44:16 [As for] the word that thou hast spoken to us in the name of the LORD, we will {h} not hearken to thee.
(h) This declares how dangerous a thing it is to decline once from God and to follow our own fantasies: for Satan ever solicits such and does not leave them till he has brought them to extreme impudency and madness, even to justify their wickedness against God and his prophets.
44:15-19 These daring sinners do not attempt excuses, but declare they will do that which is forbidden. Those who disobey God, commonly grow worse and worse, and the heart is more hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Here is the real language of the rebellious heart. Even the afflictions which should have parted them from their sins, were taken so as to confirm them in their sins. It is sad when those who should quicken each other to what is good, and so help one another to heaven, harden each other in sin, and so ripen one another for hell. To mingle idolatry with Divine worship, and to reject the mediation of Christ, are provoking to God, and ruinous to men. All who worship images, or honour saints, and angels, and the queen of heaven, should recollect what came from the idolatrous practices of the Jews.
