Jeremiah 22:10-12

C. Oracles Concerning Specific Kings Jeremiah 22:10-30

Three separate oracles concerning specific kings have been gathered together in Jeremiah 22:10-30. Here Jeremiah speaks of the future of Jehoahaz (Jeremiah 22:10-12), the folly of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 22:13-23) and the fate of Jehoiachin (Jeremiah 22:24-30).

1. The future of Jehoahaz (Jeremiah 22:10-12)

TRANSLATION

(10) Do not weep for the dead nor bewail him! Weep bitterly for the one who goes away; for he shall never again see the land of his birth. (11) For thus says the LORD concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He shall no more return! (12) For in the place where they took him captive, there shall he die and this land he shall not see again.

COMMENTS

After the untimely death of the godly king Josiah at the pass of Megiddo in 609 B.C., the people of the land selected his son Jehoahaz to occupy the throne of Judah. Jehoahaz had reigned but three months when Pharaoh Necho summoned him to Riblah, put him in chains, and deported him to Egypt (2 Kings 23:30 ff.). Jeremiah's oracle must have been delivered shortly after the deportation of Jehoahaz.

The death of Josiah was bitterly lamented. Even Jeremiah himself joined in the lamentation for this righteous man (2 Chronicles 35:25). But as far as Jeremiah was concerned, tears were more appropriate for Jehoahaz than for Josiah. By his premature death Josiah would be delivered from the horrors of those final years of Judah's history. But Jehoahaz would live out his life as a captive in a foreign land (Jeremiah 22:10). Though some people apparently believed that Jehoahaz would shortly return from Egypt to reclaim his throne, Jeremiah knows that this will not be the case. He shall not return, cries the prophet. He will never see this land again (Jeremiah 22:11-12). That Shallum here is identical with the Jehoahaz of II Kings is made clear by 1 Chronicles 3:15. Shallum was his given name; Jehoahaz was his throne name.