Jeremiah 22

Thus says the Lord: Go down into the house of the king of Judah, and there you shall speak this word and say: Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, who sit upon the royal seat of David, you and your servants and your people, who enter through these gates! Thus says the Lord: Do judgment and righteousness, and deliver him who is oppressed by force from the hand of the slanderer, and do not grieve the stranger and the orphan and the widow, nor oppress them unjustly — or impiously — and do not shed innocent blood in this place! For if you indeed do this word, there shall enter through the gates of this house kings of the race of David sitting upon his throne, and mounting chariots and horses, they and their servants and their people. But if you do not hear these words, by my own self I have sworn, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. This vision, nay rather this word of the Lord, comes to the prophet either before Zedekiah sent messengers to him, or certainly after he had instructed the messengers what they should report to the king; Jeremiah is commanded not to speak to the king through messengers at all, but to go himself to the palace and speak to him there. And at the same time let us note the divine wisdom, in that through the messengers he orders sad tidings to be announced, mixed with prosperous ones too, should the king be willing to do repentance. Here, however, because he himself is commanded to go, he does not announce sad tidings and a captivity now on the very point of coming, but he advises what the king ought to do in order to escape the impending sentence of God.

Now it is the proper work of kings to do judgment and righteousness, and to deliver from the hand of slanderers those oppressed by force, and to give help to the stranger and the orphan and the widow, who are more easily oppressed by the powerful. And to instill in them a greater care for the precepts of God, he added: 'Do not grieve, so that you not only rescue them, but do not even allow them, through your connivance, to be grieved by others, and do not shed innocent blood in this place!' For to punish murderers and the sacrilegious and poisoners is not the shedding of blood, but the ministry of the laws.

Whatever was said to the royal house, let the bishops and their associates, the presbyters and deacons, and the whole ecclesiastical order understand: that if they do what has been commanded, and among other things do not shed innocent blood by causing even the least to stumble and by wounding the consciences of individuals, they will retain the dignity handed down to them by the Lord; but if they are unwilling to do it and despise it, they themselves will reduce the Church to desolation. Now those of the race of David enter through the gates of Jerusalem and sit upon the throne of him whose name means 'strong of hand', and they mount chariots and horses, when they rein in both their own disturbances and those of the people, and walk in the Church with composed step and with a choir of many virtues singing in harmony with them on every side. And that we may believe this to be true, he swears by himself, who, according to the Apostle, has no other greater by whom he could swear.

'If', he says, 'you do these things, O kings of Judah, you will hold your former power and will enter the gates of Jerusalem with pomp; but if you are unwilling to do them, O royal house, it will be not so much the Lord's cruelty as your own will that the whole city is reduced to desolation.'

For thus says the Lord concerning the house — or to the house — of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, the head — or the beginning — of Lebanon; if I do not make you a desolation, cities uninhabitable. And I will sanctify against you a man who slays, and his weapons, and they shall cut down your choice cedars and hurl — or cast — into the fire. And many nations shall pass through this city, and each shall say to his neighbor: Why has the Lord done thus to this great city? And they shall answer: Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped strange gods and served them. Scripture records that Gilead, which the half-tribe of Manasseh possessed, lies beyond the Jordan; on this mountain Laban overtook Jacob as he fled, and the mountain, according to Genesis, received the name sōros, that is, 'mound of witness', because Jacob and Laban swore there, after stones had been gathered into a heap. Now it is the head or beginning of Lebanon, a lofty mountain which is planted all over with cedars, according to that word of David as he sings: and the Lord will shake the cedars of Lebanon, and elsewhere: I saw the wicked man exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon; and in Zechariah we read: Open your gates, O Lebanon, and let fire devour your cedars! Therefore in the present passage, since he was speaking to the royal house, he speaks by metaphoran [metaphor] to the temple, or to the house of the stock of Judah, because it is itself on a height, or because remedies for all sins were sought from the temple and the sanctuary; whence this same prophet also records: Is there no resin in Gilead, or is there no physician there? Why has the healing of the daughter of my people not gone up?

He threatens, therefore, the royal house and the city of Jerusalem and the temple, which he calls the head of Lebanon, that it is to be reduced to desolation together with all its cities, not by the power of the Babylonian king but by the command of the Lord, who says: I will sanctify against you one who slays. And Nebuchadnezzar and all his army are called 'holy' because he carries out the sentence of God. 'And they shall cut down', he says, 'your choice cedars' — all the powerful men and princes of the city — 'and cast into the fire, so that the flame devouring all things may consume them.

