What does Jeremias Chapter 22 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Royal justice accompanies conditional entry and desolation. Departing kings and unpaid labor receive specific accusations. Jechonias’s barrenness is qualified by the edition’s children note.

Chapter breakdown

Jeremias 22 addresses Juda's king, servants and gate-entering people in the royal house. Judgment, justice, rescuing the oppressed, protection of stranger, fatherless and widow, and no innocent blood accompany the conditional promise of David-throne kings entering with servants, people, chariots and horses. Refusal leaves this house desolate. Galaad and Libanus imagery receives separate edition explanation. Prepared destroyers cut chosen cedars for fire; the edition notes the literal sanctify wording. Nations attribute destruction to forsaking covenant for strange gods.

Weeping for the departing rather than the dead introduces Sellum's exile and no return; the edition identifies Josias and Sellum's Egyptian captivity. Unjust house-building, unpaid labor, large rooms, windows, cedar roofs and vermilion contrast with the father's eating, drinking and justice for poor, which was knowing the Lord. Covetousness, innocent blood and oppression lead to Joakim's unwept ass burial, rotten and cast beyond gates.

Calls from Libanus and Basan and to passers accompany destroyed lovers, unheard prosperous warnings, wind feeding pastors, captivity and labor pains. Even a right-hand ring Jechonias would be plucked and delivered to feared enemies, Nabuchodonosor and Chaldeans. He and his mother die in a foreign birthplace they never knew and do not return. Questions compare him to rejected pottery. The earth must hear his written barrenness: no man of his seed sits on David's throne with power in Juda. The edition specifies that he had children; this succession judgment is not expanded into an end of all Davidic heirs.

The story inside

Opening: Royal justice accompanies conditional entry and desolation. Development: Departing kings and unpaid labor receive specific accusations. Conclusion: Jechonias’s barrenness is qualified by the edition’s children note.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Royal justice accompanies conditional entry and desolation.
2
Departing kings and unpaid labor receive specific accusations.
3
Jechonias’s barrenness is qualified by the edition’s children note.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 86150–86169
22:1. Thus saith the Lord: Go down to the house of the king of Juda, and there thou shalt speak this word, Go down, etc.... The contents of this chapter are of a more ancient date than those of the foregoing chapter: for the order of time is not always observed in the writings of the prophets. 22:2. And thou shalt say: Hear the word of the Lord, king of Juda, that sittest upon the throne of David: thou and thy servants, and thy people, who enter in by these gates. 22:3. Thus saith the Lord: Execute judgment and justice, and deliver him that is oppressed out of the hand of the oppressor: and afflict not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, nor oppress them unjustly: and shed not innocent blood in this place. 22:4. For if you will do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house, kings of the race of David sitting upon his throne, and riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants, and their people.
Lines 86174–86181
22:6. For thus saith the Lord to the house of the king of Juda: Thou art to me Galaad the head of Libanus: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities not habitable. Galaad the head of Libanus.... By Galaad, a rich and fruitful country, is here signified the royal palace of the kings of the house of David: by Libanus, a high mountain abounding in cedar trees, the populous city of Jerusalem.
Lines 86196–86210
22:10. Weep not for him that is dead, nor bemoan him with your tears: lament him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. Weep not for him that is dead, etc.... He means the good king Josias, who by death was taken away, so as not to see the miseries of his country.—Ibid. Him that goeth away.... Viz., sellum, alias Joachaz, who was carried captive into Egypt. 22:11. For thus saith the Lord to Sellum the son of Josias the king of Juda, who reigned instead of his father, who went forth out of this place: He shall return hither no more: 22:12. But in the place, to which I have removed him, there shall he die, and he shall not see this land any more.
Lines 86212–86225
22:13. Woe to him that buildeth up his house by injustice, and his chambers not in judgment: that will oppress his friend without cause, and will not pay him his wages. 22:14. Who saith: I will build me a wide house, and large chambers: who openeth to himself windows, and maketh roofs of cedar, and painteth them with vermilion. 22:15. Shalt thou reign, because thou comparest thyself to the cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and it was then well with him? 22:16. He judged the cause of the poor and needy for his own good: was it not therefore because he knew me, saith the Lord?
Lines 86231–86237
22:18. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning Joakim the son of Josias king of Juda: They shall not mourn for him, Alas, my brother, and, Alas, sister: they shall not lament for him, Alas, my lord, or, Alas, the noble one. 22:19. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, rotten and cast forth without the gates of Jerusalem.
Lines 86254–86278
22:24. As I live, saith the Lord, if Jechonias the son of Joakim the king of Juda were a ring on my right hand, I would pluck him thence. 22:25. And I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, and into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 22:26. And I will send thee, and thy mother that bore thee, into a strange country, in which you were not born, and there you shall die: 22:27. And they shall not return into the land, whereunto they lift up their mind to return thither. 22:28. Is this man Jechonias an earthen and a broken vessel? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not? 22:29. O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. 22:30. Thus saith the Lord: Write this man barren, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for there shall not be a man of his seed that shall sit upon the throne of David, and have power any more in Juda. Write this man barren.... That is, childless: not that he had no children, but that his children should never sit on the throne of Juda.