Gilead — Gilead was a country fertile for pastures; upon which account the Reubenites and Gadites, being men whose estate lay in cattle, begged it of Moses for their portion. Lebanon also was a very pleasant place: they were both in the lot of Gad and Manasseh. Perhaps God compares the king of Judah... [ Continue Reading ]
Weep not — For Josiah your dead prince. Josiah is happy, you need not trouble yourselves for him; but weep for Jehoahaz, who is to go into captivity.... [ Continue Reading ]
Shallum — Most think that this Shallum was Jehoahaz. Went forth — He was carried away from Jerusalem presently after he was set up, imprisoned at Riblah, and died in Egypt.... [ Continue Reading ]
Was not this — They only truly know God who obey him; men vainly pretend to piety who are defective in justice and charity.... [ Continue Reading ]
Of an ass — None attending him to his grave, none mourning for him.... [ Continue Reading ]
Lebanon — Jerusalem was the place to which this speech is directed: the inhabitants of which the prophet calls to go up to Lebanon. Both Lebanon and Bashan were hills that looked towards Assyria, from whence the Jews looked for help. Abarim — Abarim is the name of a mountain, as well as Lebanon and... [ Continue Reading ]
Pastors — Thy rulers and governors, they shall be blasted by my judgments, as plants are blasted by winds. Thy lovers — And those that have been thy friends, Syria and Egypt.... [ Continue Reading ]
Lebanon — Jerusalem is called an inhabitant of Lebanon, because their houses were built of wood cut down out of the forest of Lebanon. Cedars — Their houses were built of the Cedars of Lebanon. How gracious — What favour wilt thou find when my judgments come upon thee, as the pains of a woman in tra... [ Continue Reading ]
Coniah — By Coniah he means Jehoiakim, whose name was Jeconiah, 1 Chronicles 3:13, (for all Josiah's sons had two names, and so had his grandchild Jeconiah) here in contempt called Coniah. The signet — Tho' he were as dear as a signet, which every man keeps safe.... [ Continue Reading ]
Is this — The prophet speaks this in the person of God, affirming that this prince, who was the idol of the people, was now become like a broken idol. A vessel — So cracked, or so tainted, that they can make no use of it.... [ Continue Reading ]
Childless — He is said to be childless, either because all his children died before their father; or because he had no child that sat upon the throne, or ever had any ruler's place in Judah.... [ Continue Reading ]