He calls Jerusalem "Lebanon," and he calls the royal palace in Jerusalem "Gilead." And there is a region in Lebanon that is called by that name, and there is also another Gilead in Israelite territory. But I think that the palace is being compared with the Gilead in Lebanon because of the impiety that they had dared to do in their midst. For this reason he threatens complete destruction on them.

Let the royal house of our city, too, hear this, and its princes and cedars, which lift their crown up to the clouds and say in their pride: 'Who will not see us?', that they will quickly be consumed by the flame of the Lord if they are unwilling to submit to his precepts. But the sanctification of the slayer and of his weapons is one thing, that of the priests and of those who minister to the Lord another.

And when everything has been destroyed, many nations will pass through the city and the temple, which before they were not permitted to enter, and each will say to his neighbor, why the Lord has wrought so sudden and so great an overthrow upon a city so renowned and great. And those who are asked', he says, 'will answer and set forth the causes of the ruins, saying: because they forsook the covenant of the Lord their God and venerated idols in place of God.'

Jeremiah too laments over his impenitent people, saying, "O that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for … my people!" And further on he gives a reason for his lamentation: "Do not weep for the dead," he writes, "or bemoan him, but weep sorely for him who goes away, for he shall return no more."

Do not weep for the dead, nor mourn over him! Lament with weeping him who goes out, for he shall not return again, nor see the land of his birth! For thus says the Lord to Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He shall not return here any more, but in the place to which I have carried him away, there he shall die, and he shall not see this land any more. Josiah, a righteous king, had three sons, Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. The first of them Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, led captive into Egypt, and there he died; and he set up in his place as king his brother Eliakim, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. When he died, his son Jeconiah reigned, who was led into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, together with his mother and the princes; in his place his uncle Zedekiah reigned, who, when Jerusalem was taken, was led into Babylon. And so it is asked who this is who ought not to be wept for, and who is to be led into captivity and will never return, since three were taken and carried away. The Hebrews think that this fits all of them, that is, Jehoahaz and Jeconiah and Zedekiah, and that all the sons of Josiah are called 'Sellem' or 'Sellum', which means 'consummation' or 'completion', because the kingdom of Judah came to its end in them. To me, however, this seems to be said properly of Zedekiah, about whom the prophecy of both the present and the previous chapter is, in whom the kingdom of Judah truly came to its end, under whom the city also was taken, and who, it is written, was led into Babylon and died there. He is 'Sellum', that is, 'consummation' and 'completion', son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned in place of Josiah his father. Jeconiah, on the other hand, was not the son but the grandson of Josiah, the son of Jehoiakim, so that from the beginning of the vision, when there sent to Jeremiah King Zedekiah Pashhur son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, the priest, down to this chapter, we are to understand that everything is said to the king and about King Zedekiah.

But such a house as this sensual persons, they who dwell in cieled houses and delight in chased silver, do not build. For as they despise pure silver, so also they despise simple dwellings. They enlarge the site of their houses, they add more and more, joining house to house and farm to farm, they dig up the ground; so that the very earth itself gives way to their habitations, and like sons of the earth they are laid up within her womb, and hidden in her bowels. They surely are those of whom Jeremiah says, "Woe unto him that buildeth his house in unrighteousness." For he who builds in righteousness, builds not on earth but in heaven.

Woe to him who builds his house in unrighteousness and his upper rooms not in judgment, who oppresses his friend for nothing and does not pay him his wage; who says: I will build myself a broad house and spacious upper rooms, who opens windows for himself and makes ceilings of cedar and paints them with red ochre! Will you reign, since you compare yourself to the cedar? Did not your father eat and drink, and do judgment and righteousness then, when it was well with him? He judged the cause of the poor and needy to his own good; was it not therefore, because he knew me?, says the Lord. But your eyes and heart are for avarice, and for shedding innocent blood, and for slander, and for the course of evil work. LXX: O you who build your house not with righteousness and your upper rooms not in judgment! With him his neighbor works for nothing, and he will not pay him his wage. You have built yourself a little house, upper rooms open to the wind, set off with windows and raftered with cedar and daubed with red ochre. Will you reign, because you contend against Achaz, your father? They shall not eat and they shall not drink; it was better for you to do judgment and good righteousness. They did not know, they did not judge judgment for the lowly, nor judgment for the poor. Is not this your not knowing me?, says the Lord. Behold, your eyes are not upright nor your heart good, but they are for your avarice and for shedding innocent blood, and for iniquity and murder, to do them. I have set down both editions in full, so that both the Hebrew truth and the difficulty of the common edition may be more easily recognized. Now the word is against Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, of whom we spoke above, whom Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, set up in place of Jehoahaz his brother, whom he led bound into Egypt. And we read, and the history both of Kings and of Chronicles relates, that Jehoiakim son of Josiah reigned eleven years in Jerusalem, and reigned cruelly, and proved impious, and afterwards died; and yet his burial is not related, although holy Scripture has this custom, that it reports of all the kings both that they died and that they were buried. This one, however, it properly relates to have died and not been buried; of which we shall speak later. He laments, then, the aforesaid king, because he trusts in unrighteousness and thinks his royal dignity perpetual, and makes himself upper rooms, and oppresses his friends, and does not pay those who work for him their wage, and supposes the building of his palace to be everlasting.

