(20) Their dead bodies shall be for meat . . .--As in Jeremiah 7:33; Jeremiah 16:4; Jeremiah 19:7, this takes its place as the extremest penalty of transgression. The sentence on Zedekiah and his princes--i.e., those who were more immediately connected with his policy--is as before (Jeremiah 34:5) somewhat milder, probably because he, though too weak and vacillating to stop the evil which the prophet condemned, had not been actively prominent in the transgression of the covenant, and showed more disposition, as in Jeremiah 37:17, to listen to his counsels.

Verse 20. - And their dead bodies, etc. One of Jeremiah's repetitions (see Jeremiah 7:33).

34:8-22 A Jew should not be held in servitude above seven years. This law they and their fathers had broken. And when there was some hope that the siege was raised, they forced the servants they had released into their services again. Those who think to cheat God by dissembled repentance and partial reformation, put the greatest cheat upon their own souls. This shows that liberty to sin, is really only liberty to have the sorest judgments. It is just with God to disappoint expectations of mercy, when we disappoint the expectations of duty. And when reformation springs only from terror, it is seldom lasting. Solemn vows thus entered into, profane the ordinances of God; and the most forward to bind themselves by appeals to God, are commonly most ready to break them. Let us look to our hearts, that our repentance may be real, and take care that the law of God regulates our conduct.I will even give them into the hand of their enemies,.... The Chaldeans, who were the enemies of the Jews, that were come from a far country to invade, dispossess, ravage, and plunder them; and what can be a greater punishment than to be given up into an enemy's hand, to be in his power, and at his mercy?

and into the hand of them that seek their life; not their wealth and substance only, but their lives also; nothing less will content them:

and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven,

and to the beasts of the earth; not only such should be the cruelty of their enemies that sought their lives, that they should slay them with the sword, and give them no quarter; but such their inhumanity, that they should not suffer their carcasses to be buried, but leave them exposed to birds and beasts of prey; of the princes of Judah, see Jeremiah 52:10.