Truth and Consequences:
A study in the prophecy of Jeremiah
Chapter 22
By Bob Mendelsohn
Given 27 May 2022
Lesson Twenty-two: The failure of the unworthy kings
INTRODUCTION
Thank you, friends, for joining us today here in the Zoom room, as we unpack chapter 22 of Jeremiah. Let’s dig into it and find out what God has to say to us as 21st Century people wherever you live and for those on YouTube, from wherever and whenever you are watching.
Last week we began a section of particular warnings given to specific kings. Remember Pashchur was sent from Zedekiah and Jeremiah sent some serious messages of failure and impending doom. Now Jeremiah continues bringing the bad news to the royals in his and their day. And although the opener in today’s reading is unnamed, it’s clear it’s to someone. And the chapter ends with Jeconiah who has more nicknames than Queen Elizabeth or Brad Fittler, but his listing today brings up a real stumbling block to some folks because of his being listed in the genealogy of Yeshua. Let’s dig in.
The Opening Salvo: The unnamed king of unrighteousness (1-9)
Verses 1-5 represent the king of vanity and unnamed sin. It’s as if the prophet is saying something like, here is a list of bad kings, like you saw in the book of Chronicles. And so as not to cause you to lose sleep over this one or that one, let’s just say, after Josiah, the Good King, there was a major series of unworthy kings, people who should not have ever ascended to David’s throne. It’s the painting of a white canvas with very dark black and charcoal. And this will be significant as we anticipate the beauty of chapter 23 being placed atop that same canvas next week.
So the first king is the unnamed king. He’s on David’s throne. He has attendants who serve him. He should know and do things that David knew and did. And this first general overall king is indicted for failures about things of justice. About charity. About caring for the poor. About removal of Hamas ((verse 3), that is violence.
If you follow the rules, you will succeed, and people will come along and be part of the Kingdom you oversee.
But then in verse 5, if you don’t, there’s no hope for you and all your people. How do we know that? God swears BY HIMSELF. Almost “I swear to God…” or since he is God, “I swear to myself” like Jim Carrey, George Burns, or Steve Carrell said in one of those God movies. The writer of Hebrews says, he can swear by no one greater! (6.13).
In fact throughout this chapter, this typical prophetic announcement of the Word coming to the prophet, verse 1, “Thus says the Lord.” In verse three, same formula, verse 6, again “Thus says the Lord”, again in 11 and 18. But then the surprise in verse 24, “As I live…” almost another “I swear by my own integrity and on the basis of my eternal existence. A surprise and a strong statement, to be sure.
How else will this play out? Verses 6 and 7 show that the judgment is coming to God’s disappointment. Again we cannot tell if it’s Jeremiah or God who is the disappointed one, but someone certainly is. Especially with the contrast. Gilead is a place of healing and Lebanon is also a place of bounty and beauty. And full of inhabitants, but after God judges the people of this unnamed king, there will be a desert in its place and no one will live there. Lebanon is known for cedars, much like the specialty pine of Tasmania or North Carolina.
Verses 8 and 9 are the fulcrum of the chapter with the rich explanation Jeremiah is making clear both for the people in his day, and for the people 100 years later who would read and shake their head at the folly of Judah, and they would certainly have wondered what God was thinking about all this.
What do those verses teach?
Jer. 22:8 “ ‘And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, i“Why has the LORD dealt thus with this great city?” 9 jAnd they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and worshiped other gods and served them.”’”
After the place becomes a desert, and people are simply passing by, not stopping in, they will almost accuse the Lord of abandonment without reason. The answer will highlight the rejection of the Lord by the people and the covenant God both offered and continues to extend to us in chapter 31… wait for it.
Josiah himself (.10)[ God supports ]
OK, King Josiah is hinted at in 10. How? He’s dead already. And thus the reference to him, and perhaps his own disappointment in the “one who goes away” from the reforms he both instituted and expected to remain, especially if his own sons would run things in his place.
