uble theme of the words attributed to
him. He is made to say that Jerusalem and Judah are now desolate because
of their people's wickedness, and especially their idolatry, in stubborn
disobedience to the repeated Word of their God by His prophets; surely a
similar punishment must befall the Jews in Egypt, for they also have given
themselves to idols. But so awkwardly and diffusely is the Oracle reported
to us that we cannot doubt that, whatever its original form was, this has
been considerably expanded. At least we may be sure that Jeremiah uttered
some Oracle against the idolatry of the Jews in Egypt, for in what follows
they give their answer.

From verse 15 the story and the words it reports become--with the help of
the briefer Greek version and the elision of manifest additions in both
the Hebrew and the Greek texts(671)--more definite. Either _both_ the men
whom Jeremiah addressed _and_ their women, or, as is textually more
probable, the women alone answered him in the following remarkable terms.
These run in rhythmical prose, that almost throughout falls into metrical
lines, which the English reader may easily discriminate for himself.

XLIV. 16. The word which thou hast spoken to us in the Name of the
Lord!--we will not hearken to thee! 17. But we shall surely perform
every word, which has gone forth from our mouth:(672) to burn to
the Queen of Heaven and pour her libations, as we and our fathers
did, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and streets
of Jerusalem, and had fulness of bread, and were well and saw no
evil. 18. But since we left off to burn to the Queen of Heaven,
and to pour her libations, we have lacked everything and been by
the sword and the famine consumed. 19. And(673) while we were
burning to the Queen of Heaven and poured her libations, did we
make her cakes(674) and pour her libations without our husbands?

This was a straight challenge to the prophet, returning to him the form of
his own argument. As he had traced the calamities of Judah to her
disobedience of Yahweh, they traced those which hit themselves hardest as
women to their having ceased to worship Ashtoreth. What could Jeremiah
answer to logic formally so identical with his own? The first of the
answers attributed to him, verses 20-23, asserts that among their other
sins it was their worship of the Queen of Heaven, and not, as they said,
their desisting from it, which had