Jeremiah 22:22

The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) The wind shall eat up all thy pastors.—The word for “eat up” is the root of the noun rendered “pastors,” and the play of sound may be expressed in English by shall feed on them that feed thee—i.e., thy princes and statesmen. The “lovers” are, as before in Jeremiah 22:20, the king’s chosen allies.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 22:22. The wind shall eat up all thy pastors — Thy kings, princes, priests, and false prophets, who have presided over thy civil and religious affairs, shall be destroyed by my judgments, as plants are blasted by winds. God’s judgments are often compared to a scorching and blasting wind. Thy lovers shall go into captivity — Thy allies shall themselves be made captives by the Chaldeans, and shall not be able to preserve themselves, much less to give any assistance to thee.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:20-30 The Jewish state is described under a threefold character. Very haughty in a day of peace and safety. Very fearful on alarm of trouble. Very much cast down under pressure of trouble. Many never are ashamed of their sins till brought by them to the last extremity. The king shall close his days in bondage. Those that think themselves as signets on God's right hand, must not be secure, but fear lest they should be plucked thence. The Jewish king and his family shall be carried to Babylon. We know where we were born, but where we shall die we know not; it is enough that our God knows. Let it be our care that we die in Christ, then it will be well with us wherever we die, thought it may be in a far country. The Jewish king shall be despised. Time was when he was delighted in; but all those in whom God has no pleasure, some time or other, will be so lowered, that men will have no pleasure in them. Whoever are childless, it is the Lord that writes them so; and those who take no care to do good in their days, cannot expect to prosper. How little is earthly grandeur to be depended upon, or flourishing families to be rejoiced in! But those who hear the voice of Christ, and follow him, have eternal life, and shall never perish, neither shall any enemy pluck them out of his almighty hands.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Shall eat up all thy pastors - literally, shall depasture (Jeremiah 2:16 note) thy pastors. Those who used to drive their flocks to consume the herbage shall themselves be the first prey of war. The "pastors" mean not the kings only, but all in authority.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. wind—the Chaldees, as a parching wind that sweeps over rapidly and withers vegetation (Jer 4:11, 12; Ps 103:16; Isa 40:7).

eat up … pastors—that is, thy kings (Jer 2:8). There is a happy play on words. The pastors, whose office it is to feed the sheep, shall themselves be fed on. They who should drive the flock from place to place for pasture shall be driven into exile by the Chaldees.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Either a vain hope and presumption shall destroy thy rulers and governors who flatter time with promises of prosperity; or a judgment shall seize them, that shall be like a violent wind, which presently scattereth the clouds and the smoke; or they shall be blasted by my judgments, as plants are blasted and eaten up by winds. And those that have been thy friends and allies, Syria and Egypt, in whom thou hast trusted, shall themselves be made captive. Surely when thou seest this, thou wilt be convinced, and ashamed of thy wicked courses.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The wind shall eat up all thy pastors,.... King, nobles, counsellors, priests, prophets, and elders of the people; they shall be carried away as chaff before the wind, or perish as trees and fruits are blasted with an east wind; to which Nebuchadnezzar and his army are sometimes compared; see Jeremiah 18:17. The Targum is,

"all thy governors shall be scattered to every wind;''

and thy lovers shall go into captivity: the Assyrians and Egyptians, as before; see Jeremiah 52:31;

surely then thou shalt be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness; being disappointed of all protection from their governors at home, and of all help from their allies abroad; and will then, when too late, be convinced of all their wickedness, and ashamed of it.

Geneva Study Bible

The wind shall eat up all thy shepherds, {p} and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.

(p) Both your governors and they that would help you will vanish away as wind.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. feed] mg. feed upon, but rather shepherd, so as to preserve the play on words in the Heb.

shepherds] See on Jeremiah 2:8. Thy leaders, in whom thou hast confidence, shall be driven like a flock into exile by the wind of adversity.

thy lovers] perhaps inserted from Jeremiah 22:20, as being here superfluous from the metrical point of view.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - Shall eat up all thy pastors. The verb is that connected with the participle rendered "pastors;" strictly, therefore, shall pasture upon all thy pastors. The wind referred to is doubtless the parching east wind, the symbol of calamity, which is actually called a "sharp" wind in Jeremiah 4:11. Jeremiah 22:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The cause of this calamity: because Judah in its prosperity had not hearkened to the voice of its God. שׁלות, from שׁלוה, security, tranquillity, state of well-being free from anxiety; the plur. denotes the peaceful, secure relations. Thus Judah had behaved from youth up, i.e., from the time it had become the people of God and been led out of captivity; see Jeremiah 2:2; Hosea 2:17. - In Jeremiah 22:22 תּרעה is chosen for the sake of the word-play with רעיך, and denotes to depasture, as in Jeremiah 2:16. As the storm-wind, especially the parching east wind, depastures, so to speak, the grass of the field, so will the storm about to break on Judah sweep away the shepherds, carry them off; cf. Jeremiah 13:24, Isaiah 27:8; Job 27:21. The shepherds of the people are not merely the kings, but all its leaders, the authorities generally, as in Jeremiah 10:21; and "thy shepherds" is not equivalent to "thy lovers," but the thought is this: Neither its allies nor its leaders will be able to help; the storm of calamity will sweep away the former, the latter must go captive. So that there is no need to alter רעיך into רעיך (Hitz.). With the last clause cf. Jeremiah 2:36. Then surely will the daughter of Zion, feeling secure in her cedar palaces, sigh bitterly. The inhabitants of Jerusalem are said to dwell in Lebanon and to have their nests in cedars in reference to the palaces of cedar belonging to the great and famous, who at the coming destruction will suffer most. As to the forms ישׁבתּי and מקנּנתּי, see on Jeremiah 10:17. The explanation of the form נחנתּי is disputed. Ros., Ges., and others take it for the Niph. of חנן, with the force: to be compassionated, thus: who deserving of pity or compassion wilt thou be! But this rendering does not give a very apt sense, even if it were not the case that the sig. to be worthy of pity is not approved by usage, and that it is nowhere taken from the Niph. We therefore prefer the derivation of the word from אנץ, Niph. נאנח .hpi, contr. ננח, a derivative founded on the lxx rendering: τὶ καταστενάξεις, and Vulg. quomodo congemuisti. The only question that then remains is, whether the form נחנתּ has arisen by transposition from ננחתּ, so as to avoid the coming together of the same letter at the beginning (Ew., Hitz., Gr.); or whether, with Bttch. ausf. Gramm. 1124, B, it is to be held as a reading corrupted from ננחתּי. With "pangs," etc., cf. Jeremiah 13:21; Jeremiah 6:24.