Jeremiah 22:5 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

By hearing the prophet meaneth hearkening to and obeying. God accounteth us to hear no more than we practise. If (saith the prophet) you will not execute judgment, &c., I give you the greatest assurance imaginable that this noble house of David shall become a desolation. The apostle saith that God, because he could swear by no greater, sware by himself. The end of an oath is, the confirmation of a thing where any doubt of the truth of it, or any have strife about it. Sinners finding in themselves a difficulty to believe God upon his word, revealing his will against the interests of their lusts, the Lord is brought in as swearing, not by a greater, (that is impossible,) but by himself, that the house of David, or the house of Israel, or his own house, the temple, (though the first seems most probable to be here meant, which seemeth to be the house mentioned Jeremiah 22:4, through the gates of which kings should enter, riding in chariots and on horses,) should be made desolate.