Jeremiah 22:28
Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not? Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?
Coniah is set forth as a despised and broken idol, a rejected and unwanted vessel in whom is no pleasure, use, or worth. His being cast out, he and his seed, into a land which they know not is his expulsion with his descendants to an unfamiliar land under judgment. The verse belongs to the record of Judah's sad conditions that made Jeremiah weep — false prophets, utter repudiation of God's law and principles of righteousness, and persecutions of Jeremiah himself — preserved to show the awful enormity of sin and the certainty of its consequences. In chronological order the chapter stands soon after chapter 20 and before chapter 23, although the chapters from chapter 20 onward are not arranged in chronological order.
The chapter shows that after Josiah's reign ended the Jews could no longer keep the year of release or Jubilee, because their kings, nobles, people, and land could not be redeemed, which dates the end of the Jewish jubilees to 607 B.C. As applied to humanity, the despised broken vessel portrays what is proved after humanity's long trial, that men are unable to rule rightly and unworthy of trust. It portrays likewise their inability to restore the world or to make lasting progress apart from God.
When that failure is fully shown, God will set humanity aside as an unworthy vessel. He will bring in his eternal Son, the one greater than man. That Son is Jesus Christ, the second man and last Adam.