The forest - This suggested to the Jew the idea of everything grand and stately.

I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof - I will send destruction into its center, that shall spread to every part of the circumference, and so consume the whole.

The beginning of the thirty-fourth chapter should follow here. See the arrangement on Jeremiah 34:1 (note).

But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,

saith the Lord,.... The situation of their city, and the strength of its fortifications, however sufficient they might be thought to keep out an enemy from annoying them; yet it was impossible to hinder the Lord's coming among them, as he here threatens to do; and "visit" them, as the word signifies, in a way of wrath and justice, according to the demerit of their sins, expressed by "the fruit of their doings"; their punishment was the reward of their unrighteousness, the effect of their sinful practices; and, though this was dreadful and terrible, they could not but own it was just and equitable:

and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof; not in the forest of Lebanon, but in the city of Jerusalem; whose houses stood as thick as trees in a forest, and which many of them, at least the most stately, might be built or ceiled with cedars from Mount Lebanon and its forest; though some understand this of the cities and towns about Jerusalem; and so the Targum renders it, "in its cities"; and the Syriac version, "its towns"; but these seem rather meant in the following clause:

and it shall devour all things round about it; the mountains and trees upon them, the cities and towns adjacent.

But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire {h} in its forest, and it shall devour all things around it.

(h) That is, in the houses of it, which stood as thick as trees in the forest.

21:14 The forest - By the forest he either means the forest of Lebanon or their houses, made of wood cut out of that forest. And it - And this fire shall not end in the destruction of this city, but in the total destruction of all the country round Jerusalem.

punish: Heb. visit upon

14. fruit of your doings-(Pr 1:31; Isa 3:10, 11).

forest thereof-namely of your city, taken from Jer 21:13. "Forest" refers to the dense mass of houses built of cedar, &c., brought from Lebanon (Jer 22:7; 52:13; 2Ki 25:9).

21:11-14 The wickedness of the king and his family was the worse because of their relation to David. They were urged to act with justice, at once, lest the Lord's anger should be unquenchable. If God be for us, who can be against us? But if he be against us, who can do any thing for us?