Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.
30. He shall ] See on Jer 22:18 f.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
He shall have none to sit … – The 3 months reign of Jehoiakim was too destitute of real power to be a contradiction to this prediction.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 30. He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David] He shall have no successor, and himself shall have an untimely end, and shall not even be buried, but his body be exposed to the open air, both night and day. He who wishes to hide his crimes, or take away the evidence which is against him, adds thereby to his iniquities, and is sure in consequence to double his punishment. See the threatening against Jehoiakim, Jer 22:19, and See Clarke on Jer 22:19.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That is, none that shall be king any considerable time; Jeconiah or Jehoiachin his son was set up, but kept his throne but three months, 2Ki 24:8-10. We no where read of the time or manner of this kings death, but that he had an ignominious burial, Jer 22:19, like the burial of an ass, none accompanying his corpse, none mourning for him; and it appears from this text, that wherever he died, his body lay for a time unburied.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
30. He shall have none to sit uponthe thronefulfilled (2Ki 24:8;2Ki 25:1-30). He hadsuccessors, but not directly of his posterity, except hisson Jeconiah, whose three months’ reign is counted as nothing.Zedekiah was not the son, but the uncle of Jeconiah, and was raisedto the throne in contempt of him and his father Jehoiakim (Jer22:30).
dead body . . . cast out(Jer 22:18; Jer 22:19).
day . . . heat . . . night .. . frostThere are often these variations of temperature inthe East between night and day (Ge31:40).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Therefore thus saith the Lord, of Jehoiakim king of Judah,…. Or, “concerning” x him; for Jehovah is not here said to be “the Lord of Jehoiakim”, though he was, being King of kings, and Lord of lords; bat as speaking concerning him, and threatening him, as follows:
he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; that is, none of his issue that should reign after him, or succeed him in the throne of David and kingdom of Judah; for his son Jeconiah reigned but three months, which is reckoned as nothing, and could not be called sitting upon the throne; and, besides, was never confirmed by the king of Babylon, in whose power he was, and by whom he was carried captive; and Zedekiah, who followed, was not his lawful successor, was brother to Jehoiakim, and uncle to Jeconiah, and was set up by the king of Babylon in contempt of the latter; and as for Zerubbabel, he was no king, nor was there any of this family till the Messiah came:
and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. The sense is, he should have no burial but that of an ass, Jer 22:18; should be cast into a ditch, and be exposed to the heat of the sun in the daytime, and to nipping frosts at night, and so putrefy and become nauseous; and though the body would be insensible of it, yet would it be very reproachful to the character of a prince, and shocking to any to behold; and very disagreeable and dreadful for himself to hear and think of.
x “de”, Schmidt, &c.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
But the Prophet immediately shows that the ungodly in vain resist God, when they kick against the goad; they must necessarily be torn in pieces by the stone with which they contend, because their hardness cannot hinder God from executing his judgments. It is therefore added, Thus saith Jehovah of the king Jehoiakim, Be shall have no one to succeed him on the throne of David By saying, that he should have no successor, he means that he should have none of his own posterity; for though his son Jeconiah was made king in his stead, yet as he reigned only for three months, this short time was not counted. Then Jeremiah declares, by God’s cmnmand, that King Jehoiakim should not have a legitimate successor, for his son Jeconiah was led into exile at the end of three months; and Zedekiah was not counted as a legitimate successor, because he was the uncle. And there is also no doubt but that Nebuchadnezzar, from ill-will and hatred, set him on the throne, for he thus raised him in order to degrade Jehoiakim and Jeconiah.
We now then perceive in what sense God threatened that there would be none to succeed King Jehoiakim; for it is not simply said, “There shall be none to sit on the throne of David;” but, “There shall be none to him,” לא יהיה לו la ieie lu, that is, “There shall be none of his children, or of his offspring, to succeed him on the throne of David.” For the last king was Zedekiah, and he, as I have said, was the uncle; so that the whole royal seed were cast off, for no one after this time ever succeeded to the throne.