We can, however, take this passage according to anagōgēn [the higher, spiritual sense] against the heretics, who build for themselves a house not great and most broad with the abundance of the Church, but a little one. And they build not with righteousness and judgment, desiring to plunder what belongs to others; whence it is said: You have built yourself a little house, upper rooms open to the wind, which are carried about by every wind of doctrine, and set off with windows; for they have no lasting building and no solid firmness. And raftered, he says, with cedar: they seem indeed to have the most beautiful rafters, but in the rains and the storm of persecutions they quickly rot and collapse. And daubed with red ochre: for they too promise the passion and the blood of the Lord, but they do not reign forever, because they contend with and provoke to anger 'araz', that is, 'cedar', their father. For every heretic is born in the Church, but is cast out of the Church, and contends and fights against his parent. And as for what he adds: They shall not eat and they shall not drink, 'the body and blood of the Savior' is understood; and the rest that is like these. And he says that all their error comes down from this, that they have not known God and do not have upright eyes, but their heart is bent on avarice, to plunder what belongs to others and to shed the blood of those they have deceived; for this is to commit murder. Obscure matters must be discussed more fully.

The apostle indicated the one who builds a house with righteousness when he said, "You are a field of God, a building of God." But he also says that no one can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if anyone builds, and so on. Therefore, through the one who taught him, the believer has Christ Jesus as a foundation. And if any person builds well, it is with gold, the teachings of truth; silver, the saving word; precious stones, a structure built from virtues. And if anyone builds in an evil way by building what is bad for Jesus—I mean wood, hay and stubble—how is he not impious? It is for him that the threat comes: Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness! The one who makes a structure up high, yet not according to reason and truth of God, does not make the upper chambers in judgment. And similarly one can also view those who teach either a true or a falsely called knowledge. Paul builds the house, the church, with righteousness, he builds the upper chambers; Timothy and Luke and those such as them, in judgment.

'Will you', says the divine word, 'be able to reign forever, since you desire to compare yourself to the lofty cedar, that is, to your father Josiah, a righteous king? Your father', he says, 'both ate and drank and enjoyed royal wealth; and yet he did not offend God in this, that he had riches, but pleased him in this, that he did judgment and righteousness, and therefore it was well with him, and will be, both in the present age and in the one to come. He judged', he says, 'the cause of the poor and needy, and to the refreshment of those whom he heard, and properly to his own good. And all these things turned out prosperously for him because he knew me, says the Lord. But your eyes, O Jehoiakim, turn aside to avarice, and, so that you may shed innocent blood, to slander and to the course of evil work.' But what sense the words have according to the Seventy I cannot understand; for while the rest agree with one another to some extent, as for what is added: Will you reign, since you contend with Achaz your father?, in place of which in the Hebrew is written 'araz', and this word means 'cedar', it is plain that it has no sense; and so too what follows: They shall not eat and they shall not drink, and the rest, which are so scattered and confused among themselves that without the truth of the Hebrew reading they have no intelligible meaning.

Therefore thus says the Lord to Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah: They shall not lament for him: Woe, brother, and woe, sister! They shall not cry out together for him: Woe, lord, and woe, renowned one! But with the burial of an ass he shall be buried, rotted and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem. This, which we have set down from the Hebrew: They shall not lament for him: Woe, brother, and woe, sister, is not found in the Seventy. And it is said properly against Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the riddle which before seemed hidden is opened, and the ambiguity among the three brothers is resolved, so that the word is not about Jehoahaz nor about Zedekiah, but properly about Jehoiakim, who, the Hebrew history relates, was killed by raiding bands of the Chaldeans, of Syria, of the Ammonites and of the Moabites; whence also in Malachim [Kings] it is written that he died, and his burial is passed over in silence. In the book of Days we read that he was bound with chains and led into Babylon, and nothing further is reported of him. And finely he says that he is to be buried with 'the burial of an ass', so as to signify in other words that he would be unburied, that is, torn apart by beasts and birds. For this is the burial of an ass.