Jehoahaz (.11-12) (God has seized or held]
Next we meet a man with two names. First he’s Shallum. In other citings he is Jehoahaz. Either way, he’s not on the scene very long at all. He reigns one month only. He is taken into exile into Egypt. (Egypt (2 Ki. 23:30-34). And like the Jewish people themselves, destined for the exile, it’s fitting that he should be the first mention. Look at verse 11, the word “Yatza”, to go away from. The same we used to describe the departure from Egypt in the Exodus, now a fitting reminder that sin leads us into captivity, and being in the Holy Land is not necessarily that safe of a location from God’s judgment. Even the phrase in verse 12, “he shall never see the land again” sounds like the Exodus account when Moses assures the Jewish people (Ex. 14) that their fears are unwarranted, that the Egyptians whom we see, we will never see again. Now that same language is applied to the exodus FROM the Holy Land. Sad, no? And Shallum, a name of wholeness and peace…he should lead us away? Disappointing.
Jehoiakim (.13-19) [God has established]
Sheer disappointment continues in the house of Judah, due to the next king, another son of Josiah, Jehoiakim . Jehoiakim is personally accused of all the evils which Jeremiah generally condemns (cf. 6:13; 7:6; 26:20-23). And his condemnation is the lack of a proper burial.
When Josiah performed righteousness and judged well, in direct contrast to the selfishness of his son, then it was well with him.
I like the Hebrew. Az Tov Lo. אָ֖ז ט֥וֹב לֽוֹ׃ (.15). She’ll be right, mate. All good. In other words, things with the king were good, which would flow nationally for good, things economically were good, things interpersonally were good. It’s almost Jeremiah saying, “Son, you never had it so good as when your dad was the king.” But what did happen under his reign? He built his own palace with cedars (obviously the reference again to the Lebanese import. With windows and finery. The picture is one of lavish self-centredness. It’s a mirror of indulgence that Jeremiah hopes the king would see and about which he would be embarrassed. It didn’t work, though. And then Jeremiah uses only 2/3 of that phrase in Az Tov, not for the personal king Josiah, but for all of Judah. When the king lived right, it was good for everyone!
“Jeremiah probably wrote this prophecy before Jehoiakim revolted (2 Kings 24:1); and it, therefore, probably belongs to the same date as Jeremiah 36:30, written in the interval between Nebuchadnezzar’s first conquest of Jerusalem, and Jehoiakim’s rebellion, and when Jeremiah was out of the reach of the tyrant’s power.” (Barnes)
And again the reminder that right living is what it means to know God!(.16) Knowing and hearing God… those are two huge sub themes of this book we ever see… and will continue to see, and hear, if we are listening. What did Jehoiakim do? He put people to work without paying them a reaonable and timely wage. Both of which are huge expectations dashed in light of Solomon’s advice in Proverbs. I’m hearing Xanadu in the echo.
See the lack of a burial in verses 18 and 19. No one is coming out to lament for him, to honour him, to bury him. He’s given a donkey’s burial, which is no burial at all. (though he was forcibly removed from the throne by the Babylonians (2 Ki. 24:2-6; cf. also Je. 16:5-6).)
Jerusalem (20-23)
Again the political and military alliances that were forged would never be enough to calm the regional problem with Babylon, no matter how greased the palms of Assyria and Egypt were by the people and certainly by the kings of Judah. The shepherds are the leadership, and Jeremiah names the three passages that Babylon might and actually did take to capture us, from the north, the northeast and the southeast. The word “lovers” means the nations with whom Judah tried to have alliances. Verse 22: (Barnes): Those who used to drive their flocks to consume the herbage shall themselves be the first prey of war.
Jeconiah (24-30) [God is firm/ established]
Now the camera and the preaching of Jeremiah moves to the grandson of Josiah, the son of Jehoiakim, sometimes Jekoniah and sometimes without God’s name included, simply Coniah. He rules in 597 BCE for only three months!
He is someone many of us have studied as his name is listed in Matthew’s genealogy of the Messiah.
Matt. 1:12 After the deportation to Babylon: Jeconiah became the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel.
