Jeremiah 44:17-18

Jeremiah 44:17-18

[17] But we will certainly  whatsoever thing  goeth forth  out of our own mouth,  to burn incense  unto the queen  of heaven,  and to pour out  drink offerings  unto 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.  [18] But since we left off  to burn incense  to the queen  of heaven,  and to pour out  drink offerings  unto her, we have wanted  all things, and have been consumed  by the sword  and by the famine. 

What does Jeremiah 44:17-18 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

They intended to continue to worship the Queen of Heaven, a Near Eastern fertility goddess, as they had done in Judah (cf. Jeremiah 7:18; 2 Kings 17:16), because back then they had plenty of food and life had been pleasant for them. [1] Worship of this deity involved offering cakes made in the shape of the goddess or the moon, or stamped with her image ( Jeremiah 44:19; cf. Jeremiah 7:18). After the Judeans had stopped making burnt offerings and drink offerings to her, they had experienced shortages, and many of them had died in war and famine. Their response challenged Yahweh"s ultimate sovereignty.
During the long and relatively peaceful reign of evil King Manasseh (697-642 B.C.), pagan cults of many kinds flourished in Judah. When Josiah (640-609 B.C.) assumed the throne after wicked King Amon"s brief reign (642-640 B.C.), he began to expel the cults, and encouraged Yahweh worship. Then a series of bad things began to happen in Judah. Pharaoh Neco killed Josiah, the Egyptians occupied Judah, and the Egyptians carried King Jehoahaz away as a prisoner. Then Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah several times, deported King Jehoiakim, destroyed Jerusalem, and took many Judeans captive, including King Zedekiah. Most recently, Ishmael had assassinated the new Judean governor, Gedaliah. It is understandable that some of the people now concluded that returning to Yahweh, in Josiah"s day, had been a step backward for Judah. They failed to see that these calamities were punishments from Yahweh for forsaking Him, and concluded that they were punishments from the idols for forsaking them.
"On a more doctrinaire plane, the secularist will blame Christianity, not the lack of it, for many of society"s ills, ascribing our frustrations and tensions to the biblical restraints and moral absolutes; seeking freedom, as did Jeremiah"s critics, not in God but from God." [2]
Similarly, some people in our day point to "Christianity" as the cause of the bad conditions that existed in the Middle Ages, since the Roman Catholic church dominated life then. Actually, those bad conditions resulted from a combination of causes.