He prosecuted the case of the poor and needy; then it went well. The Heb
has a cognate accusative: dan din (lit., "He judged judgment"), on which see
GKC § l l 7p-r. Cognate accusatives occur frequently in Jeremianic discourse
(5:28 [2x]; 7:13; 11:19; 18:11, 18; 22:16, 19; 23:5, 20, 31; 29:11, 14 ["I will re-
store your fortunes" occurs another !Ox]; 30:13; 37:1; 46:5; 49:20, 30; 50:45),
those in 5:28 and 30: 13 employing the same verb as here. The point is that Jo-
siah rendered just judgments. See again v 19. This is indirect approval, one
would imagine, for the Josianic Reform. In 5:28, Jeremiah speaks out in protest
because cases of the orphan and needy are not being prosecuted, which ap-
pears to reflect the same situation as here. On Deuteronomy's preaching about
not perverting justice toward the sojourner, orphan, and widow, as well as the
care expected and provided in neighboring societies for these same individu-
als, see Note for 5:28. In the Keret Legend, Ya~~ib censures his father for ne-
glecting the orphans, widows, and poor, telling him he should step down
(ANET^3 149; CS I 342). That father-son contrast is here reversed: Jehoiakim,
the son, is upbraided for not judging the cause of the poor and needy as Josiah,
his father, did.
then it went well. The LXX omits, but there is little justification for taking
this to be an MT plus (pace Duhm; Cornill; Rudolph; Bright; Thompson).
Aquila and Symm both translate (tote kalos en auto, "then it was good for him").
The repetition is good Hebrew style and doubtless intentional.
Ts not that knowing me? Hebrew halo'-hf' hadda'at 'otf. 4QJera supports
K°R, which reads the masculine hu'; MT and 4QJerc have the feminine hf'.
"Knowing Yahweh" is here equated with doing justice and righteousness and
prosecuting the cases of the poor and needy (Siqueira 1987: 15-17). Josiah
did it; Jehoiakim is not doing it. Elsewhere in Jeremiah, "knowing Yahweh"
means "knowing his way" (5:4-5) and "knowing his ordinances" (8:7). Jere-
miah's counsel in 9:22-23[Eng 9:23-24] is that boasting ought not be of one's
wisdom, strength, or riches but that one understands and knows Yahweh.
Indeed your eyes and your heart are on nothing except your cut. Reading
the initial kf as an asseverative: "Indeed!" Jehoiakim shows himself to be
blithely unaware of what goes into living the good life. Psalm 19:9 [Eng 19:8]
says that Yahweh's covenant demands bring gladness to the heart and light to
the eyes. Yahweh's word brought gladness to the heart of Jeremiah (Jer 15: 16).
Volz compares Jehoiakim's greed to that of Ahab when the latter seized
Naboth's vineyard, which brought forth from the prophet Elijah a censure no
less sharp than the present one (l Kings 21).
except your cut. Holladay's translation. Hebrew kf 'im-'al-bi$'eka. The
root b$' means "to cut, sever," with the noun be§a' meaning "(unlawful)
gain" (cf. 6:13). Jehoiakim is cheating others by taking too much for him-
self (Kiml_ii: "your thoughts are only on your desire to acquire wealth").
This judgment, although hyperbolic, is nevertheless deserving. Jehoiakim's
view of kingship is perhaps that of the later Roman orator, Caius Mem-
mius, whose famous statement, Nam impune quae lubet facere, id est regem
esse, "For to do with impunity whatever one fancies is to be a king" (Sallust,
