Is this man Coniah, etc.? The prophet's human feelings are stirred; he cannot withhold his sympathy from the sad fate of his king. What! he exclaims; is it possible that this Coniah is treated as a piece of ill-wrought pottery ware (comp.
Jeremiah 18:4), and "hurled" into a strange land? He and his seed. These words have caused some difficulty, owing to the youth, of Jehoiachin. According to 2 Kings 24:8 he was only eighteen when he was carried captive, while 2 Chronicles 36:9 makes him still younger, only eight (Josiah's age on his accession).
Hitzig thinks the latter number is to be preferred; his chief reasons are the prominence given to the queen-mother, and the fact that the length of Jehoiachin's reign is given with more precise accuracy in 2 Chronicles than in 2 Kings.
It is true that the king's wives are mentioned in 2 Kings 24:15. But that he had wives may, according to Hitzig, have been inferred by the late compiler of Kings from the passage before us; or the "wives" may have been those of Jehoiachin's predecessor.
Graf's conjecture is, perhaps, the safest view of the case, whether we accept the number eighteen or the number eight; it is that the "seed" spoken of as born to Jehoiachin in his captivity, and is reckoned to him by anticipation.
It should be mentioned, however, that the Septuagint omits "he and his seed" altogether.