XXII. (1) THUS SAITH THE LORD... — The message, delivered in continuation of Jeremiah 21, and therefore probably as following up the answer to the messengers of Zedekiah (Jeremiah 21:1), reviews the history of the three preceding reigns, and apparently reproduces the very words of the warnings whic... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT SITTEST UPON THE THRONE OF DAVID. — The words obviously imply that the message was delivered to the king as he sat in the gate in the presence of his people.... [ Continue Reading ]
EXECUTE YE JUDGMENT. — As the Hebrew verb is not identical with that in Jeremiah 21:12, and implies a less formal act, it might be better to render it, _do ye judgment..._ Do no wrong... — The Hebrew order connects both verbs with the substantives — _to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow,... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN SHALL THERE ENTER IN... — The picture of renewed and continued prosperity gains a fresh force, as reproducing the very terms of Jeremiah 17:25. In both the “chariots and horses” are conspicuous as the symbol of kingly pomp (1 Kings 4:26), just as their absence furnished a topic to the sarcastic... [ Continue Reading ]
I SWEAR BY MYSELF. — The formula is an exceptionally rare one, but meets us in Genesis 22:16. In Deuteronomy 32:40 the came thought is embodied in the language of the loftiest poetry. The principle in both cases is that on which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews dwells in Jeremiah 6:13. Men s... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU ART GILEAD UNTO ME, AND THE HEAD OF LEBANON. — The conjunction, which is not found in the Hebrew, is better omitted. Even in his utterance of woes the prophet’s mind is still that of a poet. The chief point of the comparison in both cases is to be found in the forests that crowned the heights o... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL PREPARE DESTROYERS. — The verb, as in Jeremiah 6:4, implies the idea of a solemn appointment or consecration. THEY SHALL CUT DOWN THY CHOICE CEDARS. — The metaphor of the preceding verse is carried further, and the “choice cedars” are the princes of the royal house of Judah, and the chief co... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEREFORE HATH THE LORD DONE thus... — The coincidence of thought and language with Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 29:24) again calls for notice.... [ Continue Reading ]
WEEP YE NOT FOR THE DEAD. — With this verse begins the detailed review of the three previous reigns, the prophecies being reproduced as they were actually delivered. The “dead” for whom men are not to weep is Josiah, for whom Jeremiah had himself composed a solemn dirge, which seems from 2 Chronicle... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALLUM. — Josiah’s successor appears in the historical books as Jehoahaz (“Jehovah sustains,” meant as a _nomen et omen_)_,_ the latter being probably the name assumed on his succession to the throne. Such changes were common at the time, as in the case of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah (2 Kings 23:34; 2 K... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL SEE THIS LAND NO MORE. — There is no record of the duration of the life of Shallum in his Egyptian exile, but the total absence of his name in the history that follows is presumptive evidence of the fulfilment of the prediction. There is no trace of his being alive when the prophet is dragged... [ Continue Reading ]
WOE UNTO HIM THAT BUILDETH... — The prophet now turns to Jehoiakim, and apparently reproduces what he had before uttered in denouncing the selfish bearing of that king. The feelings of the people, already suffering from the miseries of foreign invasion, were outraged by the revival of the forced lab... [ Continue Reading ]
LARGE CHAMBERS. — As before, “upper storeys _or_ chambers.” CUTTETH HIM OUT WINDOWS. — The verb is the same as that used in Jeremiah 4:30 for dilating the eyes by the use of antimony, and implies accordingly the construction of windows of unusual width. These, after the Eastern fashion, were fitted... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU CLOSEST THYSELF IN CEDAR. — Better, _thine ambition is in cedar._ The verb means strictly, as in Jeremiah 12:5, “to vie with” or “to contend,” and Jehoiakim is reproached for endeavouring to outdo the magnificence even of his greatest predecessors. A various reading, followed by the LXX., gives... [ Continue Reading ]
