Jeremiah 1:16

I will utter my judgments against them. — Here, again, we get a literal correspondence in the words of Jeremiah 39:5, “he gave [or uttered] judgment upon him,” of Nebuchadnezzar’s sentence on Zedekiah. And yet the invaders in their sentence are to be but the ministers of a higher judgment than their own. In the words “my judgments” He recognises their work.

Who have forsaken. — The remainder of the verse gives, as it were, the formal enumeration of the crimes for which Judah was condemned: (1) Apostacy from the true God; (2) the transfer of adoration to other Gods, such as Baal, Ashtaroth, and the Queen of Heaven; sins against the First Commandment; (3) the worship of graven images; a sin against the Second. The sins were of long standing, but the words point specially to the proportions they had assumed in the reign of Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33:1).