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22. Judgment Against Evil Kings

¹ This is what the LORD says: “Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and proclaim this message there: ² ‘Hear the word of the LORD to you, king of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne—you, your officials and your people who come through these gates. ³ This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴ For if you are careful to carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by their officials and their people. ⁵ But if you do not obey these commands, declares the LORD, I swear by myself that this palace will become a ruin.’”

⁶ For this is what the LORD says about the palace of the king of Judah:

   “Though you are like Gilead to me,
   like the summit of Lebanon,
I will surely make you like a wasteland,
   like towns not inhabited.
⁷ I will send destroyers against you,
   each man with his weapons,
and they will cut up your fine cedar beams
   and throw them into the fire.

⁸ “People from many nations will pass by this city and will ask one another, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this great city?’ ⁹ And the answer will be: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

    ¹⁰ Do not weep for the dead king or mourn his loss;
   rather, weep bitterly for him who is exiled,
because he will never return
   nor see his native land again.

¹¹ For this is what the LORD says about Shallum Also called Jehoahaz son of Josiah, who succeeded his father as king of Judah but has gone from this place: “He will never return. ¹² He will die in the place where they have led him captive; he will not see this land again.”

    ¹³ “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,
   his upper rooms by injustice,
making his own people work for nothing,
   not paying them for their labor.
¹⁴ He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace
   with spacious upper rooms.’
So he makes large windows in it,
   panels it with cedar
   and decorates it in red.

    ¹⁵ “Does it make you a king
   to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
   He did what was right and just,
   so all went well with him.
¹⁶ He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
   and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
   declares the LORD.
¹⁷ “But your eyes and your heart
   are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
   and on oppression and extortion.”

¹⁸ Therefore this is what the LORD says about 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!’
¹⁹ He will have the burial of a donkey—
   dragged away and thrown
   outside the gates of Jerusalem.”

    ²⁰ “Go up to Lebanon and cry out,
   let your voice be heard in Bashan,
cry out from Abarim,
   for all your allies are crushed.
²¹ I warned you when you felt secure,
   but you said, ‘I will not listen!’
This has been your way from your youth;
   you have not obeyed me.
²² The wind will drive all your shepherds away,
   and your allies will go into exile.
Then you will be ashamed and disgraced
   because of all your wickedness.
²³ You who live in ‘Lebanon, That is, the palace in Jerusalem (see 1 Kings 7:2)’
   who are nestled in cedar buildings,
how you will groan when pangs come upon you,
   pain like that of a woman in labor!

²⁴ “As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “even if you, Jehoiachin Hebrew Koniah, a variant of Jehoiachin; also in verse 28 son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. ²⁵ I will deliver you into the hands of those who want to kill you, those you fear—Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Babylonians. Or Chaldeans ²⁶ I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another country, where neither of you was born, and there you both will die. ²⁷ You will never come back to the land you long to return to.”

    ²⁸ Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot,
   an object no one wants?
Why will he and his children be hurled out,
   cast into a land they do not know?
²⁹ O land, land, land,
   hear the word of the LORD!
³⁰ This is what the LORD says:
“Record this man as if childless,
   a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper,
   none will sit on the throne of David
   or rule anymore in Judah.”

The Prophet again changes the person, and yet not inelegantly, for he speaks here as one indignant, and after having addressed a few words to King Jeconiah, he turns aside from him and declares what God would do. Thus, when we think one hardly worthy to be addressed, we change our discourse; and after having spoken a few words to him, we take another mode of speaking. In the same manner, the Prophet spoke very indignantly when he addressed Jehoiakim, and then he declared how God would deal with him: he passed by him as though he was deaf or unworthy of being noticed. We thus see the design of the Prophet in the change he makes in this passage.

Into the land, he says, to which they raise up their mind that they may return, there they shall not return He had said before that both the king and his mother would die in a foreign land, and he now confirms the same thing; for the foolish notion, that the king of Babylon would be at length propitious to them, could not but with great difficulty be eradicated from their minds: nor is there a doubt but that such thoughts as these were entertained, — “When Nebuchadnezzar shall see us coming suppliantly to him, he will be turned to mercy, for what more does he require? He does not mean to fix here his royal palace; it; will satisfy him to have the people tributary to him; and when he shall find that I am a man of no courage, he will prefer having me a king, rather than to appoint a new one.” Such, then, was the reasoning which the king had with his courtiers. Hence this vain persuasion is what the Prophet now demolishes: They raise up their mind to the land, that is, they think of a free return at length into their own country; for to raise up the mind is to apply the mind or thought to any thing. They raise up, then, their mind to the land, that is, the land of Judah; but they shall never return thither, whatever they may promise to themselves. ⁶⁸⁶⁸ The phrase, “to raise or lift up the mind,” or the soul, is to set the heart on a thing. The Vulg. has adopted the Hebrew idiom, “to which they lift up their soul.” The Sept. leaves out “return,” and have only, “which they wish in their souls.” Our version retains the true idea, though it be not literal, “whereunto they desire to return;” literally, “where they are lifting up their soul to return there:” the two adverbs of place are given, the relative adverb and the pronoun adverb, if we may so call them. It is the same sort of idiom as when a relative and a pronoun are used, one before and the other after the verb, as in Jeremiah 22:25, “whom thou fearest (or dreadest) their face,” rightly rendered in our version, “whose face thou fearest:” but the Welsh is literally the Hebrew; the idiom is exactly the same. — Ed.