← Back to the beginning of Jeremiah 22
Ver. 15. Shalt thou reign because thou closest thyself in cedar?] Hast thou no better mediums to establish thy throne? no better defence against a potent enemy that comes to dethrone thee than a ceiling of cedar? What if thy cedar putrify not can it secure thee that thou perish not? Ah, never think it. Did not thy father eat and drink?] Live cheerfully and comfortably, enjoying peace and prosperity through his righteousness and piety. And then it was well with him.] Heb., Then was good to him; though he did not flaunt it out in sumptuous buildings. But you have great thoughts, and will not take it as your father did.
Ver. 16. He judged the cause of the poor and needy.] And so took a right course, a thriving way. (Proverbs 29:4) Was not this to know me? saith the Lord,] i.e., To show that he knew me soundly and savingly; while he exercised his general calling in his particular, and observed the first table of the decalogue in the second.
Ver. 17. But thine eyes and thy heart are not but for thy covetousness.] That is all thou mindest and lookest after, oculis atque animo intentus ad rem. “Hearts they have,” saith Peter of such, “exercised with covetous practices: cursed children.” (2 Peter 2:14) William Rufus is in story noted for such another.
Ver. 18. They shall not lament for him.] By his exactions he had so far lost his people’s affections, that none were found, either of his allies or others, that bewailed his death; but, Jehoram-like as he had lived undesired, so he died unlamented Edwin-like, as he lived wickedly, so he died wishedly; Mohammed-like, he lived feared of all men, and died bewailed of none. See the contrary promised to his brother Zedekiah, for his courtesy to Jeremiah, Jeremiah 34:5. Daniel’s History. Turkish History.
Ver. 19. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass.] His corpse shall be cast out, like carrion, into some bycorner. A just hand of God upon this wicked one, that he who had made so many to weep, should have none to weep over him; he who had such a stately house in Jerusalem, should not have a grave to house his carcase in: sed insepulta sepultura elatus, as Cicero phraseth it; but without the ordinary honour of burial, should be cast out, or thrown into a ditch or a dunghill, to be devoured by the beasts of the earth and fowls of heaven. Our Richard II, for his exactions to maintain a great court and favourites, lost his kingdom, was starved to death at Pomfret Castle, and scarcely afforded common burial. King Stephen was interred in Faversham monastery; but since, his body, for the value of the lead wherein it was coffined, was cast into river. Let great ones so live, as that they meet not in the end with the death of a dog, the burial of an ass, and the epitaph of an ox; such as Aristotle calleth that of Sardanapalus— “ ταυτ εχω, Εφαγον και εφυβρισα,” &c. Or that of Pope Alexander VI and his Lucrece— “ Hospes abi: iacet hic et scelus et vitium. ” Philippic i.
Ver. 20. Go up to Lebanon and cry.] Jehoiakim hath had his doom and his destiny read him. Followeth now Jehoiakim’s part, and what, for his obstinace, he shall trust to. The prophet beginneth this part of his discourse with a sarcasm or scoff at their carnal security and creature confidence. Get up, saith he, into those high mountains here mentioned, Lebanon, Bashan, Abarim, that look all toward Egypt, and see if thence, by crying and calling for help, thou mayest be saved from the Chaldees, who are coming upon thee; but all shall be to small purpose. But thy lovers are all destroyed.] The Egyptians, to whom thou bearest a blind affection, contrary to God’s covenant. Subiecit fata tristissima Iechoniae.
Ver. 21. I spake unto thee in thy prosperity.] Heb., In thy prosperities, or tranquillities. Prosperity rendereth men refractory. Demetrius called a peaceable and prosperous life a dead sea; because, being not tossed with any considerable troubles, it slayeth the simple, as Solomon hath it. (Proverbs 1:32) Men are usually best when worst, and worst when best: like the snake which, when frozen, lieth quiet and still, but waxing warm, stirreth and stingeth. The parable of the sun and the wind is known, Anglica gens est optima flens et pessima ridens. The English people are best crying and worst laughing. Some of those who, in Queen Mary’s days, kept their garments close about them, wore them afterwards more loosely. It is as hard to bear prosperity, as to drink much wine and not be giddy. It is, at least, as strong waters to a weak stomach; which, however they do not intoxicate, yet they weaken the brain: plus deceptionis semper habet quam delectationis; it always has greater deception then amusments, it is able to entice, and ready to kill the entangled. In rest we contract rust; neither are men’s ears opened to hear instruction but by correction. (Job 33:16) God holdeth us to hard meat, that he may be true to oar souls. (Psalms 119:75) This hath been thy manner from thy youth.] “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked,” is an old complaint. (Deuteronomy 32:15) To have been an old sinner, habituated and hardened in iniquity, is no small aggravation of it: Ezekiel 20:13, “But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness”; there they murmured against God and Moses ten times; “forty years was he there grieved with that perverse generation.” They began as soon as ever they were moulded into a state, like as Esau began to persecute Jacob in the very womb, that no time might be lost.
