Jeremiah 1:15

all the families of the kingdoms Probably we should read (with LXX) all the kingdoms, "families" in that case being in the first instance an explanatory gloss, afterwards taken into the text.

they shall set every one his throne The chiefs of the invading army, having captured the city, will take their places to administer justice, and inflict punishment on the guilty. For this assemblage of nations against Jerusalem, cp. Isaiah 17:12 ff. The gate of the city, or rather a large space in its neighbourhood, was reserved free of buildings, and was the ordinary place at which trials were held and sentences declared. Cp. Deuteronomy 16:18; Deuteronomy 17:8; Ruth 4:1. For the word throne as used to denote the judgement-seat, see Psalms 9:4; Psalms 122:5; Proverbs 20:8. The general sense of the verse is that it is not without reason, or as the blind act of ambitious and more powerful nations, that Jerusalem is to be overthrown. That overthrow will take place as a judicial act, as a consequence of wickedness, and after the case had been duly weighed in the balances.

and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah As the text now stands, the prophet mingles the two thoughts of a besieging army and of a judicial sentence and its execution. It is in point of fact by the scaling of the walls of Jerusalem and the capture of the other cities of the country that the sentence is to be carried out, and Jeremiah here as elsewhere (see Intr. iii. § 14 (d) and note) breaks off his simile or metaphor with abruptness and takes up anew the literal statement.