[ [5]] In a certain sense, one may say that שרירות לב is a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. It occurs independently in one single passage only, in Deut. xxix. 18; in the other passages (eight times in Jeremiah, and besides, in Ps. lxxxi. 13), it was evidently not taken from the living usus loquendi from which it had disappeared, but from the fundamental passage in the written code of law. This fact will, a priori, appear probable, when we keep in mind that, among all the books of the Pentateuch, Jeremiah has chiefly Deuteronomy before his eyes; and among all the chapters of Deuteronomy, none more than the 29th; and that Ps. lxxxi. is pervaded by literal allusions to the Pentateuch. But it is put beyond all doubt, when we enter upon a comparison of the passage in Deuteronomy with the parallel passages. Here we must begin with Jer. xxiii. 17, where the verbal agreement comes out most strongly, and then we shall, in the other passages also (vii. 24, ix. 13, xi. 8, xvi. 12, xviii. 12, and the passage under consideration), easily perceive that the word has been borrowed. From a comparison with the fundamental passage, it appears that it is the intention of the Prophet to convey here the promise of an eternal duration of the regained blessing, and to keep off the thought that possibly the people might again, as formerly, fall from grace. Of him who walks after the שרירות of his heart, it is said in Deut. xxix. 19 (20): "The Lord will not be willing to forgive him; for then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord blots out his name from under heaven."
[CHAPTER XXIII. 1-8.]
These verses form a portion only of a greater whole, to which, besides the whole of chap. xxii., chap. xxiii. 9-40 also belongs. For these verses contain a prophecy against the false prophets, and by the way also, against the degenerated priesthood (comp. ver. 11); and this prophecy easily unites itself with the preceding prophecy against the kings, so as to form one prophecy against the corrupt leaders of the people of God. But, for the exposition of the verses before us, it is only the connection with chap. xxii. which is of importance, and that so much so that, without carefully attending to it, they cannot at all be thoroughly understood. For this reason, we shall confine ourselves to bring it out more clearly.
The Prophet reproves and warns the kings of Judah, first, in general, announcing to them the judgments of the Lord upon them and their people,--the fulfilment of the threatenings, Deut. xxix. 22 ff.--if they are to continue in their hitherto ungodly course, chap. xxii. 1–9. In order to make a stronger impression, he then particularizes the general threatening, showing how God's recompensing justice manifests itself in the fate of the individual apostate kings. First, Jehoahaz is brought forward, the son and the immediate successor of Josiah, whom Pharaoh-Necho dethroned and carried with him to Egypt, vers. 10-12. The declaration concerning him forms a commentary on the name Shallum, i.e., the recompensed one, he whom the Lord recompenses according to his deeds,--which name the Prophet gives to him instead of the meaningless name Jehoahaz, i.e., God holds. His father, who met his death in the battle against the Egyptians, may be called happy when compared with him; for he never returns to his native land; he lives and dies in a foreign land. The next whom he brings forward is Jehoiakim, vers. 13–19. He is a despot who does every thing to ruin the people committed to him. There is, therefore, the most glaring contrast between his beautiful name and his miserable fate. The Lord, instead of raising him up, will cast him down to the lowest depth; not even an honourable burial is to be bestowed upon him. No one weeps or laments over him; like a trodden down carcass, he lies outside the gates of Jerusalem, the city of the great King, which he attempted to wrest from him, and make his own. Then follows a parenthetical digression, vers. 20–23. Apostate Judah is addressed. The judgment upon her kings is not one with which she has nothing to do, as little as their guilt belongs to them as individuals only. It is, at the same time a judgment upon the people which, by the Lord's anger which they have called forth by their wickedness, is thrown down into the depth, from the height on which the Lord's mercy had raised them.--Next follows Jehoiachin, vers. 24-30. In his name "The Lord will establish," the word will has no foundation; the Lord will reject him, cast him away, and break him in pieces like a worthless vessel. With his mother, he shall be carried away from his native land, and die in exile and captivity. Irrevocable is the Lord's decree, that none of his sons shall ascend the throne of David, so that he, having begotten children in vain, is to be esteemed as one who is childless.