He also receives a bad report about his life and industry for God during his reign in Jerusalem. Childlessness in this report could be confusing, after what we just read from Matthew! Listen in verse 30: “Write this man down as childless” Why is this odd? Verse 28 says “he and his children are tossed/ hurled” Does he have children? Yes, of course. What does childless mean? It means none of them will sit on the throne of David. That’s the apparent end of the line for Jeconiah.
Do you remember the phrase used in chapter 7, “The Temple of the Lord?” There it was said and repaid and res said one more time to emphasise the faith the people had in the building instead of in the God of the building. Here we hear an echo of that with “Earth” or “Land” (Hebrew ERETZ) (v 29). And you hear it in conversations with Jewish people and certainly with Israelis today. On what do they fix their hope? The UN? Not at all. In the Scriptures and God’s plan for Israel? Ha! They hope in the Eretz because, it’s our land. Hatikvah. Lih’yot am chafshi, me’artzenu, …this land is mine, God gave this land to me. I hear the sentiment; I get it. I’m not opposed to the creation of and the maintenance of the land. But the land is a gift, our faith is a gift, God’s love is a gift…
When a child receives a gift, yes, the child sings its praises and the parent who gives it is happy. The next day, if the child has not yet turned and again thanked the parent, if the thing and not the parent is honoured, there is something missing. ERETZ, ERETZ… ARETZ.
Let’s talk about the problem of verse 30. “None of his children will sit on the throne.”
There are many ways to deal with this, but the simplest is to take the usual of biblical ‘curses’ or prohibitions and realise they are often with limitations. The punishment on children for the idolatry of parents only goes to the 3rd or 4th generation
Ex. 20:5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Why do we think that’s acceptable? Look at the contrast with who God really is. Exodus 34: 6 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and 1truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
What I’m saying is that the punishment might last for a short season, but the generosity and the forgiveness goes to a thousand generations!
(See Psalm 105.8)
So the first consideration is the limitation of the boundary. Yes, Coniah would not grow up and reign, and none of his children during the 6th century would rule in Jerusalem. BUT, and we have seen so many of these even in Jeremiah, this should not startle us, and yet, God would have his way and override this judgment if people would turn to him, listen to him, and be his people. That’s exactly what happened.
Oh, one further and obvious similarity is the story of Ruth. The Moabitess. She also is in the genealogy of Yeshua in Matthew’s rendering. And she also was of the cursed people.
Deut. 23:3 “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the LORD,
And yet, Ruth gets in, not on the basis of a disregard of that 10th generation problem, but on the basis of her faith in God and his capacity AND DESIRE to override the limitations of the boundaries of the judgments.
The 2nd consideration, and I’m only going to show 2, and there are more, and this is Michael Brown’s view (Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, Volume 4) (https://youtu.be/ZWbddh9cVhA) The verb for “count him as childless” means he won’t be having his immediate children to sit on the throne. In Jeremiah 36, Jehoiakim has the same curse pronounced over him that none of his children will sit on the throne, and yet, three of them do just that! And Brown goes further with the signet ring imagery. “Even if he were a signet ring, I would take him off.” Haggai 2 is the grandson of Jeconiah and God is ‘undoing’ the curse of Jer. 22. Even rabbinic literature says the CURSE was broken via repentance. So, there’s no problem with Yeshua being from Jeconiah. Amen?
Of note then for you…what will you do with the call to repentance?
What will you do if you are in a broken and dysfunctional family without God and without hope in the world?
Call on Yeshua!
CONCLUSION
God is calling each of us to know him and to walk with him, today and throughout our days. Have you received Yeshua as your messiah and Lord? He is risen from the dead! Have you renounced your sin, your idolatry, your forsaking God and given him First Place in your life? If not, please, do so now, just now, as we pray together. Use your own words, if you want, but yield, surrender, to the Lord of life.
PRAYER
Then please write us (admin@jewsforjesus.org.au) to tell us what you have just done, and we will send you literature and encourage you. You are part of our family; we love and appreciate you. And we want you to enjoy the presence of the Lord who calls, who knows, who blesses and builds us up.
