Looking Upward to God

“Thus says the Lord: go down to the house of the king of Judah, and there speak this word, and say, ‘Hear the Word of the Lord, O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates!’” Jeremiah 22:1-2

What did the Lord want? He wanted Jeremiah to speak His Word and everyone from the king down to hear it. Thus, we know that God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe is with us and for when we speak for Him.

“Thus says the Lord: execute judgment and righteousness and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” Jeremiah 22:3

Biblical justice is about loving people as God loves them. We all bleed red. We are one race. The human race! May God help us to love and care for one another.

Our Lord wants favorable and right judgment for those who are being robbed by the mighty. No one should takes bribes from the wealthy to deprive the poor of justice. Our Lord wants us to refrain from harming those who have loss their homeland, their fathers, and their spouses. In fact, the Heavenly Father wants us to help them. “Innocent blood” refers to the blood of a person who is unjustly killed or murdered, without any fault or provocation.

The political and religious authorities of Jerusalem should not have shed the innocent blood of God’s Son Jesus Christ, or of His servants, the prophets, who spoke to them in the Name of the Lord. They should not have filled Tophet with the blood of sacrificed children to idols.

“For if you indeed do this thing [what is right], then shall enter the gates of this house, riding on horses and in chariots, accompanied by servants and people, kings who sit on the throne of David. But if you will not hear these words, I swear by Myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.” Jeremiah 22:4-5

IF the people listened to God and obeyed His leading, God would continue to place one of their own on the throne of their kingdom, rather than foreign kings who would plunder their wealth.

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus said, ‘Seek first His [God’s] kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things [your daily needs] will be given to you as well.” Jesus served those whom some treated as the least, the last and the lost. Right now, God is providing for every person who has died and is with Him in heaven. He is providing for His angels. He is providing for animals, birds and fish. He is well able to abundantly resource those who share time, talent and treasure with those in need. He rewards those who do.

Jeremiah told both king and people: “Do and do not do!” There is no way around these words. Righteousness involves doing and not doing. Righteousness involves making the right choices.

“For thus says the Lord to the house of the king of Judah: you are Gilead to Me, the head of Lebanon; yet I surely will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.” Jeremiah 22:6

Jesus Christ is the Beautiful One, the Gilead, of the house of the king of Judah. He is outstanding like the majestic summit of Lebanon, yet one day He would be stripped of His beauty and bear the sins of many. King Jehoiakim, on the other hand, focused on himself and increased the pain of his people. God was going to justly strip Jehoiakim of his beauty. Make him like a wilderness! As for King Jesus, in 1 Peter 2:22-23, 3:15, Peter wrote, “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.” “Christ suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.” The Gilead and Lebanon of Jesus was not about royal robes or a bejeweled crown, but about love, the likes of which the world had never seen before.

“I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons; they shall cut down your choice cedars and cast them into the fire. And many nations will pass by this city; and everyone will say to his neighbor, ‘Why has the Lord done so to this great city?’” Jeremiah 22:7-8

God anticipated neighboring nations asking why He had spoiled the beauty of Israel.

“Then they will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them.” Jeremiah 22:9

This is like a father turning his son over to authorities for crimes against humanity. Of course, the father does not want to do it. He loves his son. But at the same time, his bad son (Jehoiakim) is abusing and killing innocent people. He is leading people to worship false gods. And no matter how often his father pled with him to stop, he continued to wreck lives.

“Weep not for the dead, nor bemoan him; weep bitterly for him who goes away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country.” Jeremiah 22:10

In Luke 23:27-29, as Jesus carried His cross to the place of His execution, “a great multitude of the people followed Him, and women who also mourned and lamented Him. But Jesus, turned to them, said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!’” They were to weep for survivors of this ugly day and not for Jesus. Approximately 40 years later, Rome destroyed Jerusalem.

In Revelation 9:6, Jesus speaks of people seeking death but not finding it. They will desire to die, but death will flee from them. This type of existence is symbolic of hell.

In 2 Chronicles 35:25, Jeremiah mourned the death of King Josiah, but God commanded him not to weep for King Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim had already caused enough tears by his evil deeds.

“For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, who went from this place: He shall not return here anymore, but he shall die in the place where they have led him captive and shall see this land no more.” Jeremiah 22:11-12

According to the Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary, “Shallum, also known as Jehoahaz, was the people’s choice when Josiah died in battle at Megiddo (2 Chronicles 36:1), but he lasted only three months. At the time of Jeremiah’s writing, Shallum had been deposed by Pharaoh-Neco and carried off to Egypt (2 Kings 23:30-33).” The people wanted Shallum back, but the Lord told them via Jeremiah to move on. Shallum was not coming back.

“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, who says, ‘I will build myself a wide house with spacious chambers, and cut out windows for it, paneling it with cedar and painting it with vermilion.’” Jeremiah 22:13-14

The “him” here refers to King Jehoiakim who replaced King Shallum. According to the passage above, Jehoiakim withheld pay from his workers. He didn’t execute justice. They were just trying to put food on their tables. Jehoiakim had huge rooms, great windows, cedar paneling and vermillion. Vermilion was a paint from India beyond the Ganges. It was composed of sulfur and quicksilver. On top of spending money exorbitantly on himself, 2 Kings 23:35 says that he levied heavy taxes on the people of his nation. He paid silver and gold to Pharaoh of Egypt so that the Pharoah would not attack Jerusalem.

