Jeremiah 44:18
“But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”
What does Jeremiah 44:18 mean?
The people of Judah are speaking here, and they're blaming their hardships on abandoning the worship of a foreign goddess (likely the Assyrian queen of heaven). They're convinced that their suffering—warfare, starvation, loss—came directly from stopping these rituals, so they want to go back to them. What makes this moment tragic is that Jeremiah has been warning them the opposite is true: their troubles come from turning away from God, not from abandoning false gods. They're so desperate to explain their pain that they grasp at the wrong answer. It's a reminder of how easy it is to misread our circumstances and blame God (or look elsewhere) when things go wrong, rather than asking what might actually need to change in our hearts. Sometimes we keep returning to what hasn't worked because we're afraid the real solution might ask too much of us.