do no wrong This means taunting with words.

You are [as] Gilead to Me, etc. Even if you are as dear to Me as the Temple, which is high on the mountain peaks, I swear that I will make you a desert.

You are [as] Gilead The Temple from which balm and healing emanate to the whole world.

And I will prepare and I will prepare.

and they will cut your choice cedars Since he compares him to the Lebanon, this expression is appropriate.

Weep not for the dead Namely, for Jehoiakim, who will die before the gate, when they drag him into exile.

weep for him who goes For Jehoiachin and for Zedekiah. Deduce from here that Jehoiakim’s death, concerning which it is stated (infra 36:30): “And his carcass shall be cast to the heat by day and to the cold at night,” is preferable to the life of Jehoiachin, about whom it is stated (52:34): “And his meals, regular meals, etc.”

concerning Shallum That is Zedekiah, and that is what he was called in I Chron. (3:14): “the fourth Shallum.” And he called him the Fourth, meaning the fourth to assume the kingship of Josiah’s sons, for first Jehoaha, reigned, then Jehoiakim, and after him Jehoiachin, and after him Zedekiah.

who left Even though he hadn’t left yet, he prophesied as if he had already left.

Woe to him who builds his house He is saying this about Jehoiakim, who was a wicked man, and the end of the section proves this: “Therefore, so said the Lord about Jehoiakim.”

a wide house a large house. Cf. (Num. 13:32) “Men of great stature (אַנְֹשֵי מִדּוֹת),” who have what to measure.

and he cuts out...for himself And he widens for himself (Some emend: And he opens for himself) Comp. (supra 4:30) “that you enlarge (וַתִּקְרְעִי)...with paint.” Also (Isaiah 63:19), “Had You rent (קָרַעְתְּ) the heavens, had You descended.” They are all an expression of opening.

and ceiled with cedar He covers the roof with cedars.

and painted with vermilion painted with dyes, so does Jonathan render. בּשָּׁשַּׁר is a color of a type used for painting. Another explanation: וּמָשּׁוֹחַ בִּשָּׁשַּׁר is like a cord used for measuring (חוּט הַמִּשְּׁחָה) ([a] lignant en sinople in O.F.), drawing green lines, delineate with a green color.

Shall you reign Will you live long that you contend to make your rule oppressive to let all know that you are a king?

your father Josiah, who demeaned himself with humility, did he not eat and drink and enjoy pleasure all the days of his life?

on your gain to steal money.

the crushing the crushing of the poor, and עֹשֶק, oppression proves it, for ‘oppressed’ and ‘crushed’ are always juxtaposed in the language of the Scriptures. Cf. (I Sam. 12: 3) “Whom did I oppress or whom did I crush?”

Hoe, his glory! Woe for his glory.

A donkey’s burial As they drag the carcass of a donkey, so will they drag his carcass. The word יְֹשַגְּרוּן used by Targum Jonathan means, they will drag.

Ascend the Lebanon and cry Go up to the Temple and cry.

and on Bashan give forth your voice On Bashan which will be destroyed. And Jonathan paraphrased: And in the gates of the Temple Mount. And I do not know how to explain how the expression ‘Bashan’ fits to the gates of the Temple Mount, unless it is because of the doors which they make from the terebinths of Bashan, and that is the name of a place, or the expression, ‘Bashan’ denotes a place of a wide valley. So is the area of the Temple Mount an open area around the Temple.

and cry for Avarim And cry for Megizatha. They are place names.

in your peaceful times when you lived in peace.

All your shepherds All your kings.

shall be broken by the wind The east wind shall break them.

who nest in the cedars For you placed your nest in the towers of the cedar houses to build wide houses.

how gracious shall you be What grace have you found because of the height of your towers, in the eyes of your plunderers, when birth pangs come upon you. And Menahem interpreted נֵחַנְתְּ as an expression of camping, but Dunash interpreted it as an expression of grace.

a signet Engraved and sealed in the flesh of My arm.

I will remove you Cf. (supra 12:3) “Draw them out (התִקֵם) like sheep to the slaughter” (Jos. 8:6) “Until we have drawn (התִקֵינוּ) them.” And the ‘nun’ is superfluous. And, according to the Midrash Aggadah (Pesikta d’Rav Kahana, p. 163a): In the place to which he was removed (נִתַּק), there he was rectified (נִתְקַן), for he repented in Babylon, and the Holy One, blessed be He, applied for absolution of the oath He had sworn, “Inscribe this man childless.” and Zerubbabel was born to him in Babylon, and it was said to him through the prophet (Haggai 2:23), “On that day...I will take you, Zerubbabel, and I will make you as a signet,” directed toward what He said to his father, “Though...be a signet on My right arm,...I will remove him (sic).”

And I will cast an expression of throwing.

they long This is an expression of consolation, that their soul lifts itself to console itself and to say, “We will again return to our land.”

Is...a despised... image It is a rhetorical question. Is this man a broken and despised image, that he was cast away from My face like a vessel in which there is no use?

shattered broken. Cf. (Psalms 2: 8) “Like a potter’s vessel you shall shatter them (תְּנַפְּצֵם).” [Others annotated: הַעֶצֶב is like the idols (הָעֲצַבִּים). “We may swathe (מְעַצְּבִין) an infant” in Tractate Shabbath 22:6. That is to say, “Are you despised and broken in your eyes like a small infant who is being swathed (emmailloter in French)? This one is not worthy.”

cast away thrown, an expression of throwing that has no restoration. Comp. (Psalms 37:24), “If he falls, he will not be cast off (יוּטָל).”

O land, land, land A land that is a land among lands, the most esteemed of all of them. Another explanation: Eretz Israel had three lands in it. Judea, Transjordania, and Galilee.

a man who will not prosper in his days Inscribe him.