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192
Royalty and Ruin
22:14
. This house he built with money and labor he obtained through
fraud and oppression.
God inspired Jeremiah to pronounce judgment on the faithless
ruler: “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and
his chambers by injustice, who uses his neighbor’s service without
wages and gives him nothing for his work.” “Therefore thus says
the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
‘They shall not lament for him. ... He shall be buried with the burial
of a donkey, dragged and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.’”
Verses 13, 18, 19
.
Within a few years Jehoiakim would experience this terrible
judgment. But first the Lord in mercy informed the rebellious na-
tion of His plan: “Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of
Judah,” pointing out that for more than twenty years he had borne
witness of God’s desire to save, but that the people had despised his
messages. See
Jeremiah 25:1-3
. And now, “thus says the Lord of
hosts: ‘Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send
and take all the families of the north, ... and Nebuchadnezzar the
king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land.
... This whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment; and
these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.’”
Verses
8-11
.
The Lord compared the fate of the nation to the draining of a cup
filled with the wine of divine wrath. Among the first to drink from
this cup was to be “Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and
its princes.”
Verse 18
. Others would partake of the same cup—Egypt
and many other nations. See
Jeremiah 25
.
[153]
To illustrate further the coming judgments, God instructed the
prophet to “take with you some of the elders of the people and
some of the senior priests, and go out to the valley of the son of
Hinnom” (
Jeremiah 19:1, 2
, NRSV) and there dash to pieces a
“potter’s earthenware jug” (
verse 1
) and declare in behalf of the
Lord, “Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks
a potter’s vessel, which cannot be made whole again.”
Verse 11
.
Returning to the city, he stood in the court of the temple and declared,
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will bring
on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced