While we remark the patience and long suffering of the Lord; are we not compelled no less to remark, and be astonished at the impudence, and incorrigible hardness of the human heart? Was there ever an example of more daring impiety, than what is here represented? Alas! how sin hardens. Well may every poor sinner, who reads it, exclaim in the language of that prayer, from pride and hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word; good Lord, deliver us! The idol here spoken of, the queen of heaven, to whom the wives of the people paid homage, very probably, was the Moon. Under the influence of this planet, they conceived, that they had favourable seasons. And it is likely, that in conjunction with the Moon, they worshipped also the other heavenly bodies - Alas! how fallen! Acts 7:42-44.
Jeremiah 44:15-19
15 Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying,
16 As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee.
17 But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queene of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
18 But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
19 And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?