Jeremiah Chapter 22
From The Open Bible Project
22:1 Thus said Yahweh: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,
22:2 Say, Hear the word of Yahweh, king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates.
22:3 Thus says Yahweh: Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the fatherless, nor the widow; neither shed innocent blood in this place.
- (a) This was his ordinary manner of preaching before the kings from Josiah to Zedekiah which was about forty years.
22:4 For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.
22:5 But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself, says Yahweh, that this house shall become a desolation.
- (b) Showing that there is no one greater than he is, (Hebrews 6:13) and that he will most certainly perform his oath.
22:6 For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, [and] the head of Lebanon; [yet] surely I will make you a wilderness, [and] cities which are not inhabited.
- (c) He compares Jerusalem to Gilead which was beyond Jordan and the beauty of Judea to Lebanon.
22:7 I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons; and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.
- (d) The Hebrew word signifies to sanctify because the Lord dedicates to his use and purpose such as he prepares to execute his work, (Isaiah 13:3; Jeremiah 6:4, Jeremiah 12:3).
- (e) Your buildings made from cedar trees.
22:8 Many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, Why has Yahweh done thus to this great city?
- (f) As they who wonder at a thing which they thought would never have come to pass, (Deuteronomy 29:24; 1 Kings 9:8).
22:9 Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them.
22:10 Don't weep for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.
- (g) Signifying that they would lose their king: for Jehoiachin went forth to meet Nebuchadnezzar and yielded himself, and was carried into Babylon, (2 Kings 24:12).
22:11 For thus says Yahweh touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, [and] who went forth out of this place: He shall not return there any more.
- (h) Whom some think to be Jehoiachin and that Josiah was his grandfather: but it seems this was Jehoiakim, as in (Jeremiah 22:18).
22:12 But in the place where they have led him captive, there shall he die, and he shall see this land no more.
22:13 Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; who uses his neighbor's service without wages, and doesn't give him his hire;
- (i) By bribes and extortion.
22:14 who says, I will build me a wide house and spacious chambers, and cuts him out windows; and it is ceiling with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
22:15 Shall you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn't your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? then it was well with him.
- (k) Meaning Josiah, who was not given to ambition and superfluity, but was content with mediocrity, and only delighted in setting forth God’s glory, and to do justice to all.
22:16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Wasn't this to know me? says Yahweh.
22:17 But your eyes and your heart are not but for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.
22:18 Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: they shall not lament for him, [saying], Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! They shall not lament for him, [saying] Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!
- (l) For everyone will have enough to lament for himself.
22:19 He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
- (m) Not honourably among his fathers, but as carrion are cast in a hole, because their stink should not infect, read (1 Kings 14:10). Josephus writes that the enemy slew him in the city and commanded him to be cast before the walls unburied, see (Jeremiah 36:30).
22:20 Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers are destroyed.
- (n) To call to the Assyrians for help.
- (o) For this was the way out of India to Assyria, by which is meant that all help would fail: for the Chaldeans have subdued both them and the Egyptians.
22:21 I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your manner from your youth, that you didn't obey my voice.
22:22 The wind shall feed all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity: surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.
- (p) Both your governors and they that would help you will vanish away as wind.
22:23 Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!
- (q You that are built of the fair cedar trees of Lebanon.
22:24 As I live, says Yahweh, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, yet would I pluck you there;
- (r) Who was called Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, whom he calls here Coniah in contempt who thought his kingdom could never depart from him, because he came of the stock of David, and therefore for the promise sake could not be taken from his house, but he abused God’s promise and therefore was justly deprived of the kingdom.
22:25 and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
22:26 I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die.
22:27 But to the land whereunto their soul longs to return, there shall they not return.
22:28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel in which none delights? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they don't know?
22:29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of Yahweh.
- (s) He shows that all posterity will be witnesses of his just plague, as though it were registered for perpetual memory.
22:30 Thus says Yahweh, Write you this man childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling in Judah.
- (t) Not that he had no children (for later he begat Salathiel in the captivity, (Matthew 1:12)) but that none would reign after him as king.
