Jeremiah 13:18-19

D. WARNING: Pride Leads to Dishonor Jeremiah 13:18-19

TRANSLATION

(18) Say to the king and the queen-mother, Sit down in abasement for your headdress, your glorious crown has come down. (19) The cities of the south have been shut up and there is no one to open them. All Judah is carried captive, everyone is taken captive.

COMMENTS

Three problems face the interpreter of Jeremiah 13:18-19. The first problem is the identity of the king to whom this brief oracle was addressed. A likely candidate is Jehoiachin who was deported to Babylon after a brief reign of three months. If this identification is correct then the queen-mother (lit., mistress) would be Nehushta, the widow of Jehoiakim and mother of Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:8). In the kingdom of Judah the position of queen-mother seems to have been a position of no little prestige and dignity. The Book of Kings is always careful to mention the name of the mother of the reigning king in all but two cases. Scripture commends Asa for removing the wicked Maachah from this position (1 Kings 15:13). Athaliah was able to use this position as a stepping stone to the throne (2 Kings 11).

The second problem is to identify the tone of this passage. Is Jeremiah sincerely urging the king and queen-mother to humble themselves or is this a sarcastic imperative intended to drive home a warning concerning pride? Sarcasm is often difficult to recognize. One needs to hear the voice inflection, and see the facial expression in order to be assured that sarcasm is being employed. Even then when sarcasm is used artistically the listener may ponder many moments before he is sure that this rhetorical device has indeed been employed. And if sarcasm is difficult to detect in speech how much more in writing! However a comparison with the sincere invitation to repent in Jeremiah 13:14 would lead one to conclude that Jeremiah 13:18 falls into the category of a sarcastic imperative. The meaning then would be that the king and queen-mother would be dethroned and dishonored, reduced to the status of commoners. They had refused to humble themselves before God. Therefore God would debase and dishonor them in the sight of all men. The royal crown and headdress of which they were so proud would topple from their brow. If the king is Jehoiachin the fulfillment of this prediction is recorded in 2 Kings 24:15.

The third problem concerns the tense of this utterance. Was Jeremiah predicting something which would take place in the future or was he describing what had recently happened? Frequently in the English Bible, Hebrew predictive prophecy is couched in past tense. The prophet was so sure of what would transpire that he could describe it as though it had already happened. If Jeremiah 13:18 is indeed sarcastic imperative then it is predictive for such is the nature of this rhetorical device. In the case of Jeremiah 13:19 it is impossible to determine whether the two statements are descriptive or predictive. If the former, then Jeremiah was speaking at a time when the northern enemy had overrun the entire land even as far as the remote southern cities. These cities are spoken of as shut up i.e., under siege. All of Judah, i.e., the outlying regions of the land, had fallen to the enemy. This would fit quite well the situation that existed just prior to the surrender of Jehoiachin in 597 B.C. If Jeremiah 13:19 is predictive it could be dated to almost any year between 609 and 587 B.C.