Jeremiah 19:3-5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Say, Hear, &c., O kings of Judah See note on Jeremiah 17:20. Behold, I will bring evil upon this place That is, upon Judah and Jerusalem, so surprising and so dreadful that whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle The very report of it shall astonish the hearers. Because they have estranged this place From me, should be supplied to make the sense clearer; the meaning, it seems, being that, by their worshipping other gods, and committing all sorts of crimes, they had caused God not to look any longer upon their city and country as his, but quite foreign from him. Or, as some interpret the expression, They had strangely abused, and alienated from their intended purposes both Jerusalem, the holy city, and the temple, God's holy house, which were designed for his honour and the support of his kingdom among men. And have filled this place with the blood of innocents Of the children sacrificed to Moloch: see note on Jeremiah 2:34; and Isaiah 30:33. They have built also, rather, they have even built the high places of Baal For the same sin is here expressed which was mentioned in the latter part of the foregoing verse, and the copulative particle, vau, is sometimes used by way of explication; to burn their sons with fire unto Baal From this, as well as from some other places, it is plain that they slew and burned human victims to Baal as well as to Moloch, if these two names were not promiscuously given, as some suppose they were, to one and the same idol. Which I commanded not, &c. It seems from this that there were not wanting some who maintained that human sacrifices were pleasing to God.