Who is told to go up to Lebanon, lift their voice in Bashan and to cry out from Abarim?

There are a number of reasons to see this next passage (Jeremiah 22:20–23) as a separate unit in this section (Jeremiah 21:1–23:9) that deals with Judah’s failed kings. The first is that fact that there is a reference to Lebanon at the start and end of the passage which serve as brackets that identify the passage as a unit. More important, however, is the imagery that holds the passage together. The commands given in Jeremiah 22:20 are feminine singular, whereas the objects in the surrounding passages were mostly male as the Lord was speaking to or about the kings of Judah. This passage is therefore best seen as the Lord speaking to the city of Jerusalem. As is often the case in Jeremiah, the city is personified as a woman.¹ However, even though the passage is a unit on its own it has many aspects that link it to the surrounding discussion of Judah’s kings. The reference to the cedars of Lebanon (Jeremiah 22:23) is the same imagery used on Jeremiah 22:6–7 where the Lord speaks judgment against King Zedekiah. The reference to the fate of Jerusalem’s shepherds is closely linked to Jeremiah 23:1 where the Lord promises the removal of Judah’s leadership. Therefore, the purpose of this passage appears to be the Lord’s word to the city of Jerusalem describing the judgment that is coming to the people who inhabit her because of the failure of her kings. This is very similar to Jeremiah 21:13–14 where the city is also condemned because of her arrogant assumption that the Lord will keep her people safe simply because of the presence of the temple. What is very clear in both passages is that the people of Judah are not innocent victims of their failed kings. They have not just appointed but have willingly followed these kings in covenant unfaithfulness.

The feminine singular commands in Jeremiah 22:20 are given to the city of Jerusalem. She is to go up to Lebanon, and cry out, and lift up your voice in Bashan; cry out from Abarim. These three places refer to mountains that surrounded Jerusalem, Lebanon in the north-west, Bashan to the north-east and Abarim in the east. Jerusalem is therefore pictured as speaking to her own people from the mountaintops surrounding the nation. The message must be declared loudly and heard by all.²

The essence of the message that Jerusalem must declare to her people is that All your lovers are destroyed. The reference to Judah’s lovers has been used throughout Jeremiah to speak of both the political alliances they have made with foreign nations and the false gods they have turned to in their pursuit of safety and security. These two aspects, the political and religious, were tightly intertwined and so both are probably in view here. But the more immediate historical context may mean that lovers here is especially referring to the Egyptians whom kings such as Jehoiakim and Zedekiah had turned to in the hope that Judah would be saved from Babylonian dominance. But Egypt had been crushed by Babylon at Carchemish in 605 BC.³ Judah had lost all her lovers, both political and religious, as the Lord used Babylon as his instrument of judgment.