the wickedness of his wives {z}; and Dr. Lightfoot thinks
respect is had to Solomon's wives; but it may be under-
stood distributively of every one of their wives, as
Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it {}: and your own
wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which you
have committed in the land of Judah, and in the streets of
Jerusalem? where they had built altars, and wor-
shipped strange gods, they, and their wives, as well
as those who were carried captive; and which were the
cause of all those evils that came upon them; these,
being recent things, could not be forgotten by them;
or however should have been renfembered, and that so
as to have deterred them from going into such prac-
tices again, as they now did in Egypt.
Ver. I0. They are not humbled even unto this day,
&e.] Not contrite under a sense of their sins, nor
truly penitent for them; not humbled before God nor
man, so as to acknowledge them, mourn over them, and
forsake them. The Targum is, "they cease not unto
"this day ;" that is, from committing the same things;
which shews they had no true humiliation and contrition
for them. This is to be understood, not of the jews
in Babylon only, but chiefly of those in Egypt; there-
being a change of person from you to they; the Lord
not vouchsating to speak to them who were so obdurate
and impenitent, but of them, and to some other, as
the prophet, concerning them: neither have they feared ;
the Lord; neither his goodness nor his judgments; or
served and worshipped him with reverence and godly
fear, as became them: nor walked in my law, nor zn
my statutes, that I set before you, and before your fathers ;
a full proof this that they neither had true repentance
for their sins, nor the fear of Godwin their hearts; tbr,
had they, these would have led them-to obedience to
the divine will.
Ver. 11. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, &c.] Because of these sins of idolatry,
irapenitence, and disobedience: I will set my face
against you .for evil; to bring the evil of punishment
upon them, tbr the evil of sin committed by them: this
the Lord determined with himself, and-resolved to do;
which the phrase, setting his face against them, is ex-
pressive of, by way of retaliation for their setting their
faces to go down to Egypt, as well as of his wrath and
indignation against them: and to cut off all Judah; not
the whole tribe of Judah; not those that were in
Babylon, which were by far the greatest number Of
that tribe; but those that were in Egypt.
Ver.. 12. And I will take the remnant of Judah,
Such as remained of that tribe in the land of Jude
after the captivity: and not all of them, but such that
have set their.faces to.go into the land o. f Egypt to soiourn
there: who were bent upon going thither, notwith-
standing all the remonstrances made to them to the
contrary; and were gone thither, and were now ac-
tually sojourners there: this describes such persons
who wiifully, and of their own accord, went thither;
and excepts those who were over-persuaded or over-
powered to go along with them: and they shall all be
consumed, and fall in the land ofEgypt ; not by natural
death, one after another; but by the judgments of God,
as follows: they shall eveh be consumed by the sword and'
by the famine; by the sword of the king of Babylon;
and by famine, occasioned by a foreign army and
sieges: they shall die; from the least even unto the
greatest, by the sword and by the .famine ; which is
repeated for the confirmation of it, and to express the
universality of the destruction; that it should reach
to persons of every age, state and condition, rank
and degree, young and old, high and low, rich and
poor: and they shall be an execration, and an astonish-
ment, and a curse, and a reproach; see the note on ch.
xlii. 18.
Ver. 13. For I will punish them that dudl in the land
ofEgypt, &c.] Orvisit; in a way of wrath and venge-
ance; meaning not the native inhabitants of Egypt;
though these shotlid be punished, and in whose punish-
ment the Jews would be involved; but here it means
the Jews that dwelt in Egypt, who went thither con-
trary to the will of God, and there settled: as I have
punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the fam ine, and by
the pestilence; signifying that the same punishment
that came upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and other
cities of Judea, should come upon these Jews in
Egypt, and as sure as they came upon them; even
those which they thought to have escaped, by leaving
Judea, and going to Egypt.
Ver. 14. So that none of the remnant of 3udah, &c.]
Which were left in the land of Judea after the cap-
tivity: which are gone into the la,,zd of Egypt to sojourn
there, shall escape or remain; escape either the sword,
or the famine, or tile pestilence, or remain in the land
of Egypt, or in the land of the living; so general should
be the destruction: that they should return into the land
of Judah, to the which they have a desire to returnthere ;
or, have lift up their souls {b} to return there: most
earnestly desire it, and have raised hopes and ex-
pectations of it; for it seems that those Jews that went
nto Egypt did not go with a design to settle there for
ever; but to return to their own land, when there
should be better times, and more safety and security
there; particularly when they thought the affair of the
death of Gedaliah would be no further inquired into:
for none shall return but such as shall escape; out of
the hands of Jobanon, and th rest of the captains; and
should get out of the land of Egypt before the Chal-
deans came into it. Some understand this of those
that should escape out of Babylon; that none should
return to Judea but those of that captivity, whoshould
be released by the proclamation of Cyrus. Jarchi in-
terprets it of Jeremiah and Baruch, whom Nebuchad-
nezzar re',noved to Babylon, when Egypt fell into his
hands, in the 27th year of his reign, as is related in the
Jewish chronicles {}.
Ver. 15. Then all the men which knew that their wires
had burnt incense unto other gods, &c.] Which was a
rite God appointed to be used in his worship; and is
here put for the whole of religious worship, which was
given to idols by the Jewish women; this their hus-
bands knew of, and winked at, and did not restrain

{z} \^wyvn twer\^ mala mulierum ejus, Schmidt; & main foeminarum:
ejus, Cocceius; uxorum ejus, Vulg. Lat. Montanus.
{a} Et mala uxorum cujuscque illorum, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
{b} \^Mvpn ta Myavnm\^ elevant vel elevantes animam, suam,
Pagninus, Vatablus, Calvin; attolum animam suam, Schmidt.
{c} Seder Olam Rabba, c.26. p.77.