For thus said the LORD to the king's house of Judah; You are Gilead to me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make you a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
For thus said the LORD to the king's house of Judah; You are Gilead to me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make you a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
For thus saith Jehovah concerning the house of the king of Judah: Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon; yet'surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
For this is what the Lord has said about the family of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, and the top of Lebanon: but, truly, I will make you waste, with towns unpeopled.
For thus saith the LORD to the king's house of Judah; Thou art Gilead to me, and the head of Lebanon; yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, [and] the head of Lebanon; [yet] surely I will make you a wilderness, [and] cities which are not inhabited.
For thus saith the LORD concerning the house of the king of Judah: Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited.
Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon - Perhaps in allusion, says Dahler, to the oaks of Gilead, and the cedars of Mount Lebanon, of which the palace was constructed. Lebanon was the highest mountain in Israel, and Gilead the richest and most fertile part of the country; and were, therefore, proper emblems of the reigning family. Though thou art the richest and most powerful, I, who raised thee up, can bring thee down and make thee a wilderness.
Omit and. "Thou art a Gilead unto me, a summit of Lebanon."
Yet surely - literally, if not, the form of an oath with the imprecation omitted. For the full form see Numbers 14:23.
A wilderness, and cities - Omit and. The meaning is: If the house of David does not hear God's words, though it be now grand as Lebanon, God will make it a wilderness, even uninhabited cities; the house of David being regarded as equivalent to the kingdom of Judah.
22:6 Gilead - Gilead was a country fertile for pastures; upon which account the Reubenites and Gadites, being men whose estate lay in cattle, begged it of Moses for their portion. Lebanon also was a very pleasant place: they were both in the lot of Gad and Manasseh.Perhaps God compares the king of Judah's house to these places, in regard of the height and nobleness of the structure, or for the pleasantness and delightfulness of it.