Jeremiah 42:15-22

15 "Now, listen to the word of the LORD, you people who are left in Judah. This is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Suppose you're determined to go to Egypt, and you go and live there.

16 Then the wars you fear will catch up with you in Egypt. The famines you dread will follow you to Egypt, and you will die there.

17 So all the people who decide to go and live in Egypt will die in wars, famines, and plagues. No one will survive or escape the disasters I will bring on them.

18 "This is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: As my anger and my fury were poured out on those who live in Jerusalem, so my fury will be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will become a curse word. You will become something ridiculed, cursed, and disgraced. You won't see this place again.

19 "The LORD has told you people who are left in Judah not to go to Egypt. You need to know that I am warning you today.

20 You only deceived yourselves when you sent me to the LORD your God and said, 'Pray to the LORD our God for us, and tell us everything that the LORD our God says, and we'll do it.'

21 I have told you today, but you won't obey anything the LORD your God sent me to tell you.

22 But now, you need to know that you will die in wars, famines, or plagues in the place where you want to go and live."

Jeremiah 42:15-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH CAHPTER 42

This chapter contains a request of the Jews to Jeremiah, to pray to the Lord for them to direct them, and the Lord's answer to it. The request is made by the captains and all the people, Jer 42:1-3; which Jeremiah undertook to present to the Lord, Jer 42:4; they promising to go according to the direction that should be given, Jer 42:5,6. After ten days an answer is returned, and the prophet calls the captains and people together to hear it, Jer 42:7,8; the purport of which was, that if they continued in the land of Judah, it would be well with them, and they would be safe, Jer 42:9-12; but if they went into Egypt, they should die by the sword, famine, and pestilence, and be a curse and reproach, and never see their own land more, Jer 42:13-18; they are charged with dissimulation and disobedience, Jer 42:19-21; and the chapter is concluded with an assurance of their perishing by the above judgments in the place they were desirous of dwelling in, Jer 42:22.