Zedekiah’s Choice

Zedekiah’s Choice

Jeremiah Chapters 37-39

Wrongly Accused

Chapter 37 begins by briefly describing how Zedekiah came to be king. This is the sort of thing that makes Jeremiah a difficult book to keep up with, as we are used to a certain chronology in our reading which is almost completely absent in the book of Jeremiah. Previous chapters have already dealt with periods of Zedekiah’s reign, and these chapters have been interspersed with chapters concerning the reign of Jehoiakim. However, while they may be presented out of chronological order, such historical facts as there are in Jeremiah are in general agreement with 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles.

From verses 1-12, we may understand the general situation. The Babylonian army had withdrawn from Judah in order to concentrate on a conflict with Egypt. As a result, Judah was experiencing a period of relative calm. There were those who believed that the Babylonians would be defeated, and they would be saved, but this was not the word the Lord gave Jeremiah.

Jeremiah attempted to take advantage of the calm period to travel to his home land to “get his share” of some property. It is not clear what this means. We have read in Chapter 32 that Jeremiah bought a field, but at the time of that story Jeremiah was imprisoned by Zedekiah. Perhaps, and this is only a guess that is consistent with what we know, the story in Chapter 32 happened later than the story in this chapter, and when Jeremiah was unable to reach his home town, his cousin came to him to complete the deal.

Whatever the reason may have been that Jeremiah was attempting to leave the city, he was prevented from reaching his destination, because he was wrongly accused of being a deserter. This accusation came from the Irijah, grandson of the prophet Hananiah. Irijah may have had a familial bone to pick with Jeremiah, and this may explain why, instead of turning him over to the king as a deserter, he threw him into a private dungeon.

King Zedekiah eventually has Jeremiah freed from the dungeon and brings him in for a private meeting. The exchange between them, which is recorded in verses 17-20, speaks to the character of both men. First, there is Jeremiah who, when asked for a word from the Lord says plainly and bluntly that the king will be handed over to the Babylonians. This is just the sort of preaching that has gotten Jeremiah in trouble, but he does not shrink from it, because he is a man of the Lord. Jeremiah goes on to ask after all the false prophets who had been telling the king that everything would be fine and nothing bad would happen. It is not a particularly good time to gloat, but Jeremiah is a proud man, and he cannot resist the temptation. Finally, Jeremiah begs the king to save him from the dungeon, where he is sure he will lose his life, because Jeremiah is after all human and, like the rest of us, does not wish to die.

Then there is King Zedekiah, who asks desperately for a word from the Lord. The word he gets is the word he has been getting all along, but Zedekiah was hoping for a different word. This conflict will continue in subsequent chapters.

Just Accusations

In the previous chapter, Jeremiah was wrongly accused of deserting to the Babylonians, but in Chapter 38 he is correctly accused of subversion. In 32:1-5, we read that Zedekiah himself had imprisoned Jeremiah because of the things he said. Imprisonment did not contain Jeremiah’s influence however, and in verses 4 and 5, some officials come to the king and argue that Jeremiah should rightly be put to death for the things he is saying against his king and country. The argument is legally correct, and the king is not in a position of such power to defend Jeremiah, so he releases Jeremiah to the officials, who throw Jeremiah into a large cistern, were Jeremiah sinks down into the mud.

A man named Ebed-Melech comes to the king and tells him that Jeremiah will die if something is not done, and the king has a change of heart and sends thirty men with Ebed-Melech to rescue Jeremiah. In verses 11-14, we read that Ebed-Melech was a very practical man, who knew what it would take to get Jeremiah out of the mud, and get him cleaned up again.

Once Jeremiah is rescued, the king has another private interview with him, to ask him again for a word from the Lord. This conversation is recorded in verses 14-28. At first, Jeremiah is reluctant to speak, both because he fears for his life, and because he knows that Zedekiah will not accept his council. The king reassures Jeremiah and we learn also that the king fears for his life if he accepts Jeremiah’s council. Jeremiah tells the king that, if he surrenders to the Babylonians, things will be well for him and for the rest of the city. If not, things will be dreadful. In the end, the king swears Jeremiah to secrecy about their conversation.

Zedekiah’s Choice

In Chapter 39, Zedekiah makes his choice. We do not know what influenced him. There may certainly have been some pride involved, but we can also easily imagine that there was pressure from the officials and others in his country not to give up to this foreign influence. At any rate, he fought as long as he could, and then attempted to flee. Though he was not killed, his end was horrible. The city he tried to defend was destroyed, the people were taken into captivity, his own sons were killed before him, and his eyes were put out.

By contrast, Ebed-Melech, who showed faith in the Lord, escaped.

Jeremiah is certainly a book of choices. In 2 Kings 24:20 we are told simply that the fall of Judah was due to the Lord’s anger. But in Jeremiah we are told on the one hand that the plight of the people is a result of their actions (4:18) but are also constantly told that forgiveness is available (for example 3:12-13).

It would be easy to say Zedekiah’s hardships were a result of his sin – his reward on earth for the choices he made. However, in order to draw such a conclusion we would have to totally overlook the life of Jeremiah, who gave up family, all social customs, went through weird pantomimes, constantly struggled with a word from the Lord that put him at odds with his own people, including the religious people of his day, and often had his very life put in danger because he followed the will of the Lord.

Jeremiah may not have been perfect, but he was a good man, trying his best to do what God would have him do. If the message of Jeremiah is that bad things will happen to you if you do not listen to the word of the Lord, how does the life of Jeremiah fit in to that message?

There are a number of sayings of Jesus which apply to this question. None of them are easy to understand. He said “I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) When we look at the life of Jesus, it becomes clear that he was not talking about an abundance of things. About material things, in fact, we are told to seek first the kingdom of God, and these things will be added, as well (Matthew 6:33). Exactly how this will happen, we are not told.

Finally, we are told that whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for his sake, will save it (Luke 9:24). Zedekiah, I think, was trying to find a way to save his life. It did not matter that God was offering him a way to save his life, because to save his life that way, he would have to lose the life he knew. That is why he kept asking for a word from the Lord, but not listening when he heard it – because he wanted to hear some other word from the Lord. I do not make this observation as a theologian or Bible scholar, just as one who has been there before.