Jeremiah 44:15 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

The burning of incense was a religious rite, which God had appointed the Jews as a piece of Divine homage to be paid to him alone, and by an ordinary figure is put for worship; so as burning incense to other gods is the same with worshipping other gods. It should seem that all the Jews had not been thus far guilty, and those that did it were mostly women, or at least they were the leaders in this idolatry; and one would think the phrase implieth that those who were thus culpable did it with some privacy, so as all their husbands did not know of it; but those that did were as bad as their wives, conniving at them, and justifying them in their idolatry, and joining with them in the following peremptory answer to and contempt of the prophet.

Jeremiah 44:15

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,