Jeremiah 22:20 - Meaning and Application

This prophecy seems aimed at Jeconiah, also called Jehoiachin, the son of Jehoiakim. He followed his father as king, reigned only three months, and was then taken captive to Babylon, where he lived many years (Jeremiah 52:31). In these verses, Jeremiah foretells the ruin of the kingdom and the shame of the king.

Jerusalem and Judah are spoken to as if they were one person. First, they are shown as proud in a time of safety (Jeremiah 22:21). God had spoken to them through his servants, the prophets, with warnings, rebukes, and advice, but they refused to listen. This is common among people who live comfortably: they become careless toward God’s word. That makes the sin worse, because this stubborn refusal had long been their habit.

Second, they are shown as terrified when trouble comes (Jeremiah 22:20). When they see all their allies destroyed and their false gods unable to help, they will cry out in fear from Lebanon, Bashan, and the roads, as people who are fully undone. These high places suggest desperate cries made from every direction, hoping someone might hear. But it will be useless, because the wind will sweep away their shepherds, meaning their rulers, who should have protected and guided them (Jeremiah 22:22). Their lovers, the nations they trusted and valued, will go into captivity and will not even be able to save themselves.

Third, they are shown as humbled under long and heavy trouble. When no help comes from their allies, and even their own priests are helpless, they will be ashamed because of all their wickedness (Jeremiah 22:22). Many people do not feel shame for sin until they are driven to the end of their strength. It is a mercy if our troubles bring us to that point, so that we finally see our sins clearly.

The Jewish state is also called an inhabitant of Lebanon, because Lebanon’s forest region lay within their border, and their land seemed strong and secure like that mountain country (Jeremiah 22:23). They were proud and confident, as if they had built their nest in the cedars and were beyond danger. Yet when pain comes, they will be deeply shaken. Then they will humble themselves and make promises to change, and they will be glad to hear words they once refused (Psalm 141:6). But such distress often exposes shallow religion. Some people seem full of devotion in their pain, yet when the pain passes, their devotion disappears. Others understand the verse this way: all their wealth and power will be useless when sorrow comes, just as a woman in labor cannot enjoy her ornaments while she is in pain.

The prophecy then turns to the disgrace of the king. His name was Jeconiah, but here he is called Coniah, a shortened form used in contempt. This nickname suggests that his honor would be cut short, and his reign would end suddenly. Two marks of shame are laid on him. He will be carried into captivity and die in bondage.

First, God says he will reject him, and the Lord confirms this with an oath (Jeremiah 22:24). Even if he had been like a signet ring on God’s right hand, he would be torn off. The godly kings of Judah had been precious to God, like a seal he wore near him and used in his rule. But Coniah had made himself unworthy of that honor, so his royal birth would not protect him. This warning stands beside God’s later promise to Zerubbabel, when he was leading the people back from exile: “I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel, and make you like a signet” (Haggai 2:23). Those who think they are secure in God’s favor must still be careful, lest they be removed.

Second, the king of Babylon will seize him (Jeremiah 22:25). Those who leave themselves outside God’s protection are open to every enemy. The Chaldeans, the Babylonians, are described as enemies who wanted Coniah dead. He feared them, and their faces filled him with dread. That made his fall even worse, especially since it was God himself who handed him over. If God gives a person into enemy hands, no one can rescue him.

He and his family will be taken to Babylon, where they will spend many long and miserable years in captivity, including his mother and his descendants (Jeremiah 22:26, 28). He and the royal line will be cast out to a foreign land, one where they were not born and where they know no one. They will live among strangers, without any familiar place or face to comfort them.

They would be carried away from a land where they once had power into a land where they would be forced to serve. But would they ever hope to see their own country again? No. “To the land they long to return to, they will not return” (Jeremiah 22:27). They had lived badly in that land, so they would never see it again.

Jehoahaz was taken to Egypt, the southern land, and Jeconiah to Babylon, the northern land. They were taken in opposite directions, far apart, and neither was likely to meet the other again or breathe the air of home again. Those who abused the authority they had over others were justly brought under the authority of others. Those who fed their sinful desires through oppression, luxury, and cruelty were rightly denied the innocent desire to see their native land again.

There is something very strong in this warning, “In the country where you were not born, there you will die” (Jeremiah 22:26). As there is a time to be born and a time to die, so there is also a place to be born and a place to die. We know where we were born, but we do not know where we will die. It is enough that God knows. Let us be careful to die in Christ, and then it will go well with us wherever we die, even in a far country.

This would also make him seem small and despised in the eyes of his neighbors. They would be ready to say, “Is this Coniah, this despised broken idol?” Yes, he would be, and much lowered from what he once was (Jeremiah 22:28). There was a time when he was honored, even almost treated as divine. The people who had just seen his father removed from the throne were ready to worship him when they saw him on it. But now he is like a broken idol, once worshiped when whole, then thrown aside and despised when broken and rotten. What is idolized will sooner or later be despised and broken. What is wrongly honored will rightly be scorned, and those who compete with God will become the shame of men.

He was once delighted in, but now he is like a vessel in which there is no pleasure, a pot or jar no one wants, either because it has gone out of style or because it is cracked and dirty and no longer useful. Those in whom God takes no pleasure will, in time, become people in whom others take no pleasure.

He would leave no descendant to inherit his honor. This warning begins with a solemn call, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord” (Jeremiah 22:29). All the people of the world should take notice of God’s judgments on a nation and family that had once been close to him, and learn that God judges fairly and without partiality.

It may also be an appeal to the earth itself, since people on earth are often deaf and careless. It is like the call, “Hear, O heavens! Give ear, O earth!” (Isaiah 1:2). God’s word, however lightly people treat it, will be heard. Even the earth itself will be made to hear it and yield to it, when it and everything in it is burned up.

Or this is a call to people who think only about earthly things and are swallowed up by them. Such people need to be called again and again, even a third time, to hear the word of the Lord. Or it is a call to human beings as mortal creatures, made from the earth and returning to the earth. That is true of all of us. We are dust, and we should therefore listen carefully to the word of the Lord, so that even though we are earthly, we may be found among those whose names are written in heaven.

The main point here is that Jeconiah is written childless (Jeremiah 22:30). That means, as the verse explains, that no man of his descendants would prosper by sitting on David’s throne. In him, David’s royal line came to an end. Some think he had children born in Babylon, because his offspring are spoken of there, and that they died before him. In the genealogy there are seven sons of Jeconiah the captive, and Salathiel is named first (1 Chronicles 3:17). Others think these were adopted sons, and that when it says Jeconiah begat Salathiel (Matthew 1:12), it means only that he passed on to him whatever claim he had to rule. That view is supported by the fact that Salathiel is called the son of Neri, of the line of Nathan (Luke 3:27, Luke 3:31).

Whether he had children by birth or by adoption, he was childless in this sense, since none of his descendants ruled as kings in Judah. He was the Augustulus of that empire, the one in whom it came to an end. Whoever is childless, it is God who writes it so. And those who take no care to do good in their days cannot expect to prosper in their days.