Jeremiah22chapter 22

Jeremiah 22:1

“Thus saith the Lord, go down to the house of the king of Judah,.... To the palace of Jehoiakim, who was now the reigning king; the prophet is bid to go down to it, because, as Kimchi thinks, he was now upon the mountain of the house, or in the temple, from whence to the king's house there was a descent: and speak there this word; of prophecy, relating to the several kings hereafter mentioned. This prophecy was delivered some years before that in the preceding chapter, though it stands here.”

Jeremiah 22:1

“Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word - This is supposed by Dahler to have been published in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah.”

Jeremiah 22:2

“O king of Judah - thou, and thy servants - His ministers are here addressed, as chiefly governing the nation; and who had counselled Zedekiah to rebel.”

Jeremiah 22:2

“The king of Judah is here spoken to as sitting upon the throne of David, who was a man after God's own heart, as holding his dignity and power by the covenant made with David; let him therefore conform to his example, that he may have the benefit of the promises made to him.”

Jeremiah 22:4

“For if ye do this thing indeed,.... Or, "in doing do this word" (y); diligently and carefully attend to this word of exhortation, and constantly perform the duties required: then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting upon the throne of David; or, upon the throne for David: in his room and stead, as successors of his; or of his lineage and descent, as the Vulgate Latin version.”

Jeremiah 22:5

“But if ye will not hear these words,.... Will give no attention, and yield no obedience to them: I swear by myself, saith the Lord; and by a greater he cannot swear; and that is the reason why he swears by himself, Heb 6:13; and as, when he swears to a promise, it shows the immutability of it, the certainty of its performance, and that it is irreversible, and never repented of, nor revoked; so it is when he swears to a threatening.”

Jeremiah 22:6

“Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon - Perhaps in allusion, says Dahler, to the oaks of Gilead, and the cedars of Mount Lebanon, of which the palace was constructed. Lebanon was the highest mountain in Israel, and Gilead the richest and most fertile part of the country; and were, therefore, proper emblems of the reigning family. Though thou art the richest and most powerful, I, who raised thee up, can bring thee down and make thee a wilderness.”

Jeremiah 22:6

“Gilead - Gilead was a country fertile for pastures; upon which account the Reubenites and Gadites, being men whose estate lay in cattle, begged it of Moses for their portion. Lebanon also was a very pleasant place: they were both in the lot of Gad and Manasseh.”

Jeremiah 22:6-9

“But, (2.) This shall not protect them; the country that is now fruitful as Gilead shall be made a wilderness. The cities that are now strong as Lebanon shall be cities not inhabited; and, when the country is laid waste, the cities must be dispeopled. See how easily God's judgments can ruin a nation, and how certainly sin will do it.”

Jeremiah 22:7

“And I will prepare destroyers against thee,.... The Chaldeans, men of savage dispositions, bent upon the destruction of their neighbours; and who had already destroyed many nations, and so fit instruments for such service, as after mentioned; and who yet did not come merely of themselves, but were moved and directed to it by the powerful and all wise providence of God, in consequence of a previous preparation and appointment of them by the Lord in his counsels and purposes.”

Jeremiah 22:7

“Prepare - i. e., consecrate, see Jer 6:4 note. Thy choice cedars - The chief members of the royal lineage and the leading officers of state.”

Jeremiah 22:8

“The Gentile nations, more intelligent than you, shall understand that which ye do not, namely, that this city is a spectacle of God's vengeance [CALVIN].”

Jeremiah 22:9

“They forsook the covenant of Jehovah their own God, revolted from their allegiance to him and from the duty which their covenant with him bound them to, and they worshipped other gods and served them, in contempt of him; and therefore he gave them up to this destruction.”

Jeremiah 22:10

“Weep ye not for the dead - Josiah, dead in consequence of the wound he had received at Megiddo, in a battle with Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt; but he died in peace with God. But weep sore for him that goeth away - Namely, Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, called below Shallum, whom Pharaoh-necho had carried captive into Egypt from which it was prophesied he should never return, 2Ki 23:30-34. He was called Shallum before he ascended the throne, and Jehoahaz afterwards; so his brother Eliakim changed his name to Jehoiakim, and Mattaniah to Zedekiah.”

Jeremiah 22:11

“Shallum - Most think that this Shallum was Jehoahaz. Went forth - He was carried away from Jerusalem presently after he was set up, imprisoned at Riblah, and died in Egypt.”

Jeremiah 22:11

“Josiah went to the grave in peace and honour, was prevented from seeing the evil to come in this world and removed to see the good to come in the other world; and therefore, Weep not for him, but for his unhappy son, who is likely to live and die in disgrace and misery, a wretched captive. Note, Dying saints may be justly envied, while living sinners are justly pitied.”

