Verse 11. -
To cut off all Judah; i.e. the Judah in Egypt, not that in Babylon. Notice the qualification of this too absolute statement in vers. 14, 28.
44:1-14 God reminds the Jews of the sins that brought desolations upon Judah. It becomes us to warn men of the danger of sin with all seriousness: Oh, do not do it! If you love God, do not, for it is provoking to him; if you love your own souls, do not, for it is destructive to them. Let conscience do this for us in the hour of temptation. The Jews whom God sent into the land of the Chaldeans, were there, by the power of God's grace, weaned from idolatry; but those who went by their own perverse will into the land of the Egyptians, were there more attached than ever to their idolatries. When we thrust ourselves without cause or call into places of temptation, it is just with God to leave us to ourselves. If we walk contrary to God, he will walk contrary to us. The most awful miseries to which men are exposed, are occasioned by the neglect of offered salvation.
Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,.... Because of these sins of idolatry, impenitence, and disobedience:
I will set my face against you for evil; to bring the evil of punishment upon them, for the evil of sin committed by them: this the Lord determined with himself, and resolved to do; which the phrase, "setting his face against them", is expressive of, by way of retaliation for their setting their faces to go down to Egypt, as well as of his wrath and indignation against them:
and to cut off all Judah; not the whole tribe of Judah; not those that were in Babylon, which were by far the greatest number of that tribe; but those that were in Egypt.