Ver. 22. The wind shall eat all thy pastors,] i.e., The vain hope that thy governors have in foreign helps shall deceive them; for God will make the strongest sinew in the arm of flesh to crack and break. Surely then shalt thou be ashamed.] When thou shalt see thyself so shamefully disappointed by human helps, which were never true to those that trusted them. Vento vanitatis, ut chamaeleontes aere pascuntur.
Ver. 23. O inhabitant of Lebanon.] Heb., O inhabitress—that is, O Jerusalem, who hast perched thyseff aloft, and pridest thyself in thy strength and stateliness. How gracious shalt thou be!] i.e., How ridiculous, when thy lofty and stately rooms wherein thou art roosted shall be to thee but as groaning rooms to women in travail.
Ver. 24. As I live, saith the Lord.] An oath which none may lawfully take but God himself, who is life itself. It is therefore sinful for any one to say, As I live, such a thing is so or so. That is God’s oath. See Numbers 14:21 Ps 95:11. Though Coniah.] So Jechoniah, or Jehoiakin, by an aphaeresis, dropping a letter, is called in scorn and contempt. Prepared he was of the Lord, as his name signifieth, for misery; and yet he was now but eighteen years old. (2 Kings 24:8) Youth excuseth not those that are wicked. This young king was scarce warm in his throne when carried captive to Babylon. Were the signet on my right hand.] Which is very carefully kept and carried about. See Song of Solomon 8:6 Hag 2:23, where good Zerubbabel, the nephew of this Jechoniah, is called God’s “signet.” Yet would I pluck thee thence.] This Nazianzen fitly applieth to preachers, such as prove vile and vicious.
Ver. 25. And I will give thee into the hand.] No sooner was he plucked off God’s hand but he fell into his enemies’ hands. So Saul’s doleful complaint was, God hath forsaken me, and the Philistines are upon me. (1 Samuel 28:15)
Ver. 26. And I will cast thee out.] Heb., I will hurl thee out. To be held captive by idolaters in a strange country is no small misery. Poor Zegedine found it so among the Turks.
Ver. 27. But to the land that they desire to return.] Heb., Which they lift up their soul to quam avent totaque anima expetunt, et ad quam summe anhelant; they shall die in banishment. So they that are once shut out of heaven must for ever abide in hell, would they never so fain get out, with dragons and devils.
Ver. 28. Is this Coniah a despised, broken idol?] Interrogatio pathetica: Is he not? Who would ever have thought to have seen a king of Judah so little set by, like some old picture or inglorious trunk? A vessel in which is no pleasure.] That is, by a modest round about phrase, A close stool, or piss pot. [so Hosea 8:8] He and his seed.] If any he had, or shall have in his captivity.
Ver. 29. O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.] Hear this irrevocable decree of mine, and this ensuing dreadful denunciation, which I cannot get this stupid and incredulous people to believe. His trebling of the word is [as Ezekiel 21:27] for more assurance. Some sense it thus, O Coniah, thou who art earth by creation, earth by generation, and earth by resolution, hear and give ear, be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken it. [as Jeremiah 13:15]
Ver. 30. Write ye this man childless] As to succession in the royal dignity, as well as to success in his reign. The Septuagint render it, A man abdicated or proscribed. This God would have to be written—that is, to be put upon public record for the use of posterity. Our chronicles tell us of John Dudley, that great Duke of Northumberland, in King Edward VI’s days—who endeavoured by all means to engrand his posterity, reaching at the crown also, which cost him his head—that though he had six sons, all men, all married, yet none of them left any issue behind them. “Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; serve the Lord with fear.” Ariri -i.e., orbus vel solus, sicut in deserto myrica. -Fuller.