Speaking of Kings (21:1-23:8) 129NOTES
22:10. Weep not for the dead, and condole not for him; weep continually for him
who goes away. Calvin says this is a general declaration applicable to the whole
people. Lamentation is not to be over the dead but over those taken away into
exile. If this is a general declaration, then it would most likely reflect the exiles
of 597 or 586 B.C. Calvin dates the lament to 597. The point about an anony-
mous utterance is made also by Roach ( 1941: 348). But the more common
view is that Josiah is "the dead (king)," and the "(king) who goes away" is Jehoa-
haz, his son, referred to in v 11 as Shallum. Rashi and Kim}:ii incorrectly iden-
tify the dead king as Jehoiakim and the king taken into (Babylonian) exile as
Jehoiachin. The sad events of 609 B.C. are well known. Josiah was killed by
Pharaoh Neco at Megiddo, and Jehoahaz, his son, was put on the throne. But
after a reign of only three months, Jehoahaz was summoned by Neco to Riblah
(in Syria on the Orantes), deposed, and taken prisoner to Egypt. If Josiah went
to meet Neco in the spring or early summer of 609, which is likely (cf. 2 Sam
11:1), his reign would have ended and the reign of Jehoahaz begun at that
time, with the reign of Jehoahaz terminating in the summer or early fall of that
same year (Thiele 1956: 23). We should not conclude from the lament (or call
to lament) that Jeremiah was unmoved by Josiah's death. What we have here is
another "idiom of exaggerated contrast" (see Excursus II on 7:22-23), in which
Jeremiah says not that people should refrain from weeping for Josiah, which
they are presently doing, but that they should weep more for Jehoahaz (Shal-
lum), who must languish in exile and will never return home. There is a fate
worse than death (8:3), although people tend to think otherwise (Calvin). Also,
according to 2 Chr 35:25, Jeremiah himself made public lamentation for Jo-
siah at his funeral. Later tradition gives a mixed report on both kings. The out-
pouring of grief for Josiah was said by Josephus (Ant x 78) to have been very
great and to have gone on for many days. A day of remembrance, in fact, was
still being held for the fallen king in the second century B.C. (I Esd 1:32).
Nevertheless, Josiah was faulted for his "Megiddo adventure" -in 2 Chr 35:22
for not listening to Neco, who spoke from "the mouth of God," and I Esd I :28
for not heeding the words of Jeremiah, who spoke from "the mouth of the
Lord." Van der Kooij ( 1998: 102-6) thinks the author of I Esdras has in the
back of his mind Jeremiah's prophecy concerning Egypt in 46:2-12, which
predicts Neco's defeat. Had Josiah listened to the prophet, he would not have
gone to engage the Pharaoh at Megiddo. Jehoahaz, for his part, gets a bad
wrap-up in 2 Kgs 23:32, a judgment omitted by the Chronicler.
and condole not for him. On the verb nud, which means to show grief by
shaking the head to and fro, see Note on 15:5. Jeremiah was himself told to re-
frain from such activity in 16: 5.
weep continually for him who goes away. To people apparently still mourning
Josiah when Jehoahaz, three months later, was spirited away, Jeremiah says to
weep continually (not "bitterly," as the RSV translates) for Jehoahaz. The He-
brew is beku bak6, where the infinitive absolute after the imperative indicates