Bible Commentaries

Concerning the Kings of Judah (22:1-23:8)

CHAPTER 22

1. The message in the house of the king of Judah (Jeremiah 22:1-9)

2. Touching Shallum, the King of Judah (Jeremiah 22:11-12)

3. Concerning Jehoiakim and his fate (Jeremiah 22:13-19)

4. Concerning Coniah and his fate (Jeremiah 22:20-30)

Jeremiah 22:1-10. What a figure Jeremiah was as he stood, obedient to the divine command, before the royal palace to deliver his God-given message! The door of mercy still is open. Let them execute judgment, let them stop oppressing the stranger, the widows and orphans, let them shed no longer innocent blood, then the house of David shall prosper. If not, the house shall become a desolation. The nations astonished at the destruction and overthrow of the city will hear the answer that it is “because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and worshipped other gods and served them.”

Jeremiah 22:11-12. He is also called Jehoahaz 1 Chronicles 3:15; 2 Kings 23:30-37. He was carried away by Pharaoh-Necho into Egypt; he will return.

Jeremiah 22:13-19. This wicked king and his evil doings are described in these verses. He was a cruel despot, who built his palaces by forced labor; covetousness, shedding of innocent blood, oppression and violence characterized his reign. Then his ignominious burial, the burial of an ass, is predicted. It means that an ass has no burial and so Jehoiakim would have no burial; he is the only king of Judah whose burial is not recorded. It may be possible that Jeremiah added these words by divine command, after this king had cut the roll to pieces and burned it in the fire Jeremiah 36:1-32. The prophet wrote the same words contained in the roll (all these chapters beginning with chapter 2 constitute the roll the king burned), and many others were added. Most likely because he had done that wicked work in cutting the Word of God to pieces and casting it into the fire, this special shameful end was announced. Beware you cutters of the Bible, you mutilators of the Word of God, your end, too, will be an ignominious end!

Jeremiah 22:20-30. Coniah, also called Jehoiachin, Joiakim and Joachim, after a brief reign of a few months had been carried away to Babylon to die there. Then the prophet’s voice breaks in with a mighty appeal, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.” Every true believer feels like shouting these words in the present days of departure from God and rejection of His Word. Then there is a prediction as to Jeconiah, “Write ye this man childless, 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.” A curse was thus pronounced upon the house of David in the line of Solomon. But there was still the line of Nathan the son of David. Messiah, the Son of David, could therefore not spring from the line of Solomon; he must come from the line of Nathan. Joseph, the husband of the virgin Mary of Nazareth was a son of David through the line of Solomon, the disinherited line; but Mary of Nazareth was a daughter of David through the line of Nathan.