But it may be asked, How can this prophecy agree with the promise, that the posterity of David should continue as long as the sun and moon shone as faithful witnesses in the heavens? (Psa 89:37) God had promised that the kingdom of David should be perpetual, and that there would be some of his posterity to rule as long as the sun and moon shone in the heavens; but what does our Prophet mean now, when he says, that there shall not be a successor? This is, indeed, to be confined to the posterity of Jehoiakim; but yet we must bear in mind what we have seen elsewhere, and that is, that he speaks here of an interruption, which is not inconsistent with perpetuity; for the perpetuity of the kingdom, promised to David, was such, that it was to fall and to be trodden under foot for a time, but that at length a stem from Jesse’s root would rise, and that Christ, the only true and eternal David, would so reign, that his kingdom should have no end. When, therefore, the Prophets say, that there would be none to sit on David’s throne, they do not mean this strictly, but they thus refer only to that temporary punishment by which the throne was so overturned, that God at length would, in his own time, restore it, according to what Amos says,
“
For come shall the time when God shall raise up the fallen tabernacle of David.” (Amo 9:11)
We now perceive in what sense hath stood firm the promise respecting the perpetuity of the kingdom, and that the kingdom had yet ceased for a time, that is, until Christ came, on whose head was placed the diadem, or the royal crown, as Ezekiel says. (Eze 21:26) There is yet no doubt but this great inconsistency was made an objection to Jeremiah:
“
What! can it be that the throne of David should be without a legitimate heir? Canst thou draw down the sun and moon from the heavens?”
In like manner, when the Prophets spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem, they said:
“
What! Is it not said, ‘This is my rest for ever, here will I dwell?’ (Psa 83:14)
Can it be that God will be without his habitation on earth, especially when he calls it his rest?” But the answer to all this was not difficult, even that God remained faithful to his promises, though his favor was, for a time, as it were, under a cloud, so that the dreadful desolation both of the city and of the kingdom might be an example to all.
There is no doubt, then, but that they shewed to the Prophet that the kingdom would be hid, as though it were a treasure concealed in the earth, and that still the time would come when God would again choose both the city and the kingdom, and restore them to their pristine dignity, as the Papists say, who boast in high terms of everything said in Scripture respecting the perpetual preservation of the Church:
“
Christ promises to be with his people to the end of the world, that he will be where two or three meet together in his name, that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth.” (Mat 28:20; 1Ti 3:15)
They heap together all these things, in order to shew that God is in a manner tied and bound to them. But we can easily dissipate these frivolous objections; for God does wonderfully and invisibly preserve his Church in the world; and then the outward face of the Church does not always appear, but it is sometimes hid, and afterwards it emerges and recovers its own dignity, which, for a time, might seem to have been extinguished. Hence we give now the same answer to the Papists as the Prophets formerly did to the ancient people, — that God is a faithful preserver of his Church, but not according to the perception of the flesh, for the Church is in a wonderful manner sustained by God, and not in a common way, or as they say, according to the usual order of things.
He says that the dead body of Jehoiakim would be cast out, to be exposed to the cold in the night, and to the heat in the day This might seem unimportant, like what we threaten children with, when we mention some phantoms to them; for what harm could it have been to Jehoiakim to have his dead body exposed to the cold in the night? for no injury or feeling of sorrow can happen to a dead body, as a dead man as to his body can have no feeling. It seems then that it is to little purpose that the Prophet says, that his dead body would be exposed to the heat in the day, and to the cold at night. But this is to be referred to the common law of nature, of which we have spoken elsewhere; for it is a sad and disgraceful thing, nay, a horrid spectacle, when we see men unburied; and the duty of burying the dead has from the beginning been acknowledged, and burial is an evidence of a future resurrection, as it has been before stated. When, therefore, the body of man lies unburied, all men shun and dread the sight; and then when the body gets rigid through cold, and becomes putrid through the heat of the day, the indignity becomes still greater. God then intended to set forth the degradation that awaited Jehoiakim, not that any hurt could be done to him when his body was cast out, and not honored with a burial, but that it would be an evidence of God’s vengeance, when a king was thus cast out as an ass or a dog, according to what we have seen elsewhere, “With the burial of an ass shall he be buried,” that is, he will be deemed unworthy of common honor; for as it falls to the lot of the lowest of men to find a pit where their bodies lie buried, it was a rare and unusual proof of God’s vengeance, that a king should he exposed as a prey to birds and wild beasts. We know what Jehu said of Jezebel,
“
Let her be buried, for she is a king’s daughter.” (2Kg 9:34)
She was worthy to be torn to pieces a hundred times. She had been cast out from a chamber, and the dogs licked her blood; yet an enemy ordered her to be buried — and why? because she was a king’s daughter, or descended from a royal family, (1Kg 21:23 🙂 then, he said, let her be buried.
