Jeremiah 11:13

For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah,.... [See comments on Jeremiah 2:28], and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem; of which there were many, and some of

For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.

Not that they had just so many idols as were cities in Judah, or altars as were streets in Jerusalem; the meaning is, they had very many, and that the people who lived in every city and street were guilty. What he calls their shame, or the shameful thing, is afterwards expounded Baal, called a shameful thing, because it was what they had reason to be ashamed of, and what would certainly bring them to shame and confusion. Baal signifieth lord, and was a common name given to more idols than one; the Phoenicians used the name Baal, the Chaldeans Bell. God, , forbade his people to call him by this name, because so abused to idolatry. Many think that the sun was what the Phoenicians worshipped under this name; some say Saturn was he. Manasseh, who preceded Josiah, reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them, . Learned men say that the Asians called the same idol Baal, whom those of Europe called Jupiter. It is not improbable which learned men judge, that the heathens acknowledging one Supreme Being, worshipped him in several creatures; some mistaking the sun, moon, and stars to be he, others other things; these they called Baalim, lords, as they called the principal god Baal. The heathens’ idolatry seems to be their worshipping God in creatures, and paying a divine homage to creatures, the sun, moon, and stars, and other far inferior to them, not believing that those creatures were the Divine Being, but that the Divine Being was in them, and from them would hear their supplicants, and do them good; which, though the heathens might a little be excused in, having no Scriptures showing them the nature of the true God, and how he would be worshipped; yet in the Jews was inexcusable, they having the oracles of God committed to them, which both showed them the true nature of God, and let them know that no creature could be any similitude or representation of him; and that his will was, that they should pay their homage to him without any similitudes or representations exciting them to that homage, fit for nothing but to beget in the minds of people false conceptions and apprehensions of the Divine Being, which is merely spiritual; notwithstanding which direction from the Divine law, the Jews, after the manner of the heathens, would pay their homage to God before the sun, moon, and stars, and before images made with hands, and make altars to such creatures and images, which was the idolatry God complains of, and of which he declares a greater abhorrence than almost of any other sin. It is likely that Baal here mentioned was the sun, because it was near Manasseh’ s times, who thus highly offended God; and it is probable that though Josiah had begun a famous reformation.

Jeremiah 11:13 For [according to] the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and [according to] the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to [that] shameful thing, [even] altars to burn incense unto Baal.Ver. 13. For according to the number of thy cities.] See Jeremiah 2:28. And according to the number of thy streets.] See Ezekiel 16:31.

(13) According to the number of thy cities . . .—This and Jeremiah 11:12 reproduce what we have heard already in Jeremiah 2:27-28; Jeremiah 7:17. The “shameful thing” is, as in Jeremiah 3:24, the image of Baal, which would seem to have been set up openly in some prominent place in every city of Judan, every street of Jerusalem. The reference is probably made, as before, to the formal recognition of Baal-worship in the days of Manasseh (2 Kings 21:3; 2 Chronicles 33:3), but the sin may have been repeated as soon as the restraint of Josiah’s reign had been removed.

9–17. Judah has fallen back into apostasy. It is now clear that Josiah’s reforms have had no lasting results. The passage may therefore be placed in Jehoiakim’s reign.

That shameful thing - i. e., Baal; public establishment of idolatry, such as actually took place in the reign of Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33:3. Contrast 2 Kings 18:4).

13. Shameful thing — See Jeremiah 3:24.