Jeremiah 7:18

The children gather wood,.... In the fields, or out of the neighbouring forest; not little children, but young men, who were able to cut down trees, and bear and carry burdens of wood: and the

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

Here God shows how busily they are employed from the youngest to the oldest, and how industrious for their idolatry, ; see ; every one in the family doth somewhat towards it. The children gather wood, or sticks; for the word is plural, and so used ,33; an employment, if we understand small sticks, proper for children; if greater wood, suitable to youth, who excel in strength, and may be understood by children and young ones. The fathers kindle the fire; they heat the oven, hearth, or stone on which they were baked. The women knead their dough, to make cakes; prepare all the materials of which to make cakes; probably they were of some particular shape, or had some peculiar impression of some of their gods stamped upon them, like the popish wafers, some say stamped with stars, as being offered up to the host of heaven, or with some peculiar star, . To the queen of heaven; or, frame or workmanship of heaven: this is diversely interpreted; some take it for the sun, which is signified by a word of the feminine gender, , and of a feminine use, ; some for the moon; as the sun was looked upon as king, so the moon as the queen of heaven, because of the largeness of her body in which she appears, and of the light she gives, but especially by reason of the government she exerciseth over inferior bodies; others, more probably, for the whole host of heaven, 19:13, and so the LXX, according to which probably for their sakes they received divers stamps and impressions: they that would see more may consult the English Annotations and the Synopsis. To pour out drink-offerings, viz. wine and other strong drinks, ,41 Num 28:7. The devil is God’ s ape, and taught idolaters to use the same rites and ceremonies that were used in God’ s worship; therefore here these idolaters, in pouring their drinkofferings, which might seem to be blood, or at least blood mixed with them, See Poole "", imitated God’ s drink-offerings, as they did his meat-offerings in their cakes, as in Leviticus 2; by these they did furnish the table mentioned , see there. That they may provoke me to anger; noting rather the proper effects and consequences of their idolatries, than that they did propound to themselves such an end in doing it; but it seemed to be a kind of bidding open defiance to God, by which it appears they were all mad upon their idolatries; they were set upon it, as David’ s heart was set upon the worship of God, .

Jeremiah 7:18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead [their] dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Ver 18. The children gather wood.] All sorts, sizes, and sexes are as busy as bees: “ Sed turpis labor est ineptiarum. ” Oh that we were so intent, with united forces, to the worship of the true God of heaven! Vae torpori nostro. Oh take heed of industrious folly! dispirit not yourselves in the pursuit of trifles, &c. To make cakes.] Popana, cakes stamped with stars. To the queen of heaven,] i.e., To the heavenly bodies, and, as some will have it, to the moon in special. The Hebrews have a saying, that God is to be praised in the least gnat, to be magnified in the elephant, but to be admired in the sun, moon, and stars. And if the Jews in the text had stayed here, who could have blamed them? but to deify these creatures was gross idolatry, and an inexpiable sin. Epiphanius telleth us of certain heretics called Collyridians, that they baked cakes and offered them to the Virgin Mary, whom they called the queen of heaven. And do not the Papists to this day the very same, saying that hyperdulia is due unto her? not to speak of Bonaventure’ s blasphemous Lady psalter; Bernard Baubusius, the Jesuit, hath set forth a book in praise of the Virgin Mary, by changing this one verse - “ Tot tibi sunt dotes, Virgo, quot sidera caelo, ” a thousand twenty and two ways, according to the number of the known stars. The Jesuits commonly write at the end of their books, Laus Deo et beatae Virgini, Praise be given to God and to the blessed Virgin; but this is the badge of the beast. Let us say, Soli Deo gloria; Glory only to God, and yet not in the sense of that Persian ambassador, who, whensoever his business lay with Christians, was wont to have Soli Deo gloria very much in his mouth; but by soli he meant the sun, whom he honoured for his god. Why the women here, and Jeremiah 44:19, should be so busy in kneading cakes to the moon, these reasons are given: - (1.) Because the moon was a queen; (2.) Because the women at their labour were most beholden to the moon, who by her great moisture mollifies the pregnant, and makes the passage easy for their delivery. This custom of offering cakes to the moon, saith one, our ancestors may seem not to have been ignorant of; to this day our women make cakes at such times, yea, the child is no sooner born but called cake bread. Add, that the Saxons did adore the moon, to whom they set a day apart, which to this day we call Monday.

(18) The queen of heaven.—The goddess thus described was a kind of Assyrian Artemis, identified with the moon, and connected with the symbolic worship of the reproductive powers of Nature. Its ritual probably resembled that of the Babylonian Aphrodite, Mylitta, the mother-goddess, in its impurities (Herod. i. 199; Bar 6:43), and thus provoked the burning indignation of the prophet here and in Jeremiah 44:19; Jeremiah 44:25. The word rendered “cakes,” and found only in connection with this worship, was clearly a technical term, and probably of foreign origin. Cakes of a like kind, made of flour and honey, round like the full moon, and known, therefore, as selence or “moons,” were offered, like the Minchah or meat-offerings in the Mosaic ritual, the Neideh in the Egyptian worship of the goddess Neith, at Athens to Artemis, and in Sicily to Hecate (Theocr., Idylls, ii. 33). The worship of Ashtoreth (Milton speaks of her as “Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horn “), though of kindred nature, was not identical with that of the Queen of Heaven, that name signifying a star, and being identified with the planet Venus. A various reading gives, as in the margin, “the frame of heaven.”

Verse 18. The children gather wood] Here is a description of a whole family gathered together, and acting unitedly in idolatrous worship. 1. The children go and collect wood, and bring it to the place of sacrifice. 2. The fathers lay it in order, and kindle a fire. 3. The mother and her maids knead dough, make their batch, and out of it form cakes, and bake them for the honour of the queen of heaven; most probably the moon, though perhaps not exclusive of the sun and planets, generally called the host of heaven. Family worship is a most amiable and becoming thing when performed according to truth. What a pity that so few families show such zeal for the worship of God as those apostate Israelites did for that of their idols!

18. Both sexes and all ages unite in the public dishonouring of God’s name by shameless idolatries. cakes] The Hebrew word is of Assyrio-Babylonian origin, and occurs elsewhere only in Jeremiah 44:19, where see further. The cakes were either shaped, or stamped, to represent the “queen of heaven,” probably to be identified, not with the moon, but with the planet Venus, the Ishtar of Babylonian worship (Co.). The cult was thence derived, and appears to have been introduced in Manasseh’s reign. “The description points to its prevalence among the poorer classes, who have to collect firewood and do all the work themselves.” Pe. The Mass., by a different vocalisation of the word for “queen,” apparently to avoid this sense, gives work (meaning, however, host, in accordance with the Rabbinic interpretation of “work” in Genesis 2:1 f.) of heaven; and so LXX here, whereas in Jeremiah 44:17 etc. they render rightly “queen.”

Children ... fathers ... women - All members of the family take part in this idolatry. Cakes - Probably very similar to those offered at Athens to Artemis.

THEIR WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH , BEING JOINED WITH , Jeremiah 7:17-28. 18. Children… fathers… women — All classes unite. The family in its organic unity does the work of irreligion.