O you who builds your home without righteousness and your upper rooms without justice! You have your neighbor laboring for nothing, providing no compensation. You have constructed yourself a little house, exposed to the winds, filled with windows, covered in cedar, and painted in red. Shall you reign because you have sought to rival Ahaz your father? You will neither eat nor drink; would it not have been better for you to execute judgment and truth? You have ignored the legal pleas of the humble and the poor. Does this not imply you do not know Me, says the Lord? Behold, your eyes are not straight, and your heart is not good but is turned towards your selfish interests, engaging in bloodshed, injustice, and murder.
I have presented both versions in full so that the truth of the Hebrew text and the obscurity of the Vulgate can be more readily discerned. This passage is directed against Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah, whom Pharaoh Necho of Egypt appointed in place of his brother Jehoahaz, who was taken captive to Egypt. As shown in the historical accounts in the books of Kings and Chronicles, Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem, ruling cruelly and wickedly, and he died without mention of a burial. While scripture typically cites both death and burial for all kings, this king’s demise is notably stated as unburied, a detail we will discuss further.
It mourns the aforementioned king, for he relies on wrongdoing, believes his royal authority to be everlasting, builds his lofty chambers, oppresses his friends, denies wages to his workers, and perceives the construction of his palace as unfathomable. Can you, asks the divine word, reign eternally while attempting to equate yourself with the tall cedar, that is, with your father Josiah, the righteous king? Your father both enjoyed the fruits of kingship and yet did not offend God by his wealth, but instead found favor with Him through justice and righteousness. Therefore, as it was beneficial for him in the present, so it shall be in the future. He attended to the needs of the poor and the destitute for their comfort and for his own well-being. All these things were well for him because he acknowledged Me, says the Lord. Yet your gaze, Jehoiakim, veers towards greed, the shedding of innocent blood, slander, and the rush towards wrongdoing.
I struggle to comprehend what the Seventy meant in this passage. While certain phrases interconnect, the statement about not reigning due to attacking your father Ahaz, which in the Hebrew is represented by "cedar," seems void of significance. Likewise, the subsequent phrases, which mention eating and drinking, become so muddled and mingled that they appear entirely incomprehensible without the original Hebrew text.
We might interpret this passage mystically as a rebuke against heretics, who build for themselves a not-so-grand house, a mere shadow of the church's breadth, intending to seize others' possessions without establishing it upon truth and justice. Thus, it is stated, "You have built yourself a small house, with upper rooms vulnerable to the winds," being easily swept away by every doctrine that blows (Ephesians 4:14), separated by windows, for heretics lack eternal structure and steadfastness. Despite having attractive ceilings, when faced with the storms and trials of persecution, they quickly decay and crumble. And painted with red paint, while they may promise the sufferings and blood of the Lord, they do not reign forever, as they conflict with Araz, meaning cedar, their father. For every heretic is born within the Church yet is expelled from it, quarreling against their parent.
In saying, "they neither eat nor drink," the reference is to the Body and Blood of the Savior and similar matters. Their error stems from their ignorance of God; their eyes are not right, and their hearts are inclined toward greed, seeking to plunder the possessions of others and to devise violence against the innocent. This is the essence of murder. Some darker elements require more thorough examination.
THEOSIS