Go up to Lebanon and cry out, and in Bashan give your voice, and cry to those passing by, for all your lovers are crushed! I spoke to you; in your abundance you said: I will not hear! This is your way from your youth, that you have not heard my voice. The wind shall feed all your shepherds — or lovers — and your lovers — or friends — shall go into captivity; and then you shall be confounded and shall blush for all your wickedness. You who sit in Lebanon and nest in the cedars, how you groaned when pains came upon you like the pains of a woman in labor! By metaphoran of Lebanon and Bashan, regions and mountains beyond the Jordan, the word is directed to Jerusalem, because she trusted in Egypt in vain; or to Jehoiakim himself, who at that time was reigning in Jerusalem and had been set up as king by the Egyptians, because he hopes in vain for the help of the Egyptians, and because they too are to be overcome by the Babylonian king and led into captivity.

And where we said: cry to those passing by, and in the Hebrew is written 'meabarim', the Seventy and Theodotion translated 'across the sea', Symmachus 'from opposite', to signify that the voice of the prophet must reach from Jerusalem as far as Mount Lebanon and Bashan.

And in saying: 'I spoke to you' — that is, God himself through the prophets — or: 'They spoke to you' — so that 'my prophets' is understood — 'and you in your abundance said: I will not hear', he convicts her of pride, and of having abused the greatness of her riches to despise God, and he relates that not only at this time but from the beginning, when she was led out of Egypt, she did not hear the voice of God; whence all her shepherds and princes too have been scattered hither and thither and have bowed their necks to the Babylonian captivity. And in adding: You who sit in Lebanon and nest in the cedars, he taunts her arrogance, which had grown out of the abundance of all things, and says that like a woman in childbirth sudden pain and an unexpected captivity will come upon her.

Wretched Grunnius, who opened his mouth to slander holy men and taught his tongue a lie, translated into Latin one book of Sextus the Pythagorean, a thoroughly pagan man, and divided it into two volumes, and dared to publish it under the name of the holy martyr Xystus, bishop of the city of Rome; in these volumes there is no mention of Christ, none of the Holy Spirit, none of God the Father, none of the patriarchs and prophets and apostles; and with his usual rashness and madness he named this book 'The Ring', and it is read through many provinces, and above all by those who preach apatheian [freedom from passion] and sinlessness. As, then, the Lord threatens that he will cast Jeconiah from his hand and finger like a ring, so I beseech the reader to throw away this wicked book, and, if he wishes, to read it as he reads the other books of the philosophers, not as a church volume.

In commentaries and expositions, whose custom it is to set down the differing opinions of interpreters, I am accustomed to insert language of this kind: 'Some say this, others assert that, certain ones think thus.' For this both wretched Grunnius himself and, many years later, the disciple of Jovinian and of him have slandered and still slander me, saying that I set down my own opinions under others' names, which I do for the sake of kindness, so as not to seem to tear anyone apart by name. Since, then, kindness has been turned into slander, I now say both to him who is dead and to this one who lives and tries to restore his heresy, that their master Origen refers this passage to Christ: that he was torn like a ring from the hand of God the Father and sent into the land of captivity, into the valley of tears, and handed over to the cross; and that his mother too — no doubt the synagogue — was taken and cast out. And in recalling these things he is not afraid to understand what follows also: Land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord: write this man abominated or barren, and the rest, of the Lord of majesty. And he writes this, lest his disciples dare deny it, in the fifth book of the Stromateis.

As I live, says the Lord: though Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were a ring on my right hand, I will tear him — or you — from there, and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you dread, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, — which is not found in the Seventy — and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will send you — or I will cast you — and your mother who bore you into a strange land, in which you were not born, and there you shall die; but to the land to which they lift up their soul, to return, there they shall not return. He had said above: 'To the house of the king of Judah you shall speak these things', and then: Go down into the house of the king of Judah, and again: Thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah; and in reversed order, after he has spoken about Zedekiah, who was the last of the kings in Jerusalem, he returns to Jehoiakim his brother, who reigned before him. This prophecy completed, he now speaks to the son of Jehoiakim, the grandson of Josiah, the king of Jerusalem, Jeconiah, who is also called by another name Jehoiachin, who was taken by Nebuchadnezzar and led into Chaldea with his mother and the princes and the craftsmen and many nobles, and died there. This, then, is what is said: 'If, as a ring does not leave the hand of the one who wears it and slips from the finger only with difficulty, Jeconiah were on my hand, yet I will tear him away and hand him over to the Babylonian king, and there he will die with his mother and all his companions, and he will no more see the land of Judea, which he longs for.'

