Jeremiahchapter 22

Speaks with:Jeremiah 22×6 2 Kings 23×3 2 Kings 24×3 Jeremiah 34×2 1 Kings 21×2 Isaiah 1×2

Summary

Chapter summary

A charge delivered at the king's house: do justice, deliver the robbed, oppress not the sojourner, fatherless, or widow, and thrones will pass through these gates; refuse, and this house becomes a desolation. Then three kings in turn. Shallum, carried away, shall never see this land again. Jehoiakim, building his house by unrighteousness with cedar and vermilion, is measured against his father Josiah, who judged the cause of the poor and needy: 'Was not this to know me? saith Jehovah', and is sentenced to the burial of an ass. Coniah is the signet ring plucked from God's hand: 'Write ye this man childless… for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting upon the throne of David' (22:30).

Context

Prophecy · Jeremiah — Jeremiah overview

A. 1–9 Go Down to the House of the King of Judah
B. 10–19 Shallum Shall Not Return; Jehoiakim Buried as an Ass
C. 20–30 Write This Man Coniah Childless

The outline

A.Go Down to the House of the King of Judahvv. 1 to 9
Read vv. 1 to 9 →
B.Shallum Shall Not Return; Jehoiakim Buried as an Assvv. 10 to 19
Read vv. 10 to 19 →
C.Write This Man Coniah Childlessvv. 20 to 30
Read vv. 20 to 30 →

The world behind this chapter

Jeremiah 22

When

The four last kings of Judah · Oracles spanning c. 609–597 BC, gathered here

Where

The gate of the palace of the king of Judah in Jerusalem

Who first heard it

The court itself — king, servants and household — addressed to their faces

The history

This chapter is a file on the last kings, and each one is named by a fate that history confirms. Shallum is Jehoahaz, who reigned three months in 609 BC before Pharaoh Neco removed him and took him to Egypt, where he died. The oracle says exactly that: he shall never return.

Jehoiakim's charge is a building project. He is accused of building his house by unrighteousness, making his neighbour serve for nothing and not paying him his wages, panelling with cedar and painting with vermilion — a red ochre pigment used on beams and window frames. Forced labour on a royal palace, during a period when Judah was paying heavy tribute, is a fair description of squeezing a small country to build big.

The burial threatened for him is a donkey's burial: dragged out and thrown beyond the gates of Jerusalem. Livestock were dumped, not buried. For a king of David's line that is the deepest insult available.

Coniah is Jehoiachin, who reigned three months in 597 BC and was deported to Babylon with his mother. The picture used is a signet ring — the king's personal seal, worn on the hand, pressed into clay to authorise documents, and never let out of a man's sight. God says even if he were the signet ring on my right hand, I would tear him off.

What it meant to them

First hearers were watching kings come and go in months. This chapter told them why: the throne had a job description — do justice, rescue the robbed, do not shed innocent blood — and the men on it were doing something else.

The line about Coniah having no offspring who would sit on David's throne is precise rather than absolute. He did have sons, as the family records show, but none of them ruled. The dynasty went into the ground, and the promise of a righteous branch in the next chapter has to grow from a stump.

Sources cited

Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings
Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Jeremiah 22. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 24 · One person, two names

TIPNR unifies Jehoiachin=Jeconiah=Coniah=Jechonias as ONE person (uStrong H3078; forms H3112, H3204, H3659, G2423); the flagged node.

2 Kings 24:6→

And Jehoiakim rested with his fathers, and his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.

2 Kgs 24:6; Jer 22:24; 1 Chr 3:16; Matt 1:11; TIPNR

v. 24 · A judgment reversed

Coniah torn off as YHWH's signet (Jer 22:24); Zerubbabel (his grandson) MADE YHWH's signet (Hag 2:23) - the verbal reversal conservatives read as the curse lifted.

Haggai 2:23→

On that day, declares the LORD of Hosts, I will take you, My servant, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, declares the LORD, and I will make you like My signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the LORD of Hosts.”

Jer 22:24; Hag 2:23 (PD, quotable in full)

v. 30 · The curse, qualified

1 Chr 3:17-18 lists Jeconiah's seven sons, so 'childless' is non-literal; the curse bars throne-sitting, not offspring.

1 Chronicles 3:17→

The descendants of Jeconiah the captive:

1 Chr 3:17-18; Jer 22:30 (PD)

v. 30 · The curse against the royal line

Jeremiah pronounces Coniah childless / none of his seed on David's throne, yet Matthew places Jeconiah in Messiah's royal line - the tension that launched the resolutions.

Matthew 1:12→

After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

Jer 22:30; Matt 1:12 (PD)

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

Study this chapter

What

Justice

Jeremiah 226 verses
- Jeremiah 22:3This is what the LORD says: Administer justice and righteousness. Rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Do not shed innocent blood in this place.
- Jeremiah 22:4For if you will indeed carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will enter through the gates of this palace riding on chariots and horses—they and their officials and their people.
- Jeremiah 22:6For this is what the LORD says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are like Gilead to Me, like the summit of Lebanon; but I will surely turn you into a desert, like cities that are uninhabited.
- Jeremiah 22:11For this is what the LORD says concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who succeeded his father Josiah but has gone forth from this place: “He will never return,
- Jeremiah 22:17“But your eyes and heart are set on nothing except your own dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, on practicing extortion and oppression.”
- Jeremiah 22:18Therefore this is what the LORD says concerning Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: “They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my brother! Alas, my sister!’ They will not mourn for him: ‘Alas, my master! Alas, his splendor!’
- Read Jeremiah 22 →
2 Kings 232 verses
- 2 Kings 23:25Neither before nor after Josiah was there any king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, according to all the Law of Moses.
- 2 Kings 23:34Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and he changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, where he died.
- Read 2 Kings 23 →
2 Kings 242 verses
- 2 Kings 24:8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem.
- 2 Kings 24:15Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
- Read 2 Kings 24 →
Jeremiah 342 verses
- Jeremiah 34:2The LORD, the God of Israel, told Jeremiah to go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him that this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down.
- Jeremiah 34:20I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.
- Read Jeremiah 34 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

1 Kings 212 verses
- 1 Kings 21:18“Get up and go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria. See, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, of which he has gone to take possession.
- 1 Kings 21:23And the LORD also speaks concerning Jezebel: ‘The dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’
- Read 1 Kings 21 →
Isaiah 12 verses
- Isaiah 1:10Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
- Isaiah 1:17Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.”
- Read Isaiah 1 →
Jeremiah 212 verses
- Jeremiah 21:7‘After that,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’
- Jeremiah 21:12O house of David, this is what the LORD says: ‘Administer justice every morning, and rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor, or My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it because of their evil deeds.
- Read Jeremiah 21 →
Jeremiah 172 verses
- Jeremiah 17:25then kings and princes will enter through the gates of this city. They will sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses with their officials, along with the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever.
- Jeremiah 17:27But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load while entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in its gates to consume the citadels of Jerusalem.’”
- Read Jeremiah 17 →