We now then understand the meaning of the Prophet, or rather of the Holy Spirit, that it would be a remarkable proof of God’s vengeance, when the body of King Jehoialdm should be exposed at night to the cold, and in the day to the heat. This has also happened sometimes to the saints, as we have before said; but it was a temporal punishment common to the good and to the bad. We ought yet always to consider it as God’s judgment. When a godly man is left without burial, we must know that all things happen for good to God’s children, according to what Paul says, whether it be life or death, it is for their salvation. (Rom 8:28) But when God gives a remarkable proof of his wrath against an ungodly man, our eyes ought to be opened; for it is not right to be blind to the manifest judgments of God; for it is not in vain that Paul reminds us that God’s judgment will come on the ungodly; but he would have us carefully to consider how God punishes the reprobate in life and in death and even after death. It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
30. None to sit The three months’ reign of Jeconiah was too trivial and insignificant to be counted.
His dead body shall be cast day to the heat, night to the frost These are individualizing expressions, and add solemnity and graphic force.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 36:30 Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.
Ver. 30. He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David, ] i.e., None to make any reckoning of, for his son Jeconiah reigned but three months and ten days. And Zedekiah is not looked upon as his lawful successor, because he was his uncle, and set up likely by Nebuchadnezzar for a reproach to Jehoiakim aud Jeconiah; and in as great spite as once Attilus, King of Suesia, made a dog king of the Danes, in revenge of a great many injuries received by them, appointing counsellors to do all things under his title.
And his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat.
a Malms., lib. ii. cap. 10.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
of = concerning.
none to sit, &c. = none sitting, &c. Hebrew. yashab, implying permanence. His son Jehoiachin reigned only three months, and then only on sufferance (2Ki 24:6-8). See note on Jer 22:30. See App-99.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
He shall: Jer 22:30, 2Ki 24:12-15
and his: Jer 22:18, Gen 31:40
in the: Sir J. Chardin observes, “In the Lower Asia, in particular, the day is always hot; and as soon as the sun is fifteen degrees above the horizon, no cold is felt in the depth of winter itself. On the contrary, in the height of summer the nights are as cold as at Paris in the month of March. It is for this reason that in Persia and Turkey they always make use of furred habits in the country, such only being sufficient to resist the cold of the nights. I have travelled in Arabia, and in Mesopotamia – the theatre of the adventures of Jacob both in winter and in summer, and have found the truth of what the Patriarch said, “That he was scorched with the heat in the day, and stiffened with cold in the night” – Gen 31:40. This contrariety in the qualities of the air in twenty-four hours is extremely great in some places, and not conceivable by those that have not felt it; one would imagine that he had passed in a moment from the violent heats of summer to the depth of winter. Thus it had pleased God to temper the heat of the sun by the coldness of night, without which the greatest part of the East would be barren, and a desert.
Reciprocal: 2Ki 9:35 – but they found 2Ki 24:6 – slept Ecc 6:3 – and also Jer 8:2 – they shall be Jer 16:4 – neither Jer 22:2 – that sittest Jer 22:19 – General Jer 26:23 – and cast Eze 19:9 – and brought
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 36:30. Have none to sit upon the throne ignores the 3-month reign of his son Jehoiachin. Such a short and uneventful reign was not considered worth noticing. The prediction concerning the dead body of Jehoiakim was made before and comments were made there at ch. 22: 19.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 36:30-31. He shall have none to sit on the throne of David That is, none that shall be king any considerable time; Jeconiah, his son, was set up, but kept his throne only three months, and left none to succeed him in a direct line. And his dead body shall be cast out See note on Jer 22:19. And I will punish him and his seed, &c. Even his seed and his servants shall fare the worse for their relation to him: for they shall be punished, not indeed for his iniquity, but the sooner for their own. And as to the people, God threatens that they should feel what they were not willing to hear, even all the evil which God by his prophet had pronounced against them. Though the roll, the copy of the divine decree, was burned, the original remained, which should again be copied out after another manner in bloody characters. There is no escaping Gods judgments by striving against them. Who ever hardened his heart against God and prospered?
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
36:30 Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have {q} none to sit upon the throne of David: and his {r} dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.
(q) Though Jehoiachin his son succeeded him, yet because he reigned but three months, it was esteemed as no reign.
