Jeremiah

Jeremiah 22

30 verses · Major Prophets · Old Testament

1Yahweh said, “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this word, there: 2‘Hear Yahweh’s word, king of Judah, who sits on David’s throne, you, your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates. 3Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place. 4For if you do this thing indeed, then kings sitting on David’s throne will enter in by the gates of this house, riding in chariots and on horses, he, his servants, and his people. 5But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself,” says Yahweh, “that this house will become a desolation.” ’ ”

6For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah:

“You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited. 7I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons, and they will cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire.

8“Many nations will pass by this city, and they will each ask his neighbor, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this great city?’ 9Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh their God, worshiped other gods, and served them.’ ”

10Don’t weep for the dead. Don’t bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he will return no more, and not see his native country. 11For Yahweh says touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went out of this place: “He won’t return there any more. 12But he will die in the place where they have led him captive. He will see this land no more.” 13“Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor’s service without wages, and doesn’t give him his hire; 14who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house and spacious rooms,’ and cuts out windows for himself; with a cedar ceiling, and painted with red.
15“Should 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. 16He judged the cause of the poor and needy; so it was well, then. Wasn’t this to know me?” says Yahweh. 17But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.” 18Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They won’t lament for him, saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’ They won’t lament for him, saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’ 19He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”
20“Go up to Lebanon, and cry. Lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers have been destroyed. 21I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t obey my voice. 22The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. 23Inhabitant 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!

24“As I live,” says Yahweh, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, I would still pluck you from there. 25I would 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. 26I will cast you out with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die. 27But to the land to which their soul longs to return, there they will not return.”

28Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know? 29O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word! 30Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne, and ruling in Judah.”

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What others are saying

4 commentators · 67 notes on this chapter

Matthew HenryEnglish Puritan / Nonconformist · 1708–17143

Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.

Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.

v. 1–9

Here we have, I. Orders given to Jeremiah to go and preach before the king. In the foregoing chapter we are told that Zedekiah sent messengers to the prophet, but here the prophet is bidden to go, in his own proper person, to the house of the king, and demand…

v. 10–19

Kings, though they are gods to us, are men to God, and shall die like men; so it appears in these verses, where we have a sentence of death passed upon two kings who reigned successively in Jerusalem, two brothers, and both the ungracious sons of a very pious…

v. 20–30

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…

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176330

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 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…

v. 2

And say, hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah,.... O Jehoiakim king of Judah, hear the word of the King of kings; listen to it, and obey it, as kings ought to do; and it is for their good, as well as it is their duty, so to do: that sittest upon the…

v. 3

Thus saith the Lord, execute ye judgment and righteousness,.... Judge righteous Judgment; give the cause to whom it belongs, without respect of persons, and without a bribe or corruption; do no unrighteousness to any, by withholding from them what is due unto…

Keil & DelitzschGerman Lutheran, conservative-critical · 1861–18758

The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.

Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.

v. 1–9

The king is warned against injustice, and the violent oppression of the poor and defenceless. - Jer 22:1. "Thus said Jahveh: Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, Jer 22:2. And say: Hear the word of Jahveh, thou king of Judah…

v. 10–12

On Jehoahaz. - Jer 22:10. "Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan him; weep rather for him that is gone away, for he shall no more return and see the land of his birth. Jer 22:11. For thus saith Jahveh concerning Shallum, the son of Josiah king of Judah, who…

v. 13–14

The woe uttered upon Jehoiakim. - Jer 22:13. "Woe unto him that buildeth his house with unrighteousness and his upper chambers with wrong, that maketh his fellow labour for nought, and giveth him not his hire; Jer 22:14. That saith: I will build me a wide…

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownScottish Presbyterian / Reformed · 187126

The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.

Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.

v. 2

these gates--of the king's palace.

v. 3

Jehoiakim is meant here especially: he, by oppression, levied the tribute imposed on him by Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt (Ch2 36:3), and taxed his people, and took their labor without pay, to build gorgeous palaces for himself (Jer 22:13-17), and shed…

v. 4

upon the throne of David--literally, "or David on his throne" (see on Jer 13:13). This verse is repeated substantially from Jer 17:25. his servants--so the Keri. But Chetib, singular, "his servant;" that is, distributively, "each with his servants;" Jer…

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