U A1 22:1-30. Individually. A2 23:1-8. Collectively.
A1 B 1-9. To Jehoiakim.
C 10-12. Touching Shallum.
B 13-19. To Jehoiakim.
C 20-30. Touching Coniah.
B a 1-3. Command.
b 4,5. Consequence.
a 6,7. Address.
b 8,9. Consequence.
489 B.C.
Jeremiah 22)
1 Thus says the LORD (Yahaveh); Go down (cp. 36;12) to the house of the king of Judah (i.e. Jehoiakim), and speak there this word,
2 And say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, that sit upon the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people that enter in by these gates:
3 Thus says the LORD; Execute you judgment, yes righteous judgment, and deliver the robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the sojourner, the fatherless, nor the widow (put for all afflicted ones), neither shed innocent blood (see 7:6) in this place.
4 For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting for David upon his throne, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people.
5 But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by Myself, says the Lord (= [is] Yehovah's oracle), that this house shall become a desolation.'
6 For thus says the LORD to the king's house of Judah (see 3:18); You are Gilead to me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make you a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
7 And I will set apart destroyers against you, every one with his weapons: and they shall cut down your choice cedars (put for houses built of cedar), and cast them into the fire.
8 And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, 'Wherefore has the LORD done thus to this great city?' (See 16:10.)
9 Then they shall answer, 'Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God (Elohim), and worshiped other gods, and served them.'
10 Weep you not for the dead (i.e. Joash), neither bemoan him (i.e. Jehoiachin): but weep you, weep on for him that goes away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.
500 B.C.
11 For thus says the LORD touching Shallum the son of Josiah (Josiah had 4 sons [1 Cgron. 3:15]. Shallum [= retribution] had another name - Jehoahaz [=whom the Lord sustains]. Cp. 2 Kings 23:31,43. Zedekiah must have been younger than Jehoiakim or Jehoahaz, for he was but 21 when he began to reign, and therefore only 10 when Jehoiakim began to reign) king of Judah, which reigned instead of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place; He shall not return there any more:
12 But he shall die in the place where they have led him captive (i.e. in Egypt. He was the 1st king of Israel to do so. 2 Kings 23:34), and shall see this land no more.
13 Woe to him that builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper chambers in injustice; that uses his neighbor's service without wages (see Lev. 19:13), and gives him not [wages] for his work;
14 That says, 'I will build me a wide house and roomy chambers,' and cuts him out its windows; and it is paneled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.
15 Shall you reign, because you close yourself in cedar? did not your father eat and drink, and do judgment and righteousness, and then it was well with him?
16 [Did] he (i.e. Josiah) not judge righteous judgment the cause of the wretched and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know Me? says the LORD.
17 But your eyes and your heart are not but for your covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.
500-489 B.C.
18 Therefore thus says the LORD 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!'
19 He shall be buried with the burial of an ass (note the figure of speech [Oxymoron], which gives the meaning that he was not buried at all [for asses have no funeral]. Jehoiakim is the only king of Judah whose burial is not recorded. See 2 Kings 24:6), drawn (i.e. the ass, not Jehoiakim) and cast forth (Cp. Isa. 26:19) beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
20 Go up to Lebanon, and cry (the cry of distress); and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim (the mountains beyond Jordan, the range of Nebo. Cp. Num. 27:12; 33:47,48. Deut. 32:49): for all your lovers (i.e. the neighboring nations, to whom they looked instead of God) are destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your great prosperity; but you said, 'I will not hear.' This has been your manner from your youth, that you hearkened not to My voice.
22 The wind shall eat up all your pastors (put for rulers of all kinds), and your lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shall you be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. (Put for the cause of the calamity.)
23 O inhabitress (i.e. Zion) of Lebanon ("Lebanon" put for the cedars grown there, then "cedars" but for the houses built of the timber), that make your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied shall you be when pangs come upon you, the pain as of a woman in travail!
489 B.C.
24 As I live, says the LORD, though Coniah (He is called Jeconiah [1 Chron. 3:16], which means "Let Yahaveh establish"; but the cutting off of the Divine mane "Je"[for Yah or Yahaveh] is meant to show the departure of Yahaveh from Jeconiah, and that he himself would be cut off) the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet (cp. Hag. 2:23) upon My right hand, yet would I pluck you from there;
25 And I will give you into the hand of them that seek your soul, and into the hand of them whose face you fear, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.
26 And I will cast you out, and your mother that bare you, into another country, where you were not born; and there shall you die.
27 But to the land whereunto they are lifting up your soul, there shall they not return.
28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?
29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.
30 Thus says the LORD, Write you this man childless (i.e. as to the throne. Not one of his 7 sons [1 Chron. 3:17,18] sat upon his throne), a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.