Since they did not imitate the piety of their ancestors though taking pride in their kinship with them—making much of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, David, Hezekiah and Josiah, men conspicuous for their virtue—for this reason the God of all rejects the arrogance of Jeconiah in these words: Even if he were a ring and were placed on my right hand, I would pull it off and hand it over to the enemy. Thus, let him not trust in his forebears' virtue without emulating their virtue.

Is this man Coniah an earthen vessel, and broken? Is he a vessel without any pleasure — or usefulness —? Why are he and his seed cast away and cast forth into a land which they did not know? For what we said: Is he an earthen vessel, and broken, Symmachus translated: Is he refuse or worthless sweepings, and cast away?; in place of which there is nothing in the Seventy, but they translated only this: Jeconiah has been dishonored like a vessel in which there is no usefulness. And when this is said of Jeconiah, son of Jehoiakim, does anyone dare to refer it to the type of Christ, and, from the fact that the Apostle says that the Lord Savior is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, that is, wisdom, word, truth, life and righteousness, to say that he is called the ring which is cast off or torn away from the hand of the Lord and handed over to King Nebuchadnezzar? They are cast away, he says, he and his seed, and cast forth into a land which they did not know, which no one doubts happened to Jeconiah. 'Iechonias' means 'the preparation of the Lord'; in the present passage the first syllable, that is, the name of the Lord, is taken away from him, and he is called 'Chonias', so that 'prepared for perdition and destruction' is understood.

Someone who is in a state of ignorance is sinful and considered "earth and ashes." Someone who is in a state of knowledge, being assimilated as far as possible to God, is already spiritual and thus is considered elect. Scripture calls the senseless and disobedient by the term "dirt," which is clear from what Jeremiah the prophet says in reference to Joachim and his brothers: "Earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Inscribe this man as an outcast."

Land, land, land, hear the speech of the Lord! Thus says the Lord: Write this man barren, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for there shall not be of his seed a man who sits upon the royal seat of David and has power any longer in Judah. If I should wish to note, place by place, how much the Seventy have either passed over or changed, it would become long, especially since the diligent reader can consider from each edition what has been changed, what added, what taken away. For 'barren' in the Hebrew is written 'ariri', which Aquila's first edition translated 'barren', the second anauxēton, that is, 'not growing', Symmachus 'empty', the Seventy and Theodotion 'abominable' and 'disowned'. And the question arises how the prophecy can stand that no one was begotten of his stock who sat upon the throne of David or was prince any longer in Judah, when our Lord and Savior was born of his seed, about whose birth Gabriel speaks to Mary: Behold, you will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the seat of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. We can therefore say this: that what is lacking in the Seventy, namely in his days he shall not prosper or shall not grow, has created the problem for those who do not know. For the Seventy translated: Write this man a disowned man, for there shall not grow from his seed a man who sits upon the throne of David, a prince any longer in Judah, which in the Hebrew is put twice; and those who wrote from the beginning, thinking this had been added in the Greek books, took it away. Let us answer, then, that in the days of Jeconiah no man succeeded him who sat upon his throne, but long afterward there was born of his seed one who obtained his royal seat. It can also be resolved thus: there will indeed not sit upon the throne of David a man and a human being, but God will sit, and his kingdom will not be earthly and brief, as David's was, but perpetual and heavenly, as Scripture says: He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Of Jehoiakim, then, was born Jeconiah, of Jeconiah Shealtiel, of Shealtiel Zerubbabel, and so in order one comes to Christ. But in the days of Jehoiachin no king, his son, succeeded him, as he himself had succeeded his father; but he was in captivity, and neither Shealtiel nor Zerubbabel nor anyone down to Christ obtained royal power. And this is so because in the Hebrew is written: in his days, and in the very time in which he lived, not shall there be a man who sits upon the royal seat of David. For all were captives, and of the stock of David no one thereafter held rule in the land of Judea. Whence Josephus too reports that princes of the priestly race and of the tribe of Levi ruled, whom Herod, son of Antipater the proselyte, succeeded, and that afterwards, under Vespasian, the kingdom of this race, nay rather the semblance of rule, was utterly destroyed.