Jeremiah 22:12

“Whether he had any better right to the crown than Shallum we know not; for, though he was older than his predecessor, there seems to be another son of Josiah, older than he, called Johanan, 1 Chron. iii. But this we know he ruled no better, and fared no better at last. His sins faithfully reproved.”

Jeremiah 22:13

“But such a house as this sensual persons, they who dwell in cieled houses and delight in chased silver, do not build. For as they despise pure silver, so also they despise simple dwellings. They enlarge the site of their houses, they add more and more, joining house to house and farm to farm, they dig up the ground; so that the very earth itself gives way to their habitations, and like sons of the earth they are laid up within her womb, and hidden in her bowels.”

Jeremiah 22:13

“Far worse is the second example. Shallum was no heartless tyrant like Jehoiakim, who lived in splendor amid the misery of the nation, and perished so little cared for that his body was cast aside without burial. His chambers - Really, his upper chambers. From the absence of machinery the raising of materials for the upper stories was a difficult task, especially when massive stones were used. His work - Giveth him not his wages.”

Jeremiah 22:14

“Large chambers - spacious upper chambers. It is cieled - Or, roofing it. Vermilion - The pigment which gives the deep red color still bright and untarnished on many ancient buildings.”

Jeremiah 22:14

“Retaining English Version, there must be understood something remarkable about the windows, since they are deemed worthy of notice. GESENIUS thinks the word dual, "double windows," the blinds being two-leaved. vermilion--Hebrew, shashar, called so from a people of India beyond the Ganges, by whom it is exported [PLINY, 6.19].”

Jeremiah 22:14

“No doubt it is lawful for princes and great men to build, and beautify, and furnish their houses so as is agreeable to their dignity; but he that knows what is in man knew that Jehoiakim did this in the pride of his heart, which makes that to be sinful, exceedingly sinful, which is in itself lawful.”

Jeremiah 22:15

“Did he need to build costly palaces to secure his throne? Nay, he did secure it by "judgment and justice"; whereas thou, with all thy luxurious building, sittest on a tottering throne. then--on that account, therefore.”

Jeremiah 22:15

“Thus when Christ spoke of the destruction of the temple his disciples came to him, to show him what a magnificent structure it was, Matt. xxiii. Note, Those wretchedly deceive themselves who think their present prosperity is a lasting security, and dream of reigning because they are enclosed in cedar.”

Jeremiah 22:16

“First, God accepted him: " Was not this to know me, saith the Lord? Did he not hereby make it to appear that he rightly knew his God, and worshipped him, and consequently was known and owned of him?" Note, The right knowledge of God consists in doing our duty, particularly that which is the duty of our place and station in the world.”

Jeremiah 22:17

“Covetousness - literally, gain. Besides exacting forced labor Jehoiakim, to procure the necessary means for the vast expenses he incurred, put innocent people to death on various pretexts, and escheated their property.”

Jeremiah 22:18

“They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! - These words were no doubt the burden of some funeral dirge. Alas! a brother, who was our lord or governor, is gone. Alas, our sister! his Queen, who has lost her glory in losing her husband. הדה hodah is feminine, and must refer to the glory of the queen. The mournings in the east, and lamentations for the dead, are loud, vehement, and distressing.”

Jeremiah 22:18

The boldness of the Hebrew prophets proves their divine mission; were it not so, their reproofs to the Hebrew kings, who held the throne by divine authority, would have been treason. Ah his glory!--"Alas! his majesty."

Jeremiah 22:18-19

“This prophecy seems to have been calculated for the ungracious inglorious reign of Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin, the son of Jehoiakim, who succeeded him in the government, reigned but three months, and was then carried captive to Babylon, where he lived many years, ch. lii. We have, in these verses, a prophecy, I. Of the desolations of the kingdom, which were now hastening on apace,”

Jeremiah 22:19

“The burial of an ass - i. e., he shall merely be dragged out of the way, and left to decay unheeded. Nothing is known of the fulfillment of this prophecy.”

Jeremiah 22:19

“This is not formally narrated. But 2Ch 36:6 states that "Nebuchadnezzar bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon"; his treatment there is nowhere mentioned. The prophecy here, and in Jer 36:30, harmonizes these two facts.”

Jeremiah 22:20

“Go up to Lebanon, and cry,.... These words are directed to Jerusalem and its inhabitants, and to the people of the Jews; not to go up to the temple, as the Targum interprets it, so called, because made of the wood of Lebanon, as in Zec 11:1; or, as the Rabbins say, because it made white the sins of Israel; but the mountain of Lebanon, and from thence call to their neighbours for help in their present distress, as the Assyrians and Egyptians; and lift up thy voice in Bashan; another high hill in the land of Israel.”

