CHAPTER XXIII. 1-8.

These verses form a portion only of a greater whole, to which, besides the whole of chap. xxii., chap. xxiii. 9-40 also belongs. For these verses contain a prophecy against the false prophets, and by the way also, against the degenerated priesthood (comp. ver. 11); and this prophecy easily unites itself with the preceding prophecy against the kings, so as to form one prophecy against the corrupt leaders of the people of God. But, for the exposition of the verses before us, it is only the connection with chap. xxii. which is of importance, and that so much so that, without carefully attending to it, they cannot at all be thoroughly understood. For this reason, we shall confine ourselves to bring it out more clearly.

The Prophet reproves and warns the kings of Judah, first, in general, announcing to them the judgments of the Lord upon them and their people,--the fulfilment of the threatenings, Deut. xxix. 22 ff.--if they are to continue in their hitherto ungodly course, chap. xxii. 1-9. In order to make a stronger impression, he then particularizes the general threatening, showing how God's recompensing justice manifests itself in the fate of the individual apostate kings. First, Jehoahaz is brought forward, the son and the immediate successor of Josiah, whom Pharaoh-Necho dethroned and carried with him to Egypt, vers. 10-12. The declaration concerning him forms a commentary on the name Shallum, _i.e._, the recompensed one, he whom the Lord recompenses according to his deeds,--which name the Prophet gives to him instead of the meaningless name Jehoahaz, _i.e._, God holds. His father, who met his death in the battle against the Egyptians, may be called happy when compared with him; for he never returns to his native [Pg 399] land; he lives and dies in a foreign land. The next whom he brings forward is Jehoiakim, vers. 13-19. He is a despot who does every thing to ruin the people committed to him. There is, therefore, the most glaring contrast between his beautiful name and his miserable fate. The Lord, instead of raising him up, will cast him down to the lowest depth; not even an honourable burial is to be bestowed upon him. No one weeps or laments over him; like a trodden down carcass, he lies outside the gates of Jerusalem, the city of the great King, which he attempted to wrest from him, and make his own. Then follows a parenthetical digression, vers. 20-23. Apostate Judah is addressed. The judgment upon her kings is not one with which she has nothing to do, as little as their guilt belongs to them as individuals only. It is, at the same time a judgment upon the people which, by the Lord's anger which they have called forth by their wickedness, is thrown down into the depth, from the height on which the Lord's mercy had raised them.--Next follows Jehoiachin, vers. 24-30. In his name "The _Lord_ will establish," the word _will_ has no foundation; the Lord _will_ reject him, cast him away, and break him in pieces like a worthless vessel. With his mother, he shall be carried away from his native land, and die in exile and captivity. Irrevocable is the Lord's decree, that none of his sons shall ascend the throne of David, so that he, having begotten children in vain, is to be esteemed as one who is childless.

At the commencement of the section under consideration (vers. 1 and 2), the contents of chap. xxii. are comprehended into one sentence. "Woe to the shepherds that destroy and scatter the flock of the Lord." Woe, then, to those shepherds who have done so. With this is then, in vers. 3-8, connected the announcement of salvation for the poor scattered flock. For the same reason, that the Lord visits upon those who have hitherto been their shepherds, the wickedness of their doings--viz., because of His being the chief Shepherd, or because of His covenant-faithfulness, He will in mercy remember them also, gather them from their dispersion, give, instead of the bad shepherds, a good one, viz., the long promised and longed for great descendant of David, who, being a _righteous_ King, shall diffuse justice and righteousness in the land, and thus [Pg 400] acquire for it righteousness and salvation from the Lord. So great shall the mercy of the Future be, that thereby the greatest mercy in the people's past history--their deliverance out of Egypt--shall be altogether cast into the shade.

There cannot be any doubt that the whole prophecy belongs to the reign of Jehoiakim; for the end of Jehoiakim and the fate of Jehoiachin are announced as future events.

_Eichhorn_ asserts that this section was composed under Zedekiah; but he could do so only by proceeding from his erroneous fundamental view, that the prophecies are veiled descriptions of historical events. "When Jeremiah"--so he says--"delivered this discourse, Jehoiakim had not only already met his ignominious end (xxii. 19), but Jeconiah also was, with his mother, already carried away captive to Babylon." It is matter of astonishment that _Dahler_, without holding the same fundamental view, could yet adopt its result. He specially refers to the circumstance that, in ver. 24, Jehoiachin is addressed as king,--a circumstance by which _Berthold_ also supports his view, who, cutting the knot, advances the position that vers. 1-19 belong to the reign of Jehoiakim, but vers. 20--xxxii. 8 to the time when Jehoiachin was carried away to Babylon. (_Maurer_ and _Hitzig_ too suppose that vers. 20 ff. were added at a later period, under the reign of Jehoiachin). But what difficulty is there in supposing that the Prophet transfers himself into the time, when he who is now a hereditary prince will be king,--of which the address is then a simple consequence? It is undeniable that a connection with chap. xxi. takes place, in which chapter Jeremiah announces to Zedekiah, threatened by the Chaldeans, the fall of the Davidic house, and the capture and destruction of the city. And this connection is to be accounted for by the fact that Jeremiah here connects with this announcement a former prophecy, in which, under the reign of Jehoiakim, he had foretold the fall of the Davidic house. The fate of the house of David is the subject common to both the discourses. _Küper_ (_Jeremias_, _libror. Sacror. interpres_, p. 58), supposes that, in the message to Zedekiah, Jeremiah had, at that time, repeated his former announcement; but this supposition is opposed by the circumstance that, in chaps. xxii., xxiii., there is no trace of a reference to Zedekiah and his embassy. _Ewald_ asserts that Jeremiah [Pg 401] here only puts together what "perhaps" he had formerly spoken regarding the three kings; but the words in chap. xxii. 1: "Go down into the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word," is conclusive against this assertion. For, according to these words, we have here not something put together, but a discourse which was delivered at a distinct, definite time; although nothing prevents us from supposing that the going down was done in the Spirit only.

We have here still to make an investigation concerning the names of the three kings occurring in chap. xxii., the result of which is of importance for the exposition of ver. 5.--It cannot but appear strange that the same king who, in the Book of the Kings, is called Jehoahaz, is here called Shallum only; that the same who is there called Jehoiachin, has here the name of Jeconias, which is abbreviated into Conias. The current supposition is, that the two kings had two names each. But this supposition is unsatisfactory, because, by the context in which they stand, the names employed by Jeremiah too clearly appear as _nomina realia_, as new names given to them by which the contrast between the name and thing was to be removed, and hence are evidently of the same nature with the _nomen reale_ of the good Shepherd in chap.