Who burned incense to other gods in Jeremiah 44:15?
In Jeremiah 44:15, the wives—the women of Israel—burned incense to other gods. The verse says the men knew their wives had done so, and a great multitude of women stood by, answering Jeremiah. So the women were the ones offering incense in Egypt.
Les points out that in Jeremiah 44:15, the men knew their wives had burned incense to other gods, and the women stood by as a great multitude. The people dwelling in Egypt and Pathos answered Jeremiah defiantly, refusing to hearken to the Lord. Les emphasizes this was Israel, God's covenant people, who had the Temple, priesthood, and much of the Old Testament, yet the women were burning incense. He connects this to Satan starting with the woman in the garden, not as a put-down but as a fact of human history. Jeremiah lived during the Babylonian siege.
Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying,