2). The People's Defence To The Charge And Their Response To Jeremiah's Words (15-19).
The people's defence is now blatantly stated, and confirms all that Jeremiah has said. As far as they were concerned their ways had prospered when they had worshipped ‘meleketh hashamayim' (the queen of heaven or the handiwork of heaven) and other gods. Since being turned to the sole worship of YHWH by Josiah things had only gone wrong (they overlooked the years of prosperity and independence under Josiah and the fact that after he had died public worship went back to its syncretism). As far as they were concerned it was that that had brought on them famine and sword. It should be noted that this was not a total rejection of YHWH, He was after all the God of Israel, but it was a claim that He was only one among others, and that in their view the help of more than one God was needed. But it was a very weak argument, ignoring the facts and only convincing to themselves because they wanted to be convinced.
Reference to meleketh hashamayim is found only here and in Jeremiah 7:18. It is often equated with malkath hashamayim (‘the queen of Heaven', the moon) but may rather signify ‘the heavenly handiwork (mele'keth hashamayim)' i.e. the stars. These were worshipped in different guises all over the Ancient Near East. Either way false gods were being worshipped alongside YHWH, something later confirmed by the Elephantine papyri where YHWH was being worshipped alongside Anath-bethel and Ishum-bethel, Anath being the mother goddess, thus being very similar to the false worship here and in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 7:18).
‘Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, even all the people who dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying,'
Jeremiah now found himself faced by a large group of people whose spokespersons were both the men whose wives were involved in the false worship, and the wives themselves. Indeed it would appear that the women were the chief spokespersons (Jeremiah 44:19), although clearly what was said by a number of people is being summarised in what appears to us to be one speech. We must view the words realistically. Clearly all the Jewish men and women in Pathros could not have spoken all at once (although it might have seemed like that to Jeremiah at the time), nor was it likely that literally every Jew throughout the land of Egypt was present.. The point is rather that all the Jewish men and women who had gathered there in Pathros, possibly for ceremonies connected with the moon/star god/goddess, spoke to Jeremiah through their spokespersons, whether official or unofficial, and gathered behind them in support. The word for ‘All' rather therefore signifies ‘a large number, a great proportion' as so often in Scripture.
“As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of YHWH, we will not listen to you.”
Their disobedience to the word of YHWH as communicated through Jeremiah is once more blatantly stated (compare Jeremiah 43:2 and contrast Jeremiah 42:5). They openly declare that they will not listen to Jeremiah's words spoken in the name of YHWH. It is a deliberate rejection of YHWH's true prophet, and therefore of YHWH Himself as He really is. They were rejecting ‘the word of YHWH'.
“But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven (or ‘to the heavenly handiwork'), and to pour out drink-offerings to 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.”
Rather, they insisted that what they would do was obey themselves and their inclinations. They would fulfil all the vows that they had made to the moon/star god by burning incense and pouring out drink offerings before her, just as they had previously done in the streets of Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah (Jeremiah 7:18), along with their fathers, kings and princes (who, they should have noted, were now either dead or in exile). In other words they were looking back to what they saw as ‘the good times' and giving the credit for them to the moon/star god/goddess whom they had been unofficially worshipping at the time, completely overlooking what had occurred since. They were blaming all the bad things on YHWH.
We have here in summary the typical attitude of the natural man towards religion. What he is concerned about is what he can get out of it. His question is, ‘does it work?' In other words does it make him prosperous and make his life easy. It was Satan's view expressed about Job, ‘does Job fear God for nothing?' (Job 1:9). In contrast the spiritual man asks, ‘is it making me more pure, more righteous, more true? Am I more God-like as a result?' That last was a question that this people never even considered, for had they done so they would have known the answer.
“But since we left off burning incense to the Queen of Heaven, and pouring out drink-offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”
For, the women claimed, it was only since they had been forced to leave off burning incense and offering drink-offerings to the moon/star god/goddess that they had found themselves in want, and had experienced the sword and famine. This was, of course, an exaggeration, for after the death of Josiah all the kings who followed him had ‘done evil in the sight of YHWH', thus allowing the burgeoning of idolatry. It was therefore rather a vague memory of a time in the past when King Josiah had caused all such things to cease as far as worship in Jerusalem and other major cities was concerned (it had still gone on secretly in the high places). And they conveniently saw everything that followed as resulting from that.
“And when we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven, and poured out drink-offerings to her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink-offerings unto her, without our husbands?”
And the women assured Jeremiah that they were not alone in thinking like this. Their husbands had been equally involved. They had been fully aware of what their wives were doing, and had even connived in it. This would in fact have been necessary for no woman in Judah could make a binding vow unless her husband was in agreement with it (Numbers 30:3-16). Furthermore this worship was not something that they could have kept secret from their husbands. Indeed, as Jeremiah 7:18 so vividly portrays, ‘the children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the moon/star god/goddess and to pour out drink-offerings to other gods'. They were all involved together.
So, if this was a gathering of all the Judeans in Egypt who had gathered together from all over Egypt, it is clear that they stood firm together in their determination not to listen to Jeremiah, but to pursue their own course of syncretistic polytheism. They themselves were claiming that they were making the same choice as their fathers had before them. Once again Jeremiah could have looked everywhere and would have found no one willing to do the will of YHWH (compare Jeremiah 5:1-5). It is manifest that they had failed to learn the lesson of history.