and Israel is scattered among the people.
Such are the thoughts and emotions that speak in the exquisitely tender words of our text. It suggests-
I. God’s antagonism to sin.
An underestimate of its gravity. Contrast the human views of its enormity, as shown by men’s playing with it, calling it by half-jocose names and the like, with God’s thought of its heinousness.
A false dread of seeming to attribute human emotions to God. But there is in God what corresponds to our human feelings, something analogous to the attitude of a pure human mind recoiling from evil.
The divine love must necessarily be pure, and the mightier its energy of forth-going, the mightier its energy of recoil. God’s ‘hate’ is Love inverted and reverted on itself. A divine love which had in it no necessity of hating evil would be profoundly immoral, and would be called devilish more fitly than divine.
II. The great purpose of the divine pleadings.
III. God’s tender and unwearied efforts.
IV. The obstinate resistance to God’s tender pleadings.
That power of neglecting God’s voice and opposing God’s will is the mystery of our nature. How strange it is that a human will should be able to lift itself in opposition to the Sovereign Will! But stranger and more mysterious and tragic still is it that we should choose to exercise that power and find pleasure, and fancy that we shall ever find advantage, in refusing to listen to His entreaties and choosing to flout His uttered will.
Such opposition was Israel’s ruin. It will be ours if we persist in it. ‘If God spared not the natural branches, neither will He spare thee.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
rising early, &c. See note on Jer 7:13.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I sent: Jer 7:13, Jer 7:25, Jer 25:3, Jer 25:4, Jer 26:5, Jer 29:19, Jer 32:33, Jer 35:17, 2Ch 36:15, Zec 7:7
this: Jer 16:18, Eze 8:10, Eze 16:36, Eze 16:47, 1Pe 4:3, Rev 17:4, Rev 17:5
Reciprocal: Gen 38:10 – displeased Lev 18:24 – Defile Deu 5:29 – O that there Deu 16:22 – which 1Ki 21:26 – very abominably 2Ki 17:15 – testimonies 2Ch 24:19 – Yet he sent 2Ch 33:10 – General Pro 5:12 – and my Pro 15:9 – The way Jer 35:15 – Return Jer 36:31 – will bring Eze 3:7 – Israel will Eze 3:19 – if thou Eze 5:11 – detestable Dan 9:6 – have we Hos 7:12 – as their Zec 1:4 – unto Zec 8:17 – things Mat 23:37 – how Mar 12:2 – a servant Mar 12:3 – and sent Luk 13:34 – and ye Luk 20:10 – sent Joh 4:38 – other Joh 8:2 – early Rom 10:21 – a disobedient 2Co 5:20 – as Rev 14:9 – the third
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 44:4. The transgressions of Judah were not from any lack of in-struction. Rising early is a figurative expression, referring to the urgency with which God sent his admonitions to his people.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
44:4 Yet I sent to you all my servants the prophets, {b} rising early and sending [them], saying, O, do not this abominable thing that I hate.
(b) Read Jer 7:25; Jer 25:3; Jer 29:19; Jer 32:33 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
This destruction had come after the Lord had sent His servants-the prophets-repeatedly, to warn the people that He hated what they were doing. Yet they did not listen and repent; they continued sacrificing to pagan gods. Their failure to repent was the cause of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem.