Jeremiah 21:12

21:11-14 The wickedness of the king and his family was the worse because of their relation to David. They were urged to act with justice, at once, lest the Lord's anger should be unquenchable. If God be for us, who can be against us? But if he be against us, who can do any thing for us?

O house of David, thus saith the Lord,.... This appellation is made use of to put them in mind of their descent, and to observe to them how much it became them to follow the example of so illustrious an ancestor, from whom they had the honour to descend; by doing judgment and justice as he did, 2 Samuel 8:15 ; or, otherwise, their being his seed would not secure them from ruin and destruction: execute judgment in the morning; be at it early, and dispatch it speedily; show a hearty regard for it; prefer it to eating and drinking; and do not delay it to the prejudice of persons concerned. The power of judgment with the Jews belonged to the king; he was supreme judge in their courts; they judged, and were judged, the Jews say (q); by whom judgment was executed in a morning, and not in any other part of the day; and the case judged ought, as they say, to be as clear as the morning (r): and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor; that had anything taken from him by force or fraud; that was either robbed or cheated of his substance; or was refused what he had lent to or entrusted another with; or was by any ways and means wronged and injured by another in his person or property.

This suggests that things of this kind were not done, and were the reason why the Lord would deliver them up into the hands of their enemies, or cause his judgments to fall upon them: lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it; or put a stop to it, by all their prayers and entreaties, or by all that they can say or do: because of the evil of your doings; it is a sad thing when princes set bad examples; it is highly provoking to God, whose deputies they are; and it becomes them to begin a reformation, and lead it on, or they cannot expect safety for themselves and their people. (q) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 19. 1.((r) Ib. fol. 7. 2.

12 . Execute judgement in the morning ] An important part of the king’s duties was personally to hear and adjudicate upon cases in the open space at the city gate. Cp. 2 Samuel 15:2-4 . in the morning ] probably, every morning ; so Amos 4:4 , and cp. Psalm 101:8 . It was the ordinary time for business, while it was still cool.

Verse 12. - O house of David . The "house of David" here, as in Isaiah 7:13 , means the various branches of the royal family, the same, in fact, which are called by courtesy "kings of Judah" in Jeremiah 17:20 (see note). They appear from the present passage to have monopolized the judicial function. Deliver him that is spoiled , etc. The poor man would have no advocate to plead for him; in this case the judge was to see that he suffered no injustice in consequence. Jeremiah 21:12

(12) Execute judgment in the morning. —The words point to one of the chief duties of the ideal Eastern king. To rise at dawn of day, to sit in the gate and listen to the complaints of those who had been wronged, was the surest way to gain the affection of his people. It was David’s neglect of this that gave an opening for the rebellion of Absalom ( 2Samuel 15:2 ). Solomon’s early fame for wisdom rested on his discharge of this duty ( 1Kings 3:28 ). If the king remained slothfully in his palace in those golden hours of morning, the noon-tide heat made it impossible for him to retrieve the lost opportunity. (Comp. 2Samuel 4:5 .) Still worse was it when, as with luxurious and sensual kings, the morning hours were given to revelry and feasting ( Ecclesiastes 10:16-17 ).

Execute judgment - As the administration of justice was performed in old time in person, the weal of the people depended to a great degree upon the personal qualities of the king (see 2 Samuel 15:4 ). And as "the oppressor" was generally some powerful noble, it was especially the king's duty to see that the weaker members of the community were not wronged.

He calls these the house of David, either checking them, who were indeed so in a lineal descent, or minding them what they ought to be in imitation of their father, David. The only way they had to keep off those Divine judgments which now hanged over their heads was to execute judgment, that is, justice , without partiality; the prophet’s advice to them to execute judgment in the morning either lets them know they must do it quickly, or else it hath respect to the time when the courts of justice sat. One species of justice was the deliverance of the oppressed from the hands, that is, from the power and malice, of the oppressors; which if it were not done, God threateneth certain ruin and destruction to them, which none should be able to hinder or avoid. The cause of which was, their wicked doings; for that God who doth people good, and showeth them favour, not for their sake, but for his own name’s sake, yet never punisheth them but for a cause found in them.

12. house of David—the royal family and all in office about the king. He calls them so, because it was the greater disgrace that they had so degenerated from the piety of their forefather, David; and to repress their glorying in their descent from him, as if they were therefore inviolable; but God will not spare them as apostates. in the morning—alluding to the time of dispensing justice (Job 24:17; Ps 101:8); but the sense is mainly proverbial, for "with promptness" (Ps 90:14; 143:8). Maurer translates, "every morning." lest my fury … like fire—Already it was kindled, and the decree of God gone forth against the city (Jer 21:4, 5), but the king and his house may yet be preserved by repentance and reformation. God urges to righteousness, not as if they can thereby escape punishment wholly, but as the condition of a mitigation of it.

(Note: According to Hitz., Gr., and Ng., the passage Jeremiah 21:11-14 stands in no inner connection with the foregoing, and may, from the contents of it, be seen to belong to an earlier period than that of the siege which took place under Zedekiah, namely, to the time of Jehoiakim, because, a. in the period of Jeremiah 21:1 . such an exhortation and conditional threatening must have been out of place after their destruction had been quite unconditionally foretold to Zedekiah and the people in Jeremiah 21:4-7 ; b. the defiant tone conveyed in Jeremiah 21:13 is inconsistent with the cringing despondency shown by Zedekiah in Jeremiah 21:2 ; c. it is contrary to what we would expect to find the house of the king addressed separately after the king had been addressed in Jeremiah 21:3 , the king being himself comprehended in his "house." But these arguments, on which Hitz. builds ingenious hypotheses, are perfectly valueless. As to a, we have to remark: In Jeremiah 21:4-7 unconditional destruction is foretold against neither king nor people; it is only said that the Chaldeans will capture the city - that the inhabitants will be smitten with pestilence, famine, and sword - and that the king, with his servants and those that are left, will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, who will smite them unsparingly.

But in Jeremiah 21:12 the threatening is uttered against the king, that if he does not practise righteousness, the wrath of God will be kindled unquenchably, and, Jeremiah 21:14 , that Jerusalem is to be burnt with fire. In Jeremiah 21:4-7 there is no word of the burning of the city; it is first threatened, Jeremiah 21:10 , against the people, after the choice has been given them of escaping utter destruction. How little the burning of Jerusalem is involved in Jeremiah 21:4-7 may be seen from the history of the siege and capture of Jerusalem under Jehoiachin, on which occasion, too, the king, with his servants and the people, was given into the hand of the king of Babylon, while the city was permitted to stand, and the deported king remained in life, and was subsequently set free from his captivity by Evil-Merodach. But that Zedekiah, by hearkening to the word of the Lord, can alleviate his doom and save Jerusalem from destruction, this Jeremiah tells him yet later in very plain terms, Jeremiah 38:17-23 , cf. Jeremiah 34:4 . Lastly, the release of Hebrew man-servants and maid-servants, recounted in Jeremiah 34:8 ., shows that even during the siege there were cases of an endeavour to turn and follow the law, and consequently that an exhortation to hold by the right could not have been regarded as wholly superfluous. - The other two arguments, b and c, are totally inconclusive.