(r) Read Geneva “Jer 22:19”
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Because Jehoiakim had done this, he would have no descendant to follow him on Judah’s throne. His son Jehoiachin did reign for three months after his father, but Jehoiachin assumed the throne without authorization, and Nebuchadnezzar quickly deported him to Babylon. Furthermore, Jehoiakim would suffer an ignominious death without burial (cf. Jer 22:18-19). He who threw (Heb. hishlik) the scroll into the fire would be thrown (Heb. hushlak) out into the elements. Josiah, in contrast, received an honorable burial (2Ki 23:30; 2Ch 35:24). Jehoiakim evidently died either in a palace uprising or in a revolt by the people (cf. Jer 22:18-19). [Note: Feinberg, "Jeremiah," p. 609; Graybill, p. 682.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER VI
THE JUDGMENT ON JEHOIAKIM
Jer 22:13-19; Jer 36:30-31
“Jehoiakim slew him (Uriah) with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people.”- Jer 26:23
“Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim, He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”- Jer 22:18-19
“Jehoiakim did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done.”- 2Ki 23:36-37
OUR last four chapters have been occupied with the history of Jeremiah during the reign of Jehoiakim, and therefore necessarily with the relations of the prophet to the king and his government. Before we pass on to the reigns of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, we must consider certain utterances which deal with the personal character and career of Jehoiakim. We are helped to appreciate these passages by what we here read, and by the brief paragraph concerning this reign in the Second Book of Kings. In Jeremiah the kings policy and conduct are especially illustrated by two incidents, the murder of the prophet Uriah and the destruction of the roll. The historian states his judgment of the reign, but his brief record {2Ki 23:34-37; 2Ki 24:1-7} adds little to our knowledge of the sovereign.
Jehoiakim was placed upon the throne as the nominee and tributary of Pharaoh Necho; but he had the address or good fortune to retain his authority under Nebuchadnezzar, by transferring his allegiance to the new suzerain of Western Asia. When a suitable opportunity offered, the unwilling and discontented vassal naturally “turned and rebelled against” his lord. Even then his good fortune did not forsake him; although in his latter days Judah was harried by predatory bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites. and Ammonites, yet Jehoiakim “slept with his fathers” before Nebuchadnezzar had set to work in earnest to chastise his refractory subject. He was not reserved, like Zedekiah, to endure agonies of mental and physical torture, and to rot in a Babylonian dungeon.
Jeremiahs judgment upon Jehoiakim and his doings is contained in the two passages which form the subject of this chapter. The utterance in Jer 36:30-31, was evoked by the destruction of the roll, and we may fairly assume that Jer 22:13-19 was also delivered after that incident. The immediate context of the latter paragraph throws no light on the date of its origin. Chapter 22 is a series of judgments on the successors of Josiah, and was certainly composed after the deposition of Jehoiachin, Probably during the reign of Zedekiah; but the section on Jehoiakim must have been uttered at an earlier period. Renan indeed imagines (3:274) that Jeremiah delivered this discourse at the gate of the royal palace at the very beginning of the new reign. The nominee of Egypt was scarcely seated on the throne, his “new name” Jehoiakim-“He whom Jehovah establisheth” – still sounded strange in his ears, when the prophet of Jehovah publicly menaced the king with condign punishment. Renan is naturally surprised that Jehoiakim tolerated Jeremiah even for a moment. But, here as often elsewhere, the French critics dramatic instinct has warped his estimate of evidence. We need not accept the somewhat unkind saying that picturesque anecdotes are never true, but, at the same time, we have always to guard against the temptation to accept the most dramatic interpretation of history as the most accurate. The contents of this passage, the references to robbery, oppression, and violence, clearly imply that Jehoiakim had reigned long enough for his government to reveal itself as hopelessly corrupt. The final breach between the king and the prophet was marked by the destruction of the roll, and Jer 22:13-19, like Jer 36:30-31, may be considered a consequence of this breach.
Let us now consider these utterances: In Jer 36:30 we read, “Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David.” Later on, {Jer 22:30} a like judgment was pronounced upon Jehoiakims son and successor Jehoiachin. The absence of this threat from Jer 22:13-19 is doubtless due to the fact that the chapter was compiled when the letter of the prediction seemed to have been proved to be false by the accession of Jehoiachin. Its spirit and substance were amply satisfied by the latters deposition and captivity after a brief reign of a hundred days.
The next clause in the sentence on Jehoiakim runs: “His dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.” The same doom is repeated in the later prophecy:-
“They shall not lament for him, Alas my brother! Alas my brother! They shall not lament for him, Alas lord! Alas lord! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, Dragged forth and cast away without the gates of Jerusalem.”
Jeremiah did not need to draw upon his imagination for this vision of judgment. When the words were uttered, his memory called up the murder of Uriah ben Shemaiah and the dishonour done to his corpse. Uriahs only guilt had been his zeal for the truth that Jeremiah had proclaimed. Though Jehoiakim and his party had not dared to touch Jeremiah or had not been able to reach him, they had struck his influence by killing Uriah. But for their hatred of the master, the disciple might have been spared. And Jeremiah had neither been able to protect him, nor allowed to share his fate. Any generous spirit will understand how Jeremiahs whole nature was possessed and agitated by a tempest of righteous indignation, how utterly humiliated he felt to be compelled to stand by in helpless impotence. And now, when the tyrant had filled up the measure of his iniquity, when the imperious impulse of the Divine Spirit bade the prophet speak the doom of his king, there breaks forth at last the long pent up cry for vengeance: “Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saint”-let the persecutor suffer the agony and shame which he inflicted on Gods martyr, fling out the murderers corpse unburied, let it lie and rot upon the dishonoured grave of his victim.
Can we say, Amen? Not perhaps without some hesitation. Yet surely, if our veins run blood and not water, our feelings, had we been in Jeremiahs place, would have been as bitter and our words as fierce. Jehoiakim was more guilty than our Queen Mary, but the memory of the grimmest of the Tudors still stinks in English nostrils. In our own days, we have not had time to forget how men received the news of Hanningtons murder at Uganda, and we can imagine what European Christians would say and feel if their missionaries were massacred in China.
And yet, when we read such a treatise as Lactantius wrote “Concerning the Deaths of Persecutors,” we cannot but recoil. We are shocked at the stern satisfaction he evinces in the miserable ends of Maximin and Galerius, and other enemies of the true faith. Discreet historians have made large use of this work, without thinking it desirable to give an explicit account of its character and spirit. Biographers of Lactantius feel constrained to offer a half-hearted apology for the “De Morte Persecutorum.” Similarly we find ourselves of one mind with Gibbon, (chapter 13) in refusing to derive edification from a sermon in which Constantine the Great, or the bishop who composed it for him, affected to relate the miserable end of all the persecutors of the Church. Nor can we share the exultation of the Covenanters in the Divine judgment which they saw in the death of Claverhouse; and we are not moved to any hearty sympathy with more recent writers, who have tried to illustrate from history the danger of touching the rights and privileges of the Church. Doubtless God will avenge His own elect; nevertheless Nemo me impune lacessit is no seemly motto for the Kingdom of God. Even Greek mythologists taught that it was perilous for men to wield the thunderbolts of Zeus. Still less is the Divine wrath a weapon for men to grasp in their differences and dissensions, even about the things of God. Michael the Archangel, even when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, “durst not bring against him a railing judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.” {Jud 1:9}
How far Jeremiah would have shared such modern sentiment, it is hard to say. At any rate his personal feeling is kept in the background; it is postponed to the more patient and deliberate judgment of the Divine Spirit, and subordinated to broad considerations of public morality. We have no right to contrast Jeremiah with our Lord and His proto-martyr Stephen, because we have no prayer of the ancient prophet to rank with, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” or again with, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Christ and His disciple forgave wrongs done to themselves: they did not condone the murder of their brethren. In the Apocalypse, which concludes the English Bible, and was long regarded as Gods final revelation, His last word to man, the souls of the martyrs cry out from beneath the altar: “How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”
Doubtless God will avenge His own elect, and the appeal for justice may be neither ignoble nor vindictive. But such prayers, beyond all others, must be offered in humble submission to the Judge of all. When our righteous indignation claims to pass its own sentence, we do well to remember that our halting intellect and our purblind conscience are ill qualified to sit as assessors of the Eternal Justice.
When Saul set out for Damascus, “breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,” the survivors of his victims cried out for a swift punishment of the persecutor, and believed that their prayers were echoed by martyred souls in the heavenly Temple. If that ninth chapter of the Acts had recorded how Saul of Tarsus was struck dead by the lightnings of the wrath of God, preachers down all the Christian centuries would have moralised on the righteous Divine judgment. Saul would have found his place in the homiletic Chamber of Horrors with Ananias and Sapphira, Herod and Pilate, Nero and Diocletian. Yet the Captain of our salvation, choosing His lieutenants, passes over many a man with blameless record, and allots the highest post to this bloodstained persecutor. No wonder that Paul, if only in utter self-contempt, emphasised the doctrine of Divine election. Verily Gods ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.
Still, however, we easily see that Paul and Jehoiakim belong to two different classes. The persecutor who attempts in honest but misguided zeal to make others endorse his own prejudices, and turn a deaf ear with him to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, must not be ranked with politicians who sacrifice to their own private interests the Revelation and the Prophets of God.
This prediction which we have been discussing of Jehoiakims shameful end is followed in the passage in chapter 36, by a general announcement of universal judgment, couched in Jeremiahs usual comprehensive style:-
“I will visit their sin upon him and upon his children and upon his servants, and I will bring upon them and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the evil which I spake unto them and they did not hearken.”
In chapter 22 the sentence upon Jehoiakim is prefaced by a statement of the crimes for which he was punished. His eyes and his heart were wholly possessed by avarice and cruelty; as an administrator he was active in oppression and violence. But Jeremiah does not confine himself to these general charges; he specifies and emphasises one particular form of Jehoiakims wrong-doing, the tyrannous exaction of forced labour for his buildings. To the sovereigns of petty Syrian states, old Memphis and Babylon were then what London and Paris are to modern Ameers, Khedives, and Sultans. Circumstances, indeed, did not permit a Syrian prince to visit the Egyptian or Chaldean capital with perfect comfort and unrestrained enjoyment. Ancient Eastern potentates, like mediaeval suzerains, did not always distinguish between a guest and a hostage. But the Jewish kings would not be debarred from importing the luxuries and imitating the vices of their conquerors.
Renan says of this period:
“LEgypte etait, cette epoque, le pays ou les industries de luxe etaient le plus developpees. Tout le monde raffolaient, en particulier, de sa carrosserie et de ses meubles ouvrages. Joiaquin et la noblesse de Jerusalem ne songeaient qua se procurer ces beaux objets, qui realisaient ce quon avait vu de plus exquis en fait de gout jusque-la.”
The supreme luxury of vulgar minds is the use of wealth as a means of display, and monarchs have always delighted in the erection of vast and ostentatious buildings. At this time Egypt and Babylon vied with one another in pretentious architecture. In addition to much useful engineering work, Psammetichus I made large additions to the temples and public edifices at Memphis, Thebes, Sais, and elsewhere, so that “the entire valley of the Nile became little more than one huge workshop, where stone cutters and masons, bricklayers and carpenters, laboured incessantly.” This activity in building continued even after the disaster to the Egyptian arms at Carchemish.
Nebuchadnezzar had an absolute mania for architecture. His numerous inscriptions are mere catalogues of his achievements in building. His home administration and even his extensive conquests are scarcely noticed; he held them of little account compared with his temples and palaces-“this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty.” {Dan 4:30} Nebuchadnezzar created most of the magnificence that excited the wonder and admiration of Herodotus a century later.
Jehoiakim had been moved to follow the notable example of Chaldea and Egypt. By a strange irony of fortune, Egypt, once the cynosure of nations, has become in our own time the humble imitator of Western civilisation, and now boulevards have rendered the suburbs of Cairo “a shabby reproduction of modern Paris.” Possibly in the eyes of Egyptians and Chaldeans Jehoiakims efforts only resulted in a “shabby reproduction” of Memphis or Babylon. Nevertheless these foreign luxuries are always expensive; and minor states had not then learnt the art of trading on the resources of their powerful neighbours by means of foreign loans. Moreover Judah had to pay tribute first to Pharaoh Necho, and then to Nebuchadnezzar. The times were bad, and additional taxes for building purposes must have been felt as an intolerable oppression. Naturally the king did not pay for his labour; like Solomon and all other great Eastern despots, he had recourse to the corvee, and for this in particular Jeremiah denounced him.
“Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness
And his chambers by injustice;
That maketh his neighbour toil without wages,
And giveth him no hire;
That saith, I will build me a wide house
And spacious chambers,
And openeth out broad windows, with woodwork of cedar
And vermilion painting.”
Then the denunciation passes into biting sarcasm:-
“Art thou indeed a king,
Because thou strivest to excel in cedar?”
Poor imitations of Nebuchadnezzars magnificent structures could not conceal the impotence and dependence of the Jewish king. The pretentiousness of Jehoiakims buildings challenged a comparison which only reminded men that he was a mere puppet, with its strings pulled now by Egypt and now by Babylon. At best he was only reigning on sufferance.
Jeremiah contrasts Jehoiakims government both as to justice and dignity with that of Josiah:-
“Did not thy father eat and drink?”
(He was no ascetic, but, like the Son of Man, lived a full, natural, human life.)
“And do judgment and justice?
Then did he prosper.
He judged the cause of the poor and needy,
Then was there prosperity.
Is not this to know Me?
Jehovah hath spoken it.”
Probably Jehoiakim claimed by some external observance, or through some subservient priest or prophet, to “know Jehovah”; and Jeremiah repudiates the claim.
Josiah had reigned in the period when the decay of Assyria left Judah dominant in Palestine, until Egypt or Chaldea could find time to gather up the outlying fragments of the shattered empire. The wisdom and justice of the Jewish king had used this breathing space for the advantage and happiness of his people; and during part of his reign Josiahs power seems to have been as extensive as that of any of his predecessors on the throne of Judah. And yet, according to current theology, Jeremiahs appeal to the prosperity of Josiah as a proof of Gods approbation was a startling anomaly. Josiah had been defeated and slain at Megiddo in the prime of his manhood, at the age of thirty-nine. None but the most independent and enlightened spirits could believe that the Reformers premature death, at the moment when his policy had resulted in national disaster, was not an emphatic declaration of Divine displeasure. Jeremiahs contrary belief might be explained and justified. Some such justification is suggested by the prophets utterance concerning Jehoahaz: “Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep sore for him that goeth away.” Josiah had reigned with real authority, he died when independence was no longer possible; and therein he was happier and more honourable than his successors, who held a vassal throne by the uncertain tenure of timeserving duplicity, and were for the most part carried into captivity. “The righteous was taken away from the evil to come.” {Isa 57:1-21, English Versions.}
The warlike spirit of classical antiquity and of Teutonic chivalry welcomed a glorious death upon the field of battle:-
“And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods?”
No one spoke of Leonidas as a victim of Divine wrath. Later Judaism caught something of the same temper. Judas Maccabaeus, when in extreme danger, said, “It is better for us to die in battle, than to look upon the evils of our people and our sanctuary”; and later on, when he refused to flee from inevitable death, he claimed that he would leave behind him no stain upon his honour. Islam also is prodigal in its promises of future bliss to those soldiers who fall fighting for its sake.
But the dim and dreary Sheol of the ancient Hebrews was no glorious Valhalla or houri-peopled Paradise. The renown of the battlefield was poor compensation for the warm, full-blooded life of the upper air. When David sang his dirge for Saul and Jonathan, he found no comfort in the thought that they had died fighting for Israel. Moreover the warriors self-sacrifice for his country seems futile and inglorious, when it neither secures victory nor postpones defeat. And at Megiddo Josiah and his army perished in a vain attempt to come
“Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.”
We can hardly justify to ourselves Jeremiahs use of Josiahs reign as an example of prosperity as the reward of righteousness; his contemporaries must have been still more difficult to convince. We cannot understand how the words of this prophecy were left without any attempt at justification, or why Jeremiah did not meet by anticipation the obvious and apparently crushing rejoinder that the reign terminated in disgrace and disaster.
Nevertheless these difficulties do not affect the terms of the sentence upon Jehoiakim, or the ground upon which he was condemned. We shall be better able to appreciate Jeremiahs attitude and to discover its lessons if we venture to reconsider his decisions. We cannot forget that there was, as Cheyne puts it, a duel between Jeremiah and Jehoiakim; and we should hesitate to accept the verdict of Hildebrand upon Henry IV of Germany, or of Thomas a Becket on Henry II of England. Moreover the data upon which we have to base our judgment, including the unfavourable estimate in the Book of Kings, come to us from Jeremiah or his disciples. Our ideas about Queen Elizabeth would be more striking than accurate if our only authorities for her reign were Jesuit historians of England. But Jeremiah is absorbed in lofty moral and spiritual issues; his testimony is not tainted with that sectarian and sacerdotal casuistry which is always so ready to subordinate truth to the interests of “the Church.” He speaks of facts with a simple directness which leaves us in no doubt as to their reality; his picture of Jehoiakim may be one sided, but it owes nothing to an inventive imagination.