In regards to withholding workers’ wages, Leviticus 19:13 says, “You shall not cheat your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning.” James 5:4 says, “Behold, the hire of the laborers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, cries out: and the cries of them that reaped have entered the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”

“Shall you reign because you enclose yourself in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Was not this knowing Me? says the Lord.” Jeremiah 22:15-16

A beautiful palace, a royal crown and robe, an ornate throne did not validate a Jehoiakim’s kingship. No. He needed to take up the cause of the poor. So often, the poor cannot afford the legal fees, and therefore, those with resources and connections take advantage of them.

The Lord prefers goodwill to elaborate mansions. The king and his cohorts enjoyed luxurious living. Their subdivisions looked like paradise, but their hearts like haunted houses. They despised foreigners, orphans and widows for not paying as much as others paid to them.

“Yet your eyes and your heart are for nothing but your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, and practicing oppression and violence. Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: they shall not lament for him, saying, ‘Alas, my brother!’ or ‘Alas, my sister!’ They shall not lament for him, saying, ‘Alas, master!’ or ‘Alas, his glory!’” Jeremiah 22:17-18

Normally, people respect kings and authorities. But Jehoiakim’s eyes and heart coveted what belonged to others. He was willing to use pressure, violence and bloodshed to steal from them. He ruled like a gangster rules. When we lived in Hong Kong, a barber in our neighborhood failed to pay protection money to a gang. They cut off one of his hands to make an example of him.

No one would ever speak of Jehoiakim as a brother. No one would ever speak of his mother the queen as a sister. They knew that they were being exploited by them.

“He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, dragged and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” Jeremiah 22:19

2 Chronicles 36:6 states that “Nebuchadnezzar bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon.” However, as they exited the gates of Jerusalem, Jehoiakim died. He was left unburied outside Jerusalem. This was the burial of a donkey. Namely, left on the ground for vultures to eat!

“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out, and lift up your voice in Bashan; cry from Abarim, for all your lovers are destroyed.” Jeremiah 22:20

Jehoiakim’s lovers, namely Egypt, did not help him.

“I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not hear.’ This has been your manner from your youth, that you did not obey My voice.” Jeremiah 22:21

The Lord warned Jehoiakim often, but he willfully rejected God’s warnings. Not just once or twice, but since his youth!

“The wind shall eat up all your rulers, and your lovers shall go into captivity; surely then you will be ashamed and humiliated for all your wickedness.” Jeremiah 22:22

The Babylonian army was the wind that would sweep over Jehoiakim and wither him and his partners in crime. He would not be able to retain his pride against God and people.

“O inhabitant of Lebanon, making your nest in the cedars, how gracious will you be when pangs come upon you, like the pain of a woman in labor?” Jeremiah 22:23

Jehoiakim’s luxurious nest in a palace lined with the cedars of Lebanon was going to be displaced by pain that would cause him to cry out like a woman giving birth to a baby.

“As I live, says the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off; and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear—the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of the Chaldeans.” Jeremiah 22:24-25

The Lord used a contracted form of the name Jehoiachin. Calling him Coniah for short. It is like calling Louis... Lou. The Lord told Jehoiakim that his son Coniah would not be a royal ring on His finger for long. God was going to deal both with him and his son. Even though Coniah was of the royal linage of David, God was going to pluck him off and give him to King Nebuchadnezzar.

Jeconiah replaced Jehoiakim as king, but his rule only last three months and ten days.

“So I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born; and there you shall die. But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return. Is this man Coniah a despised, broken idol—a vessel in which is no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his descendants, and cast into a land which they do not know?” Jeremiah 22:26-28

Coniah had been idolized by the Jerusalemites. They thought that he would be better than his father, but he turned out to be a broken idol. A vessel so cracked, so tainted, to be of no use. The people needed to turn to God for help as opposed to trusting in themselves and their kings.

“O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord!” Jeremiah 22:29

According to the Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary, “O earth! earth! earth!” is a reference to the three kings, Shallum (Jehoahaz), Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah. If only these three kings had listened to the Word of the Lord, Jerusalem would have enjoyed a much better future.

“Thus says the Lord: write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.” Jeremiah 22:30

None of Jeconiah’s sons reigned in Jerusalem. Though the succession to the throne failed in his line, still the promise to David was revived in Zerubbabel and consummated in Christ.

God promised to build a better life for them. He was going to replace large houses with large hearts. Large he enough to care for the souls of the world! He wanted them to enjoy the luxury of loving people as He loves people.

Jeremiah’s king wanted a word of hope. He needed deliverance. Sadly, he desired God's protection and provision more than His presence. Jehoiakim needed God not mansions.

In Revelation chapters seven and fourteen, Jesus revealed to the Apostle John 144,000 Jews becoming His elect witnesses during the last days. They will be pure. They will be dedicated. These Jews will follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They will not focus on mansion building. They will focus on disciple making. That day will come! God has promised it. Praise the Lord!

I hear the voice of Jesus in the prophetic words of the prophet Jeremiah. He is saying that the king who does evil is but for moment. Like a vapor he appears and then disappears. But our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is forever. He executes judgment and righteousness. He delivers the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. He does no wrong. He does no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, He does not shed innocent blood. Instead of crying “earth, earth, earth” referring to the three earthly kings of Jerusalem who failed their people, let us look upward to “heaven, heaven, heaven” referring to the Holy Trinity who never fails us as we trust in Him and act upon His Word.