Images - statues or obelisks.
Beth-shemesh - i:e., the house of the sun, in Hebrew; called by the Greeks Heliopolis; by the Egyptians, On (Genesis 41:45); east of the Nile, and a few miles north of Memphis. Ephraim Syrus says, the statue rose to the height of 60 cubits; the base was 10 cubits. Above, there was a mitre of 1,008 pounds weight. Hieroglyphics are traced around the only obelisk remaining there in the present day, 60 or 70 feet high. On the 5th year after the overthrow of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar, leaving the siege of Tyre, undertook, his expedition to Egypt (Josephus, 'Antiquities,' 10:9,7). The Egyptians, according to the Arabs, have a tradition that their land was devastated by Nebuchadnezzar in consequence of their king having received the Jews under his protection, and that it lay desolate 40 years. But see note Ezekiel 29:2; Ezekiel 29:13.
The house of the gods shall he burn. Here the act is attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, the instrument, which in Jeremiah 43:12 is attributed to God. If even the temples be not spared, much less private houses.
Remarks:
(1) When bad men are resolved on a bad act, they never are in want of a lying pretext to execute it. So Johanan and Azariah, and "all the proud men," accused Jeremiah of falsehood; the very sin which they were themselves committing in this their accusation. They had many proofs of the truthfulness of the prophet; their city and temple in ashes attested his prophecies as being the very word of God: and they themselves had just before, as suppliants to him, acknowledged his prophetic trustworthiness (Jeremiah 42:1-3). Their charge, therefore, against him now must have been a willful and gratuitous fabrication. But there is no limit to the self-deceits of the corrupt heart when men are determined to persist in their own sinful course. Instead of judging themselves, they attribute the salutary counsel of the minister to sinister motives: just as the Jews accused Baruch of setting Jeremiah on against them, in order to deliver them into the hand of the Chaldeans (Jeremiah 43:3).
(2) Pride (Jeremiah 43:2) is the parent of contention. And "where strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work" (James 3:16). The proud are reckless of obeying God's will and command (Jeremiah 43:7); and so, in their self-will, thinking to better their condition they make it infinitely worse.
(3) Johanan and his captains forced Jeremiah and Baruch to go with them to Egypt (Jeremiah 43:6). All that they gained by this daring act of defiance of God was, that God employed Jeremiah, in his involuntary detention there, to be the prophet of their doom. The word of the Lord by Jeremiah declared that, so far from Pharaoh saving the Jews from the Chaldeans, he should not be able to save even himself and his own people from destruction by Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 43:8-11). The very mortar and bricks (Jeremiah 43:9) of which Pharaoh's palace was then being built, were doomed to be the substructure of Nebuchadnezzar's throne, which should be raised on the downfall of the Egyptian throne (Jeremiah 43:10).
(4) The perversity of the Jews was herein especially convicted, that they fled from Yahweh's Almighty protection (Jeremiah 43:7) to a land whose helpless idols could not protect themselves and their temples from being burnt by Nebuchadnezzar, much less protect from destruction the Egyptians, and the Jews sojourning for shelter among them (Jeremiah 43:12-13).
(5) How miserable is the condition of those who abandon the living God for an arm of flesh, and for earthly idols of any kind! God employs one bad man to be the scourge of another, as Nebuchadnezzar was of Pharaoh and the Jewish apostate fugitives: and none need flatter themselves with the hope of escape from His wrath by fleeing anywhere, except to Himself.