Even Renan, who, in Ophite fashion, holds brief for the bad characters of the Old Testament, does not seriously challenge Jeremiahs statements of fact. But the judgment of the modern critic seems at first sight more lenient than that of the Hebrew prophet: the former sees in Jehoiakim “un prince liberal et modere,” (3:269) but when this favourable estimate is coupled with an apparent comparison with Louis Philippe, we must leave students of modern history to decide whether Renan is really less severe than Jeremiah. Cheyne, on the other hand, holds that “we have no reason to question Jeremiahs verdict upon Jehoiakim, who, alike from a religious and a political point of view, appears to have been unequal to the crisis in the fortunes of Israel.” No doubt this is true; and yet perhaps Renan is so far right that Jehoiakims failure was rather his misfortune than his fault. We may doubt whether any king of Israel or Judah would have been equal to the supreme crisis which Jehoiakim had to face. Our scanty information seems to indicate a man of strong will, determined character, and able statesmanship. Though the nominee of Pharaoh Necho, he retained his sceptre under Nebuchadnezzar, and held his own against Jeremiah and the powerful party by which the prophet was supported. Under more favourable conditions he might have rivalled Uzziah or Jeroboam II. In the time of Jehoiakim, a supreme political and military genius would have been as helpless on the throne of Judah as were the Palaeologi in the last days of the Empire at Constantinople. Something may be said to extenuate his religious attitude. In opposing Jeremiah he was not defying clear and acknowledged truth. Like the Pharisees in their conflict with Christ, the persecuting king had popular religious sentiment on to his side. According that current theology which had been endorsed in some measure even by Isaiah and Jeremiah, the defeat at Megiddo proved that Jehovah repudiated the religious policy of Josiah and his advisers. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit enabled Jeremiah to resist this shallow conclusion, and to maintain through every crisis his unshaken faith in the profounder truth. Jehoiakim was too conservative to surrender at the prophets bidding the long accepted and fundamental doctrine of retribution, and to follow the forward leading of Revelation. He “stood by the old truth” as did Charles V at the Reformation. “Let him that is without sin” in this matter “first cast a stone at” him.
Though we extenuate Jehoiakims conduct, we are still bound to condemn it; not, however, because he was exceptionally wicked, but because he failed to rise above a low spiritual average: yet in this judgment we also condemn ourselves for our own intolerance, and for the prejudice and self-will which have often blinded our eyes to the teachings of our Lord and Master.
But Jeremiah emphasises one special charge against the king-his exaction of forced and unpaid labour. This form of taxation was in itself so universal that the censure can scarcely be directed against its ordinary and moderate exercise. If Jeremiah had intended to inaugurate a new departure, he would have approached the subject in a more formal and less casual fashion. It was a time of national danger and distress, when all moral and material resources were needed to avert the ruin of the state, or at any rate to mitigate the sufferings of the people; and at such a time Jehoiakim exhausted and embittered his subjects-that he might dwell in spacious halls with woodwork of cedar. The Temple and palaces of Solomon had been built at the expense of a popular resentment, which survived for centuries, and with which, as their silence seems to show, the prophets fully sympathised. If even Solomons exactions were culpable, Jehoiakim was altogether without excuse.
His sin was that common to all governments, the use of the authority of the state for private ends. This sin is possible not only to sovereigns and secretaries of state, but to every town councillor and every one who has a friend on a town council, nay, to every clerk in a public office and to every workman in a government dockyard. A king squandering public revenues on private pleasures, and an artisan pilfering nails and iron with an easy conscience because they only belong to the state, are guilty of crimes essentially the same. On the one hand, Jehoiakim as the head of the state was oppressing individuals; and although modern states have grown comparatively tender as to the rights of the individual, yet even now their action is often cruelly oppressive to insignificant minorities. But, on the other hand, the right of exacting labour was only vested in the king. as a public trust; its abuse was as much an injury to the community as to individuals. If Jeremiah had to deal with modern civilisation, we might, perchance, be startled by his passing lightly over our religious and political controversies to denounce the squandering of public resources in the interests of individuals and classes, sects and parties.