We hope to see you again next week as we study chapter 18. Until then, Shabbat shalom!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barnes, Albert, Albert Barnes’ Commentary on the Old Testament,
Craigie, Peter; Kelley, Page; Drinkard, Joel. Word Biblical Commentary. Book of Jeremiah. 1991.
Henry, Matthew, Commentary.
McConnville, Gordon, Jeremiah, New Bible Commentary.
Weirsbe, Warren. Be Decisive. David Cook Publishers, Colorado Springs 1991.
Wright, Christopher, The Message of Jeremiah, The Bible Speaks Today, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2014.
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ACTUAL TEXT
Jer. 22:1 Thus says the LORD: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, 2 and say, w‘Hear the word of the LORD, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. 3 Thus says the LORD: xDo justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And ydo no wrong or violence zto the resident alien, xthe fatherless, and the widow, nor ashed innocent blood in this place. 4 For if you will indeed obey this word, bthen there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people. 5 But if you will not obey these words, I cswear by myself, declares the LORD, that dthis house shall become a desolation. 6 For thus says the LORD concerning the house of the king of Judah:
“ ‘You are like Gilead to me,
like the summit of eLebanon,
yet surely I will make you a desert,
fan uninhabited city.1
7 gI will prepare destroyers against you,
each with his weapons,
hand they shall cut down your choicest cedars
and cast them into the fire.
Jer. 22:8 “ ‘And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, i“Why has the LORD dealt thus with this great city?” 9 jAnd they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and worshiped other gods and served them.”’”
Jer. 22:10 kWeep not for him who is dead,
nor grieve for him,
lbut weep bitterly for him who goes away,
for he shall return no more
to see his native land.
Jer. 22:11 For thus says the LORD concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and mwho went away from this place: “He shall return here no more, 12 but min the place where they have carried him captive, there shall he die, and he shall never see this land again.”
Jer. 22:13 n“Woe to him who builds his house by ounrighteousness,
and his upper rooms by injustice,
pwho makes his neighbor serve him for nothing
and does not give him his wages,
14 who says, ‘I will build myself a great house
with spacious upper rooms,’
who cuts out windows for it,
paneling it with cedar
and qpainting it with vermilion.
15 Do you think you are a king
because you compete in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink
and rdo justice and righteousness?
sThen it was well with him.
16 tHe judged the cause of the poor and needy;
sthen it was well.
Is not this uto know me?
declares the LORD.
17 But you have eyes and heart
only for your dishonest gain,
vfor shedding innocent blood,
and for practicing oppression and violence.”
Jer. 22:18 Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
w“They shall not lament for him, saying,
x‘Ah, my brother!’ or ‘Ah, sister!’
They shall not lament for him, saying,
y‘Ah, lord!’ or ‘Ah, his majesty!’
19 With the burial of a donkey zhe shall be buried,
dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”
Jer. 22:20 “Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,
and lift up your voice in Bashan;
cry out from aAbarim,
for all byour lovers are destroyed.
21 I spoke to you in your prosperity,
but you said, ‘I will not listen.’
cThis has been your way from dyour youth,
that you have not obeyed my voice.
22 eThe wind shall shepherd all your shepherds,
and byour lovers shall go into captivity;
fthen you will be ashamed and confounded
because of all your evil.
23 O inhabitant of gLebanon,
nested among the cedars,
how you will be pitied when pangs come upon you,
hpain as of a woman in labor!”
Jer. 22:24 i“As I live, declares the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were jthe signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off 25 and kgive you linto the hand of those who seek your life, into the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 mI will hurl you and nthe mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. 27 But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.”
Jer. 22:28 Is this man oConiah a despised, broken pot,
a pvessel no one cares for?
Why are he and his children hurled and cast
into a qland that they do not know?
29 rO land, land, land,
hear the word of the LORD!
30 Thus says the LORD:
“Write this man down as schildless,
a man who shall not succeed in his days,
tfor none of his offspring shall succeed
tin sitting on the throne of David
and ruling again in Judah.”
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