Zedekiah [was] one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name [was] Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
Ver. 1. Zedekiah was one and twenty years old, &c.] For the exposition of this whole chapter, see the notes on 2 Kings 24:17,20; 2 Kings 25:1,30 2Ch 36:11-21 Jeremiah 39:1,3, &c. It is altogether historic, and set here fitly by Ezra, or some other prophet, as an appendix to the foregoing prophecy, and as a preface to the Book of the Lamentations, which is nothing else but Jeremiah's elegy over their doleful captivity - not over King Josiah's death, as Jerome would have it; nor yet is it that book that Jehoiakim cut, and afterwards cast into the fire, Jer 36:22-23 as some of the Jewish doctors have noted. The Septuagint have set this title upon it: And it came to pass after that Israel was carried captive, and Jerusalem laid waste, the prophet Jeremiah sat weeping, and wailing, and bitterly lamenting the case of his people. Thus they knit together this chapter and the ensuing Lamentations, which the Jews also are still said to read together in their synagogues on the ninth day of the month Ab, which answereth to our July, because that on that day the city was taken and destroyed by the Chaldeans. Jer 52:7 a
a A Lapide Proleg. in Thren. ex Petro a Figneiro.