WAS NOT THIS TO KNOW ME? — The prophet, as a true witness of the law of righteousness, proclaims that the religious fame of Josiah rested not on his restoration of the Temple worship, nor on his suppression of idolatry, but much more on his faithfulness in his kingly work to the cause of righteousne... [ Continue Reading ]
THY COVETOUSNESS. — More literally, _thy gain,_ the word used implying (as in Jeremiah 6:13; Jeremiah 8:10) the idea of violence and oppression as the means by which it was obtained. The verb from which the noun is derived is so translated — “ violence” (literally, “crushing”) — in Deuteronomy 28:33... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY SHALL NOT LAMENT FOR HIM. — The words contrast the death as well as the life of Jehoiakim with that of Josiah. For him there should be no lamentation such as was made for the righteous king (2 Chronicles 35:25), either from kindred mourning, as over a brother or a sister (perhaps, however, as “... [ Continue Reading ]
HE SHALL BE BURIED WITH THE BURIAL OF AN ASS. — The same prediction appears in another form in Jeremiah 36:30. The body of the king was “to be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.” We have no direct record of its fulfilment, but its reproduction shows that the prophet’s wo... [ Continue Reading ]
GO UP TO LEBANON. — The great mountain-ranges — Lebanon and Bashan (Psalms 68:15) — running from north to south, that overlooked the route of the Babylonians, are invoked by the prophet, as those of Gilboa had been by David (2 Samuel 1:21), as witnesses of the misery that was coming on the land and... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THY PROSPERITY. — Literally, _prosperities._ The word is used, as in Proverbs 1:32; Ezekiel 16:49; Psalms 30:6, in reference to what in old English was called “security,” the careless, reckless temper engendered by outward prosperity. The plural is used to include all the forms of that temper tha... [ Continue Reading ]
THE WIND SHALL EAT UP ALL THY PASTORS. — The word for “eat up” is the root of the noun rendered “pastors,” and the play of sound may be expressed in English by _shall feed on them that feed thee_ — _i.e.,_ thy princes and statesmen. The “lovers” are, as before in Jeremiah 22:20, the king’s chosen al... [ Continue Reading ]
O, INHABITANT OF LEBANON. — The phrase develops the thought of Jeremiah 22:6. The king, in his cedar-palace, is as one who has made Lebanon his home, literally and figuratively (see Note on Jeremiah 22:7), and is as an eagle nestling in the cedar. HOW GRACIOUS SHALT THOU BE...! — Better, _how wilt... [ Continue Reading ]
CONIAH THE SON OF JEHOIAKIM. — The grammatical structure of the sentence fixes the original utterance of the message, now reproduced, at a time when Coniah was actually king, during his short three months’ reign. The name of this prince appears in three forms : — (1) The abbreviated Coniah, as here... [ Continue Reading ]
THY MOTHER THAT BARE THEE. — The youth of Coniah probably led to his mother assuming the authority of a queen-regent. She directed the policy of his brief reign, and shared in his downfall. Her name, Nehushta, is given in 2 Kings 24:8, and in Jeremiah 29:2 she is named as the _gebirah,_ the “great l... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEREUNTO THEY DESIRE TO RETURN. — The English expresses the sense, but lacks the poetic force, of the Hebrew, _to which they lift up their souls to return,_ yearning thitherward with the longing of unsatisfied desire.... [ Continue Reading ]
IS THIS MAN CONIAH A DESPISED BROKEN IDOL? — Better, _a broken piece of handiwork._ The word is not the same as that elsewhere rendered “idol,” though connected with it, and the imagery which underlies the words is not that of an idol which men have worshipped and flung away, but of the potter (as i... [ Continue Reading ]
O EARTH, EARTH, EARTH. — The solemnity of the mystic threefold repetition expresses the certainty of the Divine decree (comp. Jeremiah 7:4). So in our Lord’s most solemn utterances we have the twice-repeated “Simon, Simon” (Luke 22:31), and the recurring “Verily, verily” of St. John’s Gospel (John 8... [ Continue Reading ]
WRITE YE THIS MAN CHILDLESS. — The meaning of the prediction, as explained by the latter clause of the verse, was fulfilled in Jeconiah’s being the last kingly representative of the house of David, his uncle Zedekiah, who succeeded him, perishing before him (Jeremiah 52:31). In him the sceptre depar... [ Continue Reading ]