3. Do justice and righteousness. In the ancient Near Eastern polity, it was ultimately the responsibility of the king to administer justice (as the fable of Solomon’s judgment piquantly illustrates). Jeremiah, confronting the king, turns from his usual theme of cultic transgressions to raise issues of legal, social, and economic justice.

the sojourner. Throughout the Bible, this Hebrew word, ger, designates a resident alien, who as someone without inherited land or the protection of a clan, is vulnerable, as are the widow and the orphan.

4. shall enter the gates. The gates envisioned are the gates of the palace. The virtuous king, his courtiers, and the people will troop proudly through these gates in a regal procession.

6. You are Gilead to Me, / the Lebanon summit. Both places are on heights with luxuriant growth. The idea is that for God, Israel, or the Land of Israel, was a proud and fruitful place, but now it will be turned into a desert.

7. the pick of your cedars. These may well be metaphorical cedars, emblems of the lofty and eminent members of Judahite society, though some interpreters think the reference is to the elaborate cedar paneling of the palace and the Temple.

8. And many nations shall pass by this city. This verse and the next one are a virtual citation of Deuteronomy 29:23–25.

10. Do not keen for the dead. The Masoretic Text shows “a dead [man],” but that vocalization is almost universally corrected to yield “the dead.” The particular dead person here, according to long-standing scholarly consensus, is Josiah, who was killed by Pharaoh Neco at Megiddo in 609 B.C.E. One should not keen for him because his fate of death is not so dire as the fate of his son Shallum (more commonly called Jehoahaz, who was placed on the throne by Neco after his father’s death, reigned only scant months, and then was sent down to Egypt as a prisoner). Thus Shallum-Jehoahaz is the one “who goes,” never again to see the land of his birth.

13. Woe, who builds his house without righteousness. The person excoriated is King Jehoiakim, and so the house is a royal palace (biblical Hebrew regularly calls this structure not a “palace” but simply “the king’s house”). His fellow he makes work for nothing. What is in view is the common practice of using forced labor for royal building projects.

14. a massive house. More literally, “a house of [great] measure.” In the story of the spies in Numbers, the Canaanites, perceived as giants, are called, literally in the Hebrew, “men of measure.”

my windows. Many correct this to “his windows” because the verb attached to it is in the third-person singular. But the received text actually makes sense: the grandiose king is still speaking, and the third-person verb serves as the equivalent of a passive (“my windows are broken open for it”).

15. by competing in cedar. Here the cedar does appear to refer to the wood paneling of the palace: Do you need the conspicuous palatial furnishings of cedar to establish your kingship in competition with surrounding monarchies?

Did not your father eat and drink / and do justice. That is, your father contented himself with the simple satisfaction of food and drink while devoting himself to justice. Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, who oversaw the sweeping cultic reforms of 622 B.C.E., is regarded in the Book of Kings as one of the few morally exemplary kings.

18. Woe, my brother, woe, sister! These are the words of the lament that the people are enjoined not to say. That is equally true of the woe-saying in the next line.

19. In a donkey’s burial he shall be buried. This prophecy conflicts with the report in 2 Kings 24:6 that Jehoiakim “lay with his fathers,” an expression that indicates burial in the ancestral tomb. Either this is an unfulfilled prophecy, or there is something wrong with the notation in 2 Kings. Jehoiakim died at the time of the Babylonian siege in 598–597 B.C.E., but how he died is uncertain. Some have conjectured that he was assassinated in a palace coup.

20. Lebanon . . . / Bashan . . . / Abarim. These are all mountainous regions and hence aptly situated lofty places from which to cry out.

22. All your shepherds the wind shall herd. This reverses the repeated idiom for futility in Qohelet, “herding the wind.” Here the wind does the herding, and the “shepherds” are the rulers of the people.

your lovers. That is, your false allies.

23. You who dwell in Lebanon, / nesting among the cedars. It is possible, as some claim, that the reference is to the cedar-paneled palace, although it may be more likely that the cedars of Lebanon, here as elsewhere, are a stock metaphor for royal grandeur because of their loftiness.

24. Coniah. This is a shortened form of Jeconiah.

a seal on My right hand. Although “hand” is mentioned, the signet ring was worn on the finger. Since it was used to seal important documents, a dignitary would always have it with him.

26. there shall you both die. “Both” is added in the translation to indicate what is clear from the plural form of the Hebrew verb, that both Coniah and his mother are being addressed.

30. Write this person down as childless. According to other sources, Coniah had several sons, but the point appears to be that he is as good as childless because none of his sons will inherit the throne.

person . . . / a man. The two different words in the Hebrew text both mean “man.” In the next sentence, “no man” uses the same Hebrew word for “man” as in “a man.”

For no man sitting on David’s throne shall prosper. This appears to proclaim the end of the Davidic dynasty, but elsewhere Jeremiah speaks of its restoration. The evident sense is that no one directly descending from Coniah will inherit the throne.