Jeremiah 44:11

SWORD; PESTILENCE AND FAMINE THREATENED

"Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all Judah. I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they shall all be consumed; in the land of Egypt shall they fall; they shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine; they shall die, from the least even unto the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; so that none of the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape, or be left to return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return save such as shall escape."

The thrust of this paragraph is the emphasis on the hopelessness of any of the Jewish sojourners in Egypt of having any part whatever in the future plans of God for the salvation of all mankind. All of the sacred promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were at this point to be severed completely from the Jewish remnant in Egypt, and would rest solely with the captives in Babylon.

The reasons for this are easy to see. The temptations to idolatry in Egypt would be stronger than Israel would resist. As for God's eternal purpose of human redemption, it was of no further concern to those selfish sensualists sojourning in Egypt. They still dreamed of going back to Judah, but they were in Egypt forever.