ah [Pg 401] here only puts together what "perhaps" he had
formerly spoken regarding the three kings; but the words in chap. xxii.
1: "Go down into the house of the king of Judah and speak there this
word," is conclusive against this assertion. For, according to these
words, we have here not something put together, but a discourse which
was delivered at a distinct, definite time; although nothing prevents
us from supposing that the going down was done in the Spirit only.

We have here still to make an investigation concerning the names of the
three kings occurring in chap. xxii., the result of which is of
importance for the exposition of ver. 5.--It cannot but appear strange
that the same king who, in the Book of the Kings, is called Jehoahaz,
is here called Shallum only; that the same who is there called
Jehoiachin, has here the name of Jeconias, which is abbreviated into
Conias. The current supposition is, that the two kings had two names
each. But this supposition is unsatisfactory, because, by the context
in which they stand, the names employed by Jeremiah too clearly appear
as _nomina realia_, as new names given to them by which the contrast
between the name and thing was to be removed, and hence are evidently
of the same nature with the _nomen reale_ of the good Shepherd in chap.
xxiii. 6, which, with quite the same right, could have been changed
into a _nomen proprium_ in the proper sense, as has, indeed, been done
by the LXX. The numerous passages in the prophets, where the name
occurs as a designation of the nature and character, _e.g._, Is. ix. 5,
lxii. 4; Jer. xxxiii. 16; Ezek. xlviii. 35, plainly show that a name
which has merely a prophetical warrant (and such an one alone takes
place here, although the name Shallum occurs also in 1 Chron. iii. 15
[in the historical representation itself, however, Jehoahaz is used in
the Book of Kings, and 2 Chron. xxxvi. 1], and the name Jeconias
likewise in 1 Chron. iii. 16, while Jehoiakim is found not only in the
Book of Kings, but also in Ezek. i. 2; for it is quite possible that
those later writers may have drawn from Jeremiah), cannot simply be
considered as a _nomen proprium_; but, on the contrary, that there is a
strong probability that it is not so. And this probability becomes
certainty when that name occurs, either _alone_, as _e.g._, Shallum, or
_first_, as Jeconiah, (which occurs again in chap. xxiv. 1, xxvii. 20;
the abbreviated [Pg 402] Coniah in xxxvii. 1, wh