Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Zedekiah son of Josiah was made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he reigned in place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim. Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.
King Zedekiah, however, sent Jehukal son of Shelemiah with the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with this message: “Please pray to the Lord our God for us.”
Now Jeremiah was free to come and go among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison. Pharaoh’s army had marched out of Egypt, and when the Babylonians who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of me, ‘Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to support you, will go back to its own land, to Egypt. Then the Babylonians will return and attack this city; they will capture it and burn it down.’
“This is what the Lord says: Do not deceive yourselves, thinking, ‘The Babylonians will surely leave us.’ They will not! Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian army that is attacking you and only wounded men were left in their tents, they would come out and burn this city down.”
After the Babylonian army had withdrawn from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s army, Jeremiah started to leave the city to go to the territory of Benjamin to get his share of the property among the people there. But when he reached the Benjamin Gate, the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, arrested him and said, “You are deserting to the Babylonians!”
“That’s not true!” Jeremiah said. “I am not deserting to the Babylonians.” But Irijah would not listen to him; instead, he arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. They were angry with Jeremiah and had him beaten and imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the secretary, which they had made into a prison.
Jeremiah was put into a vaulted cell in a dungeon, where he remained a long time. Then King Zedekiah sent for him and had him brought to the palace, where he asked him privately, “Is there any word from the Lord?”
“Yes,” Jeremiah replied, “you will be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.”
Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “What crime have I committed against you or your attendants or this people, that you have put me in prison? Where are your prophets who prophesied to you, ‘The king of Babylon will not attack you or this land’? But now, my lord the king, please listen. Let me bring my petition before you: Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, or I will die there.”
King Zedekiah then gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard and given a loaf of bread from the street of the bakers each day until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.

• Jeremiah 37:1-21

To read Jeremiah 38:1-28, click this link HERE.

In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city wall was broken through. Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekim a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officials of the king of Babylon. When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled; they left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and headed toward the Arabah.
But the Babylonian army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They captured him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced sentence on him. There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the nobles of Judah. Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.
The Babylonians set fire to the royal palace and the houses of the people and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard carried into exile to Babylon the people who remained in the city, along with those who had gone over to him, and the rest of the people. But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.
Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had given these orders about Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard: “Take him and look after him; don’t harm him but do for him whatever he asks.” So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, Nebushazban a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officers of the king of Babylon sent and had Jeremiah taken out of the courtyard of the guard. They turned him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him back to his home. So he remained among his own people.
While Jeremiah had been confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the Lord came to him: “Go and tell Ebed-Melek the Cushite, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfill my words against this city—words concerning disaster, not prosperity. At that time they will be fulfilled before your eyes. But I will rescue you on that day, declares the Lord; you will not be given into the hands of those you fear. I will save you; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the Lord.’”

• Jeremiah 39:1-18

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Jeremiah 37:1 ‘Zedekiah … reigned’: “Zedekiah, an uncle of Jeconiah, was raised to the throne by Nebuchadnezzar in contempt for Jehoiakim and Jeconiah. His eleven-year vassal rule spanned from 597-586 B.C. The message of the king to Jeremiah in this chapter is somewhat earlier than that in chapter 21, when Zedekiah was afraid of the Chaldean’s (i.e., Babylonian’s) defeating Egypt and returning to besiege Jerusalem (vv. 3, 5).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 37:5-11 ‘pretending to obey’: “According to the law of Moses, a Jewish master had to free his Jewish slaves at the end of seven years of service (Ex. 21:1-11; Deut. 15:12-18). The Jews hadn’t done this for years, and now they decided it was a good thing to do. Why? Perhaps they felt that God would honor their obedience and defeat the enemy in some miraculous way, as He had done for Hezekiah (Isa. 36-37). Instead of believing God’s Word and submitting to Babylon, the Jews tried to bargain with the Lord and ‘bribe’ Him into helping their cause.
“OF course, there were probably some practical considerations behind this covenant. If the slaves were free, they’d have to care for themselves; their masters wouldn’t have to feed them or care for them. Also freemen were more likely to want to fight the enemy and maintain their newfound freedom. Whatever the reason, the effects of the covenant didn’t last very long, for when there was a lull in the siege and Nebuchadnezzar went off to confront the Egyptian army (Jer. 34:21-22; 37:5-11), the masters all forced their slaves back into servitude. The solemn covenant made in the temple meant nothing.
“Before we condemn these dishonest masters too much, let’s admit that God’s people often make promises to the Lord when they’re in tough times, only to repudiate them when things get better.”

• Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Decisive

Jeremiah 37:7-10 ‘say to the king’: “Babylon, which temporarily ended the siege to deal with an Egyptian advance, would return and destroy Jerusalem.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 37:12 ‘Jeremiah went out’: “He returned to his hometown to claim the property he had purchased in 32:6-12.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics

Jeremiah 37:15 ‘struck him’: “Jeremiah often absorbed blows, threats, or other mistreatment for proclaiming the truth from God (11:21; 20:2; 26:8; 36:26; 38:6, 25).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 37:21 ‘bread’: “The king showed a measure of kindness by returning Jeremiah to ‘the court of the prison’ (cf. 32:2; 33:1), promising bread as long as it lasted in the siege (cf. 38:9). He remained there until Jerusalem was taken soon after the food was gone (38:28), with only a brief trip to a pit (38:6—13).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics

Jeremiah 38:4 ‘let this man be put to death.’: “Cf. 26:11; see note there. he weakens the hands. They charged that Jeremiah’s urging to submit to Babylon (v. 2) undermined the defenders morale and will. By proclaiming Babylon’s victory, he was viewed as a traitor to Judah.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 38:6 ‘no water, but mire’: “The murderous princes (cf. v. 4) would let God’s spokesman die of thirst, hunger, hypothermia, or suffocation if he sank too deeply into the bottom of the cistern. Cf. Psalm 69:2, 14, which is a reference to Messiah.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 38:7-23 ‘Ebed-Melech’: “An Ethiopian, Gentile stranger acted decisively to deliver Jeremiah from his own people who were seeking to kill him. Perhaps a keeper of the royal harem (‘eunuch’), this man later received God’s deliverance of his own life and His tribute for his faith (39:15-18).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 38:22 ‘close friends have set upon you.’: “Palace women, taken over by Babylonians, heaped ridicule on Zedekiah for listening to friends whose counsel failed him. The king was left helpless, like a person with his feet stuck in mire.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 38:27 ‘these words … the king … commanded.’: “Jeremiah did not fall into lying deception here. What he said was true, though he did not divulge all details of the conversation to which the princes had no right.“

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 39 ‘lack of repentance’: ”Jeremiah 39 and 52, along with 2 Kings 25 and 2 Chronicles 36, describe the tragic fall of Jerusalem, its plunder, and its destruction, as well as the captivity and deportation of thousands of Jewish people. None of these things would have happened if only one of the kings had sincerely repented, trusted the Lord, and surrendered to the Babylonians.”

• Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Decisive

Jeremiah 39:3 ‘sat in the Middle Gate’: “This expressed full military occupation of the city, since this gate was between the upper city (Mt. Zion) and the lower city to the north.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 39:5 ‘Riblah in … Hamath’: “Nebuchadnezzar’s command headquarters were 230 miles north of Jerusalem. pronounced judgment. He dealt with the king as a common criminal. The king had violated his oath (cf. 2 Chr. 36:13; Ezek. 17:13-19).”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

Jeremiah 39:11-14 ‘Jeremiah followed Gedaliah’: ”Jeremiah was given his freedom after the Babylonians captured Jerusalem (Jer. 39:11-14), but somehow he got mixed in with the captives who were being readied at Ramah for their long march to Babylon. He was released and given the choice of going to Babylon and being cared for by the king or remaining in the land to care for the people.
“The Babylonian captain of the guard preached a sermon that sounded a great deal like what Jeremiah had been saying for forty years! It must have been embarrassing for the Jews to hear a pagan Babylonian tell them they were sinners, but he was right in what he said. As God’s people, we have to bow in shame when the world publicly announces the sins of the saints (Gen. 12:10-20; 20:1 ff.; 2 Sam. 12:14).
“Jeremiah chose to join Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had appointed governor of the land. Had the people followed the prophet and the governor, the Jewish remnant could have led safe and fairly comfortable lives even in the midst of ruin, but they chose not to obey. Even a severe chastening like the one Babylon brought to Judah didn’t change their hearts, for the human heart can be changed only by the grace of God.”

• Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Decisive

Jeremiah 39:14 ‘take Jeremiah from the court’: “This was given as a general summary, whereas 40:1-6 contains more detail about the prophet who was first carried to Ramah (40:1) with the other captives before being released (40:2-5). Gedaliah, a former supporter of Jeremiah (26:24) and chief among the defectors loyal to Nebuchadnezzar, was made governor (40:5) over the remnant left in the land.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

 

My Thoughts

Zedekiah, who was given his name by Nebuchadnezzar, is made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, a puppet king.  As Egypt is retreating before the Babylon army, Zedekiah asks Jeremiah what the Lord says and Jeremiah says the Babylonians will burn down the city.

Jeremiah then goes to Benjamin to take possession on the property he had purchased.  The Benjamites accuse him of desertion and place him in a prison made from Jonathan’s house.  Zedekiah inquired of where Jeremiah was and ordered Jeremiah back to his chains in the courtyard of the guard.

But then Zedekiah’s officials claim Jeremiah was destroying the morale of the troops and put him in a cistern.  As a military officer, I would have the same concern, but Jeremiah was stating what God had told him to say.  Ebed-Melek, an Ethiopian Gentile, went to Zedekiah to plead for Jeremiah.  He was allowed to rescue Jeremiah from the cistern.  The cistern had mud in it, but no water.  Jeremiah would have starved to death in time, but he was rescued by a Gentile.

Then Zedekiah asked for a private meeting with Jeremiah.  Jeremiah told him what would happen, and Zedekiah told Jeremiah to not say anything about their conversation.  Zedekiah was supposed to freely surrender to the Babylonians, but when they sieged the city, broke through the wall, and established a “throne” inside the Middle Gate, Zedekiah fled instead of doing as Jeremiah had told him.

They captured Zedekiah outside Jericho.  They killed his children before his eyes, and then they put out his eyes, sending him to Babylon.

As the prophecy from Jeremiah came true, a message came from the Lord through Jeremiah that Ebed-Melek would be spared.  Ebed-Melek, a Gentile, trusted in the Lord, while the Jews did not.

The Jews thought themselves better than the Gentiles.  This carries through to the time of Jesus and the controversy regarding circumcision.  Yet, this is one small glimpse that God shows favor to those whose heart is for the Lord, those that trust God.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

“Jeremiah 37: 1. At what points can you empathize with the main characters in this story: (a) I predicted doom that did not come to pass? (b) I warned people against a course of action, only to find them ignoring me and prospering to boot? (c) i once hoped someone would suffer so that I could be proved right’? (d) Heel my motives are often mistrusted? Choose one to explain further.
“2. Do you know people who only want to hear the ‘God‘s will’ that matches their own (no names)? Do you waver on God sometimes yourself? What did Jesus say about such behavior (see Rev 3:15-16)?
“3. Jeremiah had a trust problem, not altogether of his making. How is trust built and broken? How can trust be rebuilt once it has been broken?
“Jeremiah 38:1-13 Jeremiah thrown into a cistern 1. Are you ‘stuck in the mud’ or ‘climbing the walls’ right now? is it from: (a) An accident? (b) All work, no play? (c) Enemy? (d) No friends? What would be solid ground to you?
“2. What has been your spiritual low point? Where did you receive help? Were any ‘old rags’ or trusted friends used in your rescue?
“3. Like King Zedekiah, do you come off as ‘everyone’s friend’? Explain.
“4. What are you doing for the human rights of political prisoners and detainees?
“Jeremiah 38:14-28 Zedekiah questions Jeremiah Again 1. Have you ever been in a ‘no win’ situation? If it looked like you’d be ‘damned if you did and damned if you didn’t,’ how did you decide the best way to lose?
“2. Who do you know that shows interest in Christ time after time but never really takes the step of faith? What fears lie behind the mixed feelings? Do you have any mixed feelings about following God all the way? Explain.
“3. Is the omission of true and relevant facts the same as lying? Do you always try to tell the whole truth, or is there a time for misleading silence, as in Jeremiah’s case?
“Jeremiah 39: 1. When have you been in a ‘no win’ situation, as was Jeremiah? Whom did God use to get you out of this tough spot?
“2. How do you think Jeremiah (and God) felt when the city finally felt?
“3. Do you have any I.O.U.‘s outstanding? To whom could you show kindness and help out of a tough spot?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

Jeremiah 38 is divided into two sets of questions as mentioned above.  Jeremiah 37 and 39 each has one set of questions.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.