CHAPTER 37

(590 B.C.)

ZEDEKIAHS ACCESSION TO THE THRONE; THE KING REQUESTS PRAYER

¹And king Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah. (Zedekiah was Josiahs son, but not in the kingly line. For instance, Nathan was Davids son, but not, as Solomon, in the kingly line.

Coniah was Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim. In fact, Jehoiachin was the last son of David to reign on the Throne of Judah [22:30]. Thus, the Davidic line of kings came to an end in him. The next King to reign upon that Throne will be the Messiah, the Eternal King of Davids seed, and this He will do at His Second Advent.)

²But neither he (Zedekiah), nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the Words of the LORD, which He spoke by the Prophet Jeremiah. (Zedekiah and his cabinet ministers, like many today, were willing that Gods Servants should pray for them [Vs. 3], but determined to continue to disobey the Word of the Lord. The Holy Spirit is emphatic that basically the entirety of the land of Judah would not heed Jeremiah.)

³And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the Priest to the Prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now unto the LORD our God for us. (Quite possibly, Zedekiah, in sending this embassy to Jeremiah, was doing so as Hezekiah had sent such to Isaiah many years earlier in view of Sennacheribs invasion. The king expected Jeremiah to pray for the city to be spared as Isaiah had done [Isa. 37:6]; however, it was Gods Will for Jerusalem to be spared during the time of Hezekiah, but not His Will for the land or the city to be spared at this time.)

⁴Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people: for they had not put him into prison. (Even though he was not in prison now, the situation would soon change [he would be incarcerated]. His prison experiences are as follows:

1. He was put in prison for the first time on false charges [37:11-15].

2. He was released, but confined to the court of the prison [37:21]. Chronologically, Chapter 37 precedes Chapter 32, where Jeremiah was in prison, which was at the close of Zedekiahs reign.

3. He was imprisoned again in a miry dungeon [38:1-6].

4. He was released again as before [38:13-28].

5. He was carried away in chains by Nebuchadnezzar [40:1].

6. He was released from chains in Ramah [40:1-4].)

THE CHALDEANS DEPART JERUSALEM; THEY WILL RETURN

⁵Then Pharaohs army was come forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they departed from Jerusalem. (At this time, Jeremiah was no doubt ridiculed greatly by the people, because it seemed like the predictions of the false prophets concerning the Salvation of Jerusalem were correct. Jeremiah had constantly prophesied that no help would be forthcoming from Egypt, and that Judah and Jerusalem would not be spared. For a short period of time, it looked like he was wrong!)

⁶Then came the Word of the LORD unto the Prophet Jeremiah, saying,

⁷Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel; Thus shall you say to the king of Judah, who sent you unto Me to enquire of Me; Behold, Pharaohs army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land. (Court Preachers are careful to say what kings wish to hear; however, it was not so with Jeremiah.)

⁸And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire. (Jehoiakim had taken the leaves of the Bible and thrown them into the fire; now the Chaldeans shall take Jerusalem and burn it with fire. What we sow, we reap!)

⁹Thus sa ys the LORD; Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart. (Inasmuch as the army of Nebuchadnezzar had withdrawn to fight the Egyptians, the false prophets, and hence the people, were having a field day exclaiming the veracity of their false prophecies while denouncing Jeremiah. They were doing exactly as the Holy Spirit said, Deceiving themselves.)

¹⁰For though you had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire. (The idea is: nothing can stop the Prophecies of Jeremiah from being fulfilled.)

JEREMIAH ARRESTED AND ACCUSED

¹¹And it came to pass, that when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaohs army (the Pharaoh referred to was Hophra, the Apries of Herodotus, the Uah-ab-ra of the monuments. The retreat of the Chaldean army would prove to be short-lived, with the Egyptian army being quickly defeated, and the siege of Jerusalem recommencing),

¹²Then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to separate himself thence in the midst of the people. (When the Chaldean army began to retreat in the face of the coming Egyptians, the situation for Jeremiah must have become unbearable.)

¹³And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he took Jeremiah the Prophet, saying, You fall away to the Chaldeans. (Irijah was the grandson of Hananiah, who was probably the same Hananiah of Chapter 28. If so, this would explain Irijahs action. He would now falsely accuse the Prophet, claiming his defection to the Chaldeans.)

¹⁴Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him: so Irijah took Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes. (In other words, Irijah arrested the great Prophet.)

JEREMIAH CAST INTO A DUNGEON

¹⁵Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the Scribe: for they made that the prison. (They accused him of being a traitor.)

¹⁶When Jeremiah was entered into the dungeon, and into the cabins, and Jeremiah had remained there many days (the word dungeon refers to an underground excavation, with the word cabins possibly referring to particular vaults or cells in this place, with Jeremiah put in one of them. He probably remained there for several weeks, or even several months);

JEREMIAH RELEASED; PLEADS FOR MERCY

¹⁷Then Zedekiah the king sent, and took him out: and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said, Is there any word from the LORD? And Jeremiah said, There is: for, said he, you shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. (The question asked by Zedekiah, Is there any word from the LORD? shows that this man knew in his heart that Jeremiah was a true Prophet of God. But yet he was not strong enough to stand up and do that which was right. The answer to the question was not to the kings liking.)

¹⁸Moreover Jeremiah said unto king Zedekiah, What have I offended against you, or against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison?

¹⁹Where are now your prophets which prophesied unto you, saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this land? (These false prophets waxed bold upon the coming of the Egyptian army, which resulted in the retreat of the Babylonian army. Jeremiahs name then became a joke! But now, the table has turned. The Egyptians are defeated, with the Babylonians once again laying siege to the city. The false prophets are no longer to be heard. The fallacy of their prophecies has silenced them.)

²⁰Therefore hear now, I pray you, O my lord the king: let my supplication, I pray you, be accepted before you; that you cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan the Scribe, lest I die there. (Jeremiahs pathetic appeal not to be left to die of starvation in the dungeon, while showing his natural fear of death, makes his courage and testimony the more remarkable, and the result proves that honest reproof sometimes gains more favor than flattery.

Jeremiah was a faithful Preacher of the Divine Message. He most earnestly and affectionately warned the king of the sure Wrath of God and begged him to accept the Grace of God that promised absolute safety from that Wrath. But the king, like most today, chose death rather than life.)

JEREMIAH CONFINED TO THE PRISON COURT

²¹Then Zedekiah the king commanded that they should commit Jeremiah into the court of the prison, and that they should give him daily a piece of bread out of the bakers street, until all the bread in the city were spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison. (The city, now under siege by the Babylonians, quickly runs out of food! Hence, if Zedekiah had not commanded that Jeremiah be allowed to remain in the court of the prison, and that they should give him daily a piece of bread, he would have starved to death.)