20 "People of Jerusalem, climb a Lebanon peak and weep, climb a Bashan mountain and wail, Climb the Abarim ridge and cry - you've made a total mess of your life. 21 I spoke to you when everything was going your way. You said, 'I'm not interested.' You've been that way as long as I've known you, never listened to a thing I said. 22 All your leaders will be blown away, all your friends end up in exile, And you'll find yourself in the gutter, disgraced by your evil life. 23 You big-city people thought you were so important, thought you were 'king of the mountain'! You're soon going to be doubled up in pain, pain worse than the pangs of childbirth. 24 "As sure as I am the living God" - God's Decree - "even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, I'd pull you off 25 and give you to those who are out to kill you, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, 26 and then throw you, both you and your mother, into a foreign country, far from your place of birth. There you'll both die. 27 "You'll be homesick, desperately homesick, but you'll never get home again." 28 Is Jehoiachin a leaky bucket, a rusted-out pail good for nothing? Why else would he be thrown away, he and his children, thrown away to a foreign place? 29 O land, land, land, listen to God's Message! 30 This is God's verdict: "Write this man off as if he were childless, a man who will never amount to anything. Nothing will ever come of his life. He's the end of the line, the last of the kings.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 22:20-30
Commentary on Jeremiah 22:20-30
(Read Jeremiah 22:20-30)
The Jewish state is described under a threefold character. Very haughty in a day of peace and safety. Very fearful on alarm of trouble. Very much cast down under pressure of trouble. Many never are ashamed of their sins till brought by them to the last extremity. The king shall close his days in bondage. Those that think themselves as signets on God's right hand, must not be secure, but fear lest they should be plucked thence. The Jewish king and his family shall be carried to Babylon. We know where we were born, but where we shall die we know not; it is enough that our God knows. Let it be our care that we die in Christ, then it will be well with us wherever we die, thought it may be in a far country. The Jewish king shall be despised. Time was when he was delighted in; but all those in whom God has no pleasure, some time or other, will be so lowered, that men will have no pleasure in them. Whoever are childless, it is the Lord that writes them so; and those who take no care to do good in their days, cannot expect to prosper. How little is earthly grandeur to be depended upon, or flourishing families to be rejoiced in! But those who hear the voice of Christ, and follow him, have eternal life, and shall never perish, neither shall any enemy pluck them out of his almighty hands.