Jeremiah 44:25

Jer 44:25 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows.

Ver. 25. Ye and your wives.] Who ought to be the better, but are much worse the one for the other, the devil having broken your head with your own rib.

We will surely perform our vows.] A little better than many Popish votaries (and others also not a few) do today; not unlike him in Erasmus, who in a storm promised the Virgin a picture of wax as big as St Christopher, but when he came to shore would not give a tallow candle. {a}

{a} Erasm. Col. in Naufr.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

You have committed double evil in making wicked vows, and in performing the same.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ye . . . have both spoken with . . . mouths, and fulfilled with . . . hand--ironical praise. They had pleaded their obligation to fulfil their vows, in excuse for their idolatry. He answers, no one can accuse you of unsteadiness as to your idolatrous vows; but steadfastness towards God ought to have prevented you from making, or, when made, from keeping such vows.

ye will surely accomplish . . . vows--Jeremiah hereby gives them up to their own fatal obstinacy.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Jeremiah pursues the same subject, and not only bitterly reproves the ungodly men who so pertinaciously despised his doctrine, but also shews that they could gain nothing by their audacity, because they would at length be violently broken down, as they could not bear to be corrected, he says at the beginning, Ye and your wives have spoken; the men are also included, Ye have spoken both men and women, and with your hands have fulfilled it; that is, your obstinacy is complete, for, as you have spoken insolently against God, so there has been a performance; for by hands he designates the work done. he then shews that they had advanced to the highest pitch of impiety, for they hesitated not to vomit forth these impious words, We will not obey God, and they joined their hands to their mouth, for they strenuously executed what they had said. The thought itself was sufficient to condemn them; but when they thus spoke with their tongues, and then employed their hands against God, it was a proof of desperate audacity, as though they willfully designed to provoke him.

But he shews what issue awaited these impious men, who so presumptuously rebelled against God. When he bids them to hear what God on the other hand had sworn, he compares God with themselves, as though he had said, “You may a hundred times increase in your madness, yet God will be the conqueror; for he is an adversary who will surely subvert all schemes and efforts.” But before he comes to this, he mentions what they said, Doing we shall do our vows which we have vowed, to burn incense, etc. Here Jeremiah relates what we have before seen, that the Jews, under the pretext of doing what had been before done, continued thus rebellious against God. We perceive this by the word vows; and the superstitious, when they are pressed, are wont always to flee to this pretext, that to persevere in one’s resolution is a great virtue. While, then, they avoid the charge of fickleness, they harden themselves against God.

The same thing we see at this day under the Papacy: The older any one is, the more obstinate he is. “What! have I not learned during forty or fifty years what religion is, and how to worship God? I have been thus taught from a child, and have by a long habit followed this way: it would be now a disgraceful thing for me to change my course and to relinquish the faith which I have professed for so many years.”

There is, then, no doubt but the Jews made a pretense of this kind against Jeremiah, when they said that they had vowed. For hypocrites make no distinction when they vow anything, but indiscriminately obtrude on God whatever comes to their minds; they afterwards stand fixed in their foolish fancies, and say that a. vow is inviolable, a sacred thing. Such was the excuse of the people. But we see from the Prophet’s answer how vainly they did bring forward in opposition to God their vows, which had been made without judgment and without reason.

And this passage ought to be carefully noticed; so that we may especially know, that it is a folly in no way pleasing to God, when men indiscriminately vow whatever they may dream according to their own fancies. God then would have sobriety and regard to his will to be observed as to vows. But when any one has made an inconsiderate vow, pertinaciously to persist in it is no less displeasing to God than the vow itself. The Jews had vowed; the warning of the Prophet ought to have constrained them to change their resolution. But while they avoided every kind of fickleness, we see that instead of constancy they set up their own perverseness and diabolical obstinacy in opposition to God. When, therefore, we rashly make vows, disapproved by God, nothing is better than immediately to retract them; for we have already sinned more than enough in having abused the holy name of God. For this reason the Prophet says, that the Jews spoke thus, Doing we shall do the vows we have vowed; and what were these? To offer incense to the stars and to hosts of Heaven. Had they vowed anything to God, they ought not to have broken their pledged faith; but they had made vows to the devil; then they ought to have immediately changed their purpose. When I say that vows made to God ought to be performed, I mean lawful vows; for he who makes a vow without judgment, does not vow to God; but those vows which God sanctions ought to be deemed sacred; and whatever vows God repudiates, ought to be counted as nothing. We hence see that the Jews were justly condemned, for they pertinaciously paid their vows to their own idols.