At the commencement of the section under consideration (vers. 1 and 2), the contents of chap. xxii. are comprehended into one sentence. "Woe to the shepherds that destroy and scatter the flock of the Lord." Woe, then, to those shepherds who have done so. With this is then, in vers. 3–8, connected the announcement of salvation for the poor scattered flock. For the same reason, that the Lord visits upon those who have hitherto been their shepherds, the wickedness of their doings--viz., because of His being the chief Shepherd, or because of His covenant-faithfulness, He will in mercy remember them also, gather them from their dispersion, give, instead of the bad shepherds, a good one, viz., the long promised and longed for great descendant of David, who, being a righteous King, shall diffuse justice and righteousness in the land, and thus acquire for it righteousness and salvation from the Lord. So great shall the mercy of the Future be, that thereby the greatest mercy in the people's past history--their deliverance out of Egypt--shall be altogether cast into the shade.
There cannot be any doubt that the whole prophecy belongs to the reign of Jehoiakim; for the end of Jehoiakim and the fate of Jehoiachin are announced as future events.
Eichhorn asserts that this section was composed under Zedekiah; but he could do so only by proceeding from his erroneous fundamental view, that the prophecies are veiled descriptions of historical events. "When Jeremiah"--so he says--"delivered this discourse, Jehoiakim had not only already met his ignominious end (xxii. 19), but Jeconiah also was, with his mother, already carried away captive to Babylon." It is matter of astonishment that Dahler, without holding the same fundamental view, could yet adopt its result. He specially refers to the circumstance that, in ver. 24, Jehoiachin is addressed as king,--a circumstance by which Berthold also supports his view, who, cutting the knot, advances the position that vers. 1–19 belong to the reign of Jehoiakim, but vers. 20--xxxii. 8 to the time when Jehoiachin was carried away to Babylon. (Maurer and Hitzig too suppose that vers. 20 ff. were added at a later period, under the reign of Jehoiachin). But what difficulty is there in supposing that the Prophet transfers himself into the time, when he who is now a hereditary prince will be king,--of which the address is then a simple consequence? It is undeniable that a connection with chap. xxi. takes place, in which chapter Jeremiah announces to Zedekiah, threatened by the Chaldeans, the fall of the Davidic house, and the capture and destruction of the city. And this connection is to be accounted for by the fact that Jeremiah here connects with this announcement a former prophecy, in which, under the reign of Jehoiakim, he had foretold the fall of the Davidic house. The fate of the house of David is the subject common to both the discourses. Küper (Jeremias, libror. Sacror. interpres, p. 58), supposes that, in the message to Zedekiah, Jeremiah had, at that time, repeated his former announcement; but this supposition is opposed by the circumstance that, in chaps. xxii., xxiii., there is no trace of a reference to Zedekiah and his embassy. Ewald asserts that Jeremiah here only puts together what "perhaps" he had formerly spoken regarding the three kings; but the words in chap. xxii. 1: "Go down into the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word," is conclusive against this assertion. For, according to these words, we have here not something put together, but a discourse which was delivered at a distinct, definite time; although nothing prevents us from supposing that the going down was done in the Spirit only.
We have here still to make an investigation concerning the names of the three kings occurring in chap. xxii., the result of which is of importance for the exposition of ver. 5.--It cannot but appear strange that the same king who, in the Book of the Kings, is called Jehoahaz, is here called Shallum only; that the same who is there called Jehoiachin, has here the name of Jeconias, which is abbreviated into Conias. The current supposition is, that the two kings had two names each. But this supposition is unsatisfactory, because, by the context in which they stand, the names employed by Jeremiah too clearly appear as nomina realia, as new names given to them by which the contrast between the name and thing was to be removed, and hence are evidently of the same nature with the nomen reale of the good Shepherd in chap. xxiii. 6, which, with quite the same right, could have been changed into a nomen proprium in the proper sense, as has, indeed, been done by the LXX. The numerous passages in the prophets, where the name occurs as a designation of the nature and character, e.g., Is. ix. 5, lxii. 4; Jer. xxxiii. 16; Ezek. xlviii. 35, plainly show that a name which has merely a prophetical warrant (and such an one alone takes place here, although the name Shallum occurs also in 1 Chron. iii. 15 [in the historical representation itself, however, Jehoahaz is used in the Book of Kings, and 2 Chron. xxxvi. 1], and the name Jeconias likewise in 1 Chron. iii. 16, while Jehoiakim is found not only in the Book of Kings, but also in Ezek. i. 2; for it is quite possible that those later writers may have drawn from Jeremiah), cannot simply be considered as a nomen proprium; but, on the contrary, that there is a strong probability that it is not so. And this probability becomes certainty when that name occurs, either alone, as e.g., Shallum, or first, as Jeconiah, (which occurs again in chap. xxiv. 1, xxvii. 