14 I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahweh; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is around her.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The forest - This suggested to the Jew the idea of everything grand and stately.
I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof - I will send destruction into its center, that shall spread to every part of the circumference, and so consume the whole.
The beginning of the thirty-fourth chapter should follow here. See the arrangement on Jeremiah 34:1 (note).
But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire (h) in its forest, and it shall devour all things around it.
(h) That is, in the houses of it, which stood as thick as trees in the forest.
But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,
saith the Lord,.... The situation of their city, and the strength of its fortifications, however sufficient they might be thought to keep out an enemy from annoying them; yet it was impossible to hinder the Lord's coming among them, as he here threatens to do; and "visit" them, as the word signifies, in a way of wrath and justice, according to the demerit of their sins, expressed by "the fruit of their doings"; their punishment was the reward of their unrighteousness, the effect of their sinful practices; and, though this was dreadful and terrible, they could not but own it was just and equitable:
and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof; not in the forest of Lebanon, but in the city of Jerusalem; whose houses stood as thick as trees in a forest, and which many of them, at least the most stately, might be built or ceiled with cedars from Mount Lebanon and its forest; though some understand this of the cities and towns about Jerusalem; and so the Targum renders it, "in its cities"; and the Syriac version, "its towns"; but these seem rather meant in the following clause:
and it shall devour all things round about it; the mountains and trees upon them, the cities and towns adjacent.
fruit of your doings-- (Proverbs 1:31; Isaiah 3:10-11).
forest thereof--namely of your city, taken from Jeremiah 21:13. "Forest" refers to the dense mass of houses built of cedar, &c., brought from Lebanon (Jeremiah 22:7; Jeremiah 52:13; 2-Kings 25:9).
Belonging to an earlier period than the twenty-first chapter, namely, the reigns of Shallum or Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah (Jeremiah 22:10, Jeremiah 22:13, Jeremiah 22:20). Jeremiah often groups his prophecies, not by chronological order, but by similarity of subjects; thus Jeremiah 22:3 corresponds to Jeremiah 21:12. GROTIUS thinks that Jeremiah here repeats to Zedekiah what he had announced to that king's predecessors formerly (namely, his brother and brother's son), of a similar bearing, and which had since come to pass; a warning to Zedekiah. Probably, in arranging his prophecies they were grouped for the first time in the present order, designed by the Holy Spirit to set forth the series of kings of Judah, all four alike, failing in "righteousness," followed at last by the "King," a righteous Branch raised unto David, in the house of Judah, "the Lord our righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6). The unrighteousness of Zedekiah suggested the review of his predecessors' failure in the same respects, and consequent punishment, which ought to have warned him, but did not.
The forest - By the forest he either means the forest of Lebanon or their houses, made of wood cut out of that forest. And it - And this fire shall not end in the destruction of this city, but in the total destruction of all the country round Jerusalem.
*More commentary available at chapter level.