Jeremiah 22:20

“Go up to Lebanon - Probably Anti-Libanus, which, together with Bashan and Abarim, which we here translate passages, were on the way by which the captives should be led out of their own country.”

Jeremiah 22:20

“Lebanon - Jerusalem was the place to which this speech is directed: the inhabitants of which the prophet calls to go up to Lebanon. Both Lebanon and Bashan were hills that looked towards Assyria, from whence the Jews looked for help. Abarim - Abarim is the name of a mountain, as well as Lebanon and Bashan.”

Jeremiah 22:21

“I spake unto thee in thy prosperity - In all states and circumstances I warned thee by my prophets; and thou wilt only be ashamed of thy conduct when thou shalt be stripped of all thy excellencies, and reduced to poverty and disgrace, Jer 22:22.”

Jeremiah 22:22

“The wind shall eat up all thy pastors,.... King, nobles, counsellors, priests, prophets, and elders of the people; they shall be carried away as chaff before the wind, or perish as trees and fruits are blasted with an east wind; to which Nebuchadnezzar and his army are sometimes compared; see Jer 18:”

Jeremiah 22:22

“Pastors - Thy rulers and governors, they shall be blasted by my judgments, as plants are blasted by winds. Thy lovers - And those that have been thy friends, Syria and Egypt.”

Jeremiah 22:23

“O inhabitant of Lebanon,.... Jerusalem is meant, and the inhabitants of it, so called, because they lived near Lebanon, or in that land in which Lebanon was; or rather because they dwelt in houses made of the wood of Lebanon; and which stood as thick as the trees in the forest of Lebanon; and where they thought themselves safe and secure, according to the next clause; not but that there were inhabitants of the mountain of Lebanon, called Druses; and there were towns and villages on it, inhabited by people, as there are to this day.”

Jeremiah 22:23

“Lebanon is the usual metaphor for anything splendid. and is here put for Jerusalem, but with special reference to the kings whose pride it was to dwell in palaces roofed with cedar Jer 22:14. How gracious shalt thou be - Or, How wilt thou groan!”

Jeremiah 22:23

“Note, Those that are proud of their worldly advantages would do well to consider how they will look when pangs come upon them, and how they will then have lost all their beauty. Here is a prophecy of the disgrace of the king; his name was Jeconiah, but he is here once and again called Coniah, in contempt.”

Jeremiah 22:24

“Jehoiachin's popularity is probably here referred to. right hand--the hand most valued. I would pluck thee thence--(Compare Ob 4); on account of thy father's sins, as well as thine own (2Ch 36:9). There is a change here, as often in Hebrew poetry, from the third to the second person, to bring the threat more directly home to him.”

Jeremiah 22:24

“Coniah - By Coniah he means Jehoiakim, whose name was Jeconiah, 1 Chron. iii, 13, (for all Josiah's sons had two names, and so had his grandchild Jeconiah) here in contempt called Coniah.”

Jeremiah 22:26

“I will cast thee out, and thy mother - See all this fulfilled, 2Ki 24:12, 2Ki 24:13. All were carried by Nebuchadnezzar into captivity together.”

Jeremiah 22:26

“As there is a time to be born and a time to die, so there is a place to be born in and a place to die in. We know where we were born, but where we shall die we know not; it is enough that our God knows. Let it be our care that we die in Christ, and then it will be well with us, wherever we die, though it should be in a far country.”

Jeremiah 22:28

“Luke the real pedigree, from Mary, the real parent, through Nathan, brother of Solomon, upwards (Lu 3:31). no man of his seed . . . upon the throne--This explains the sense in which "childless" is used. Though the succession to the throne failed in his line, still the promise to David (Ps 89:30-37) was revived in Zerubbabel and consummated in Christ.”

Jeremiah 22:29

“O earth, earth, earth,.... Not Coniah himself, an earthly man; but either the inhabitants of the whole earth, or of the land of Israel; or rather the earth, on which men dwell, is here called upon as a witness to what is after said; to rebuke the stupidity of the people, and to quicken their attention to somewhat very remarkable and worthy of notice, and therefore the word is repeated three times. Some think reference is had to the land from which, and that to which, the Jews removed, and the land of Israel, through which they passed.”

Jeremiah 22:30

“Thus saith the Lord, write ye this man childless,.... That is, Coniah, or Jeconiah; who though he had children in the captivity, yet they died in it, or however never succeeded him in the throne. This, to show the certainty of the thing, the Lord would have written.”

Jeremiah 22:30

“Write ye this man childless - Though he had seven sons, 1Ch 3:17, yet having no successor, he is to be entered on the genealogical tables as one without children for none of his posterity ever sat on the throne of David.”