He adds by way of irony, Confirming ye will confirm your vows, doing ye will do your vows Here the Prophet sharply checks their insolence, because they thus set up themselves against God, as though it were a great virtue to persevere in their wicked purpose; ye cannot change, he says, but confirming ye will confirm your vows!

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

25. Ye and your wives] better, with LXX, Ye women.

with your hands have fulfilled it] have carried out your determination. For the expression cp. 1Ki_8:15; 1Ki_8:24.

establish then, etc.] ironically spoken. If ye will persist in spite of all my warnings, then be it so.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,.... Which is an usual preface to prophecies coming from him:

saying; as follows:

ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand; they had said they would burn incense to the queen of heaven, and they had done it; they had been as good as their word, true to it, though in a bad thing: their words and works agreed, and so did the men and their wives: the women had before said they did not perform worship to the queen of heaven without their men; this is acknowledged by the Lord, and their confession is improved against them:

saying, we will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her; they thought, because they made a vow that they would do it, that it was therefore obligatory upon them, and this would be sufficient to justify them before God, and excuse it to him; whereas nothing that is sinful ought to be vowed or performed; and to vow and perform in such a case is doubly criminal: a vow cannot make that lawful which is unlawful; and the performance of it can never be a laudable action:

ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows; they were resolutely set upon it, and nothing would hinder their performance of it; this shows the obstinacy and firmness of their minds: though some think these words are spoken ironically.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Those words

have spoken are in the Hebrew of the feminine gender, which giveth good reason to some interpreters to conclude the women were first and principal in this idolatry, and the men’s guilt lay in conniving at them, and suffering themselves to be seduced by them. Ye, saith the prophet, have spoken it, and ye have been as big as your words, and for a cover you pretend the religion of a yew, as if a vow could be a bond of iniquity, and it were possible by a vow to oblige yourselves to a forsaking of the true God, and a committing of idolatry. The latter words seem ironical, so as to have this sense, You are resolved upon it, and there is no moving you from your resolution; God hath resolved too.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

JEREMIAH PREDICTS FURTHER DISTRESS, Jer_44:24-30.

25. Fulfilled with your hand — Literally, hands, alluding to the making of the sacrificial cakes.

Perform our vows — How many think it good to fulfil a promise to do evil! To keep a vow they had never any right to make, is with them meritorious.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

With your hand; rather, with your hands. Ye will surely accomplish, etc.; rather, ye shall, etc., by all means perform your vows, and take the consequence. The irony of the passage is lost by the "will" of the Authorized Version.

Sinful vows.

I SINFUL VOWS ARE AMONG THE MOST WICKED OF SINS. Some sins are committed hastily and in passion, these with more deliberation; some without strong desire, these most earnestly.

II IT IS A SIN TO PERFORM SINFUL VOWS. If we were not at liberty to make the vows, we are not at liberty to perform them. We cannot be bound to do that which we have no right to do. If we have promised to do an unlawful act, we should not consider that promise binding upon us, since our word cannot abrogate the law that forbids the act.

III GOD LEAVES MEN FREE TO EXECUTE THEIR EVIL INTENTIONS. The Jews in Upper Egypt were to be left to the performance of their vows to the queen of heaven. This implied no sanction; it was only the withholding of forcible restraints. What a solemn responsibility lies in the fact that we have this large liberty after we have chosen an evil way, and before we are called to judgment for it!

IV GOD SOMETIMES CEASES TO WARN MEN OF THE DANGER OF THEIR WICKED COURSES. They are then left to themselves till their sin ripens. It is a terrible fate, but consistent with the goodness of God, as we may be sure that, if God deliberately ceases to warn a man, it is because warnings are lost on him or simply harden him. We may so sin as to become "seared in our own conscience with a hot iron". (1Ti_4:2)

V THE FRUIT OF THE WICKED COURSES WHICH MEN HAVE CHOSEN FOR THEMSELVES WILL BE THE WORST PUNISHMENT OF THEM. They need no external penalties performed by executioners of justice. Sin is its own executioner, the natural effect of sin its own punishment. In the natural results that followed the performance of their wicked vows the idolatrous Jews will reap the bitterest harvest of retribution. "The sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death". (Jam_1:15)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.