20; the abbreviated Coniah in xxxvii. 1, while, which is well to be observed, we have in the historical account, chap. lii. 31, Jehoiachin) in a context, such as that under consideration; especially when this phenomenon occurs in a prophet such as Jeremiah, in whom, elsewhere also, many traces of holy wit, and even punning, can be pointed out.--With reference to the calamity which more and more threatened Judah, pious Josiah had given to his sons names, which announced salvation. According to his wish, these names should be as many actual prophecies, and would, indeed, have proved themselves to be such, unless they who bore them had made them of no avail by their apostacy from the Lord, and had thus brought about the most glaring contrast between idea and reality. That comes out first in the case of Jehoahaz. He whom the Lord should hold, was violently and irresistibly carried away to Egypt. The Prophet, therefore, calls him Shallum, i.e., the recompensed,--not retribution, as Hiller, Simonis, and Roediger think, nor retributor according to Fürst (comp. Ewald § 154d); the same who, in 1 Chron. v. 38, is called Shallum, is in 1 Chron. ix. 11, called Meshullam--he upon whom the Lord has visited the wickedness of his deeds.--As regards the name Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, we must, above all things, keep in view the relation of these names to the promise given to David. In 2 Sam. vii. 12 it is said: "And I cause to rise up (והקימתי) thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish (והכינתי) his kingdom." This passage contains the ground of both names; and this is the more easily explained, since both of them have one author, Jehoiakim. Even his former name Eliakim had probably been given to him by his father Josiah with a view to the promise. When Pharaoh, however, desired him to change his name--as the name itself shows, we cannot but supply, in 2 Kings xxiii. 31, such a request to a proposal which was afterwards approved of by Pharaoh--he performed that change in such a manner as to bring it into a still nearer relation to the promise, in which, not El, but Jehovah, is expressly mentioned as He who promised; and indeed the matter proceeded from Jehovah, the God of Israel. As, however, from the whole character of Jehoiakim, we cannot suppose that the twofold naming proceeded from true piety, nothing is more natural than to account for it from an opposition to the prophets. The centre of their announcements was formed by the impending calamity from the North, and the decline of the Davidic family. The promise given to David shall indeed be fulfilled in the Messiah; but not till after a previous deep abasement. Jehoiakim mocking at these threatenings, means to transfer the salvation from the future into the present. In his own name, and that of his son, he presented a standing protest to the prophetic announcement; and this protest could not but call forth a counter-protest, which we find expressed in the prophecy under consideration. The Prophet first overthrows the false interpretation: Jehoiakim is not Jehoiakim, and Jehoiachin is not Jehoiachin, chap. xxii.; he then restores the right interpretation: the true Jehoiakim is, and remains, the Messiah, chap. xxiii. 5. As regards the first point, he. in the case of Jehoiakim, contents himself with the actual contrast, and omits to substitute a truly significant name for the usurped one, which may most easily be accounted for from the circumstance, that he thought it to be unsuitable to exercise any kind of wit, even holy wit, against the then reigning king. But the case is different with regard to Jehoiachin. The first change of the name into Jeconiah has its cause not in itself; the two names have quite the same meaning; it had respect to the second change into Coniah only. In Jeconiah we have the Future; and this is put first, in order that, by cutting off the י, the sign of the Future, he might cut off hope; a Jeconiah without the י says only God establishes, but not that He will establish. In reference to these names, Grotius came near the truth; but he erred in the nearer determination, because he did not see the true state of the matter; so that, according to him, it amounts to a mere play: "The Jod," he says, "with which the name begins, is taken away, to intimate that his head shall be diminished; and a Vav is added at the end as a sign of contempt, q.d. that Coniah!" Lightfoot comes nearer to the truth; yet even he was not able to gain assent to it (compare against him Hiller and Simonis who thought his views scarcely worth refuting), because he took an one-sided view. He remarks (Harmon. p. 275): "By taking away the first syllable, God intimated that He would not establish to the progeny of Solomon the uninterrupted government and royal dignity, as Jehoiakim, by giving that name to his son, seems to have expected." Besides these two, compare farther, Alting, de Cabbala sacra § 73.
In conclusion, we must still direct attention to chap. xx. 3. Who, indeed, could infer from that passage, that, by way of change, Pashur was called also Magor-Missabib?
Chap. xxiii. 1. "Woe to shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord."