JEREMIAH 38A
Jeremiah had a message of surrender verse 1- 3
Then Shephatiah the son of Mattan – Gedaliah the son of Pashur
Jucal the son of Shelemiah – Pashur the son of Malchiah
heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken unto the people
saying
Thus says the LORD
He that remains in this city shall die by the sword
by the famine – by the pestilence
BUT he that goes forth to the Chaldeans
shall live
For he shall have his life for a prey and shall live
Thus says the LORD
This city shall surely be given into the hand of the
king of Babylon’s army which shall take it
Princes went to king calling Jeremiah a traitor verse 4
THEREFORE the princes said unto the king
We beseech you – let this man be put to death
FOR thus he weakens the hands of the men of war that
remain in this city – and the hands of all the people
in speaking such words unto them
FOR this man seeks not the welfare of this people – but the hurt
King gives leaders permission to kill Jeremiah verse 5
THEN Zedekiah the king said
BEHOLD – he is in your hand for the king is not he that can do
any thing against you
Jeremiah put into empty royal cistern verse 6
THEN took they Jeremiah and cast him into the
dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech
that was in the court of the prison
and they let down Jeremiah with cords
AND in the dungeon there was no water – BUT mire
so Jeremiah sunk in the mire
Ebed-melech the Ethiopian pleads for Jeremiah verse 7- 9
Now when Ebed-melech the Ethiopian
one of the eunuchs which was in the king’s house
heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon
the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin
Ebed-melech went forth out of the king’s house – and spoke to the king
saying – My lord the king
These men have done evil in all that they have done to
Jeremiah the prophet whom they have cast into the dungeon
and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is
for there is no more bread in the city
Ebed-melecah receives permission to save Jeremiah verse 10
THEN the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian – saying
Take from hence thirty men with you
and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon
before he die
Jeremiah raised out of cistern verse 11- 13
SO Ebed-melech took the men with him
and went into the house of the king under the treasury
and took thence old cast clouts and old rotten rags
and let them down by cords into the dungeon
to Jeremiah
AND Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah
Put now these old cast clouts and rotten rags under thine armholes
under the cords
And Jeremiah did so
SO they drew up Jeremiah with cords
and took him up out of the dungeon
and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison
Jeremiah gives King message from the LORD verse 14- 18
THEN Zedekiah the king sent and took Jeremiah the prophet unto him
into the third entry that is in the house of the LORD
and the king said unto Jeremiah
I will ask you a thing hide nothing from me
THEN Jeremiah said unto Zedekiah
If I declare it unto you – will you not surely put me to death?
and if I give you counsel – will you not hearken unto me?
SO Zedekiah the king swore secretly unto Jeremiah – saying
As the LORD lives – that made us this soul
I will not put you to death
neither will I give you into the hands of these
men that seek your life
THEN said Jeremiah unto Zedekiah
Thus says the LORD – the God of hosts – the God of Israel
If you will assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon’s princes
THEN your soul shall live and this city shall not be burned with fire
and you shall live – and your house
BUT IF you will not go forth to the king of Babylon’s princes
THEN shall this city be given into the hand of the Chaldeans
and they shall burn it with fire
and you shall not escape out of their hand
King afraid of the people verse 19
AND Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah
I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen to the Chaldeans
lest they deliver me into their hand – and they mock me
Jeremiah says obedience more important verse 20- 23
BUT Jeremiah said
They shall not deliver you
OBEY – I beseech you – the voice of the LORD
which I speak unto you – so it shall be well unto you
and your soul shall live
BUT IF thou refuse to go forth
this is the word that the LORD hath shown me
And BEHOLD – all the women that are left in the king of Judah’s house
shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon’s princes
and those women shall say
Your friends have set you on and have prevailed against you
your feet are sunk in the mire and they are turned away back
So they shall bring out all your wives and your children to the Chaldeans
and you shall not escape out of their hand
BUT shall be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon
and you shall cause this city to be burned with fire
King tells Jeremiah not to repeat message verse 24- 26
Then said Zedekiah unto Jeremiah
Let no man know of these words – and you shall not die
BUT if the princes hear that I have talked with you
and they come unto you – and say unto you
Declare unto us now what you have said unto the king
hide it not from us – and we will not put you to death
ALSO what the king said unto you
THEN you shall say unto them
I presented my supplication before the king
that he would not cause me to return to
Jonathan’s house – to die there
Jeremiah follows king’s instructions verse 27- 28
THEN came all the princes unto Jeremiah – and asked him
and he told them according to all these words
that the king had commanded
SO they left off speaking with him
for the matter was not perceived
So Jeremiah abode in the court of the prison until the day
that Jerusalem was taken
and he was there when Jerusalem was taken
COMMENTARY:
DAILY SPIRITUAL BREAKFAST: Young Believers
: 6 Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammeliech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire. (2916 “mire” [tiyt] means mud, clay, loam, damp dirt, or bog.)
DEVOTION: The word is used to represent instability, loneliness, and helplessness of one in distress in one’s current condition.
Here we find Jeremiah preaching the message the LORD had given him and yet the people wanted to kill him. They thought that he was causing the people of Jerusalem to lose hope.
The problem was that their disobedience was causing the people to lose hope. They didn’t want to listen to the message of the LORD and do what HE commanded. HE told the people of Jerusalem that their only hope to live was to surrender to the Babylonian army and go out of the city.
The prince’s solution was to go to the king and ask to kill Jeremiah. The king granted their request.
Jeremiah was put in a cistern without water. All that was in the cistern was mud. He was sinking in the mud with no food or water. They wanted him to suffer before he died.
We sometimes find ourselves in a position where the people around us would rather we just go away instead of them having to listen what the LORD was telling us to preach.
If we continue preaching against sin we will be judged of the LORD but if we continue the people around us might want to get rid of us. We have to remember that our security is in the LORD.
HE is the one who provides all our needs. HE will not fail us if we continue to be faithful to HIM. Jeremiah was faithful to HIM and the LORD sent a servant to King Zedekiah to plead for his life.
Our situation is never hopeless when we remain faithful to the LORD. HE will deliver us out of every situation by HIS grace. Even if we have failed in the past HE will forgive us if we repent. HE can then use us for HIS service.
Jonah is an example of HIS forgiveness. There are many other people throughout the Old Testament that give us an example of the LORD’S care for HIS people. Faithfulness can bring deliverance.
CHALLENGE: When everyone seems to be against you always turn to the LORD for help. HE is truly the only one who can get us out of bad circumstances.)
DAILY SPIRITUAL LUNCH: Transitional Believers
: 20 But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver you. Obey, I beseech you, the voice of the LORD, which I speak unto you: so it shall be well unto you, and your soul shall live. (8085 “Obey” [shama] means to hear, listen to, receive news, to understand, give heed, agree, consent, or to yield to.)
DEVOTION: The leaders around Zedekiah wanted to kill Jeremiah because of his message from the LORD. They were afraid his message would cause the people to surrender to the king of Babylon. The king let them do what they wanted with Jeremiah. They took him and put him in a dungeon by lowing him down into a cistern that had no water but only mire. He would die in this dungeon without food and water.
One of the servants named Ebed-melech the Ethiopian went to the king and asked for Jeremiah to be released. He was a eunuch in the service of king Zedekiah. He was a nobody that the LORD used to spare Jeremiah’s life. The king allowed him to go and with thirty of his men to release Jeremiah. He had to take rags and tie them together to get Jeremiah out of the cistern.
Once Jeremiah was released the king sent for him to give him a message from the LORD. Jeremiah told him that he would not like the message. The message told Zedekiah to surrender to the king of Babylon. The king told him he was afraid.
Now this verse comes into play. Jeremiah reminds the king to trust the LORD. If the king will listen to the LORD things would go well with him. If he didn’t listen there would be tragic consequences. He was more afraid of the people then the LORD.
Today we have choices to make every day regarding to whom we will listen. We can listen to man or we can listen to the LORD. Too often men want to run the LORD’S church the way they think it should be run.
They run off people who don’t agree with them. They think they are doing a good job. However, the LORD tells HIS shepherd to feed the flock NOT allow them to be run off.
As shepherds are we listening to the people or the LORD? God’s word is plain regarding a shepherd’s responsibility. We are not to look at people but to the LORD for direction.
Our paychecks come from the LORD not the people. Zedekiah was afraid of the princes and afraid of the people in captivity. Of whom are we afraid to state what the LORD gives us? We are to preach or teach without fear of the faces of the people we are teaching.
God want us to be faithful to HIS Word rather than please men. Jeremiah said things the king didn’t want to hear. We need to do the same today. There are a few people that are willing to listen.
God used a servant to spare the life of Jeremiah. Who will HE use to help us in our faithfulness to HIM?
CHALLENGE: Obedience is hard. Applying the Word of God to our daily life is work. We need to fight the laziness and selfishness that is part of our human nature each day.)
DAILY SPIRITUAL SUPPER: Mature Believers
: 27 Then came all the princes unto Jeremiah, and asked him: and he told them according to all these words that the king had commanded. So they left off speaking with him; for the matter was not perceived. (8085 “perceived” [shama] means to understand things heard, discerned, to be regarded, be heeded, or reported)
DEVOTION: In a court of law in the United States the witness is “to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God.” Once they are on the stand they should tell the truth. This is something that is important to the LORD. HE wants us to tell the truth at all times.
Now we have Jeremiah before the princes again asking him what he said to the king and what the king send to him. It is thought that he might have had two conversations with the king one about what was going to happen in the future and one where Jeremiah asked not to go back into prison.
We don’t have all that was said in the conversation but we have the first conversation and what the king told Jeremiah to say to the princes because he didn’t want to have them against him.
So we find that commentaries disagree as to whether Jeremiah lied to the princes or not. We know that the princes didn’t understand the conversation that Jeremiah gave them because of the word that we have picked from the verse. So it is hard for us to judge Jeremiah. He didn’t want to hurt the king or himself.
When we read this passage we have to make sure that we don’t just Jeremiah as a hypocrite. We have to watch what we say to people on a regular basis. We have to speak the truth in love. We have to make sure that we are saying things that will help people and not hurt people. If something is told to us in confidence we have to make sure that we keep the confidence.
There is a fine line between not sharing the whole truth to an individual and lying. We have to ask the LORD for discernment in every conversation we have with people. If we say too much we can hurt them or too little we cannot help them.
CHALLENGE: Are we praying for discernment in our every conversation with people? Is what we say pleasing to the LORD? Our prayer life before every conversation makes a difference because the LORD has promised to give us just the right words.
DISCIPLINES OF THE FAITH:
BODY
- Chastity (Purity in living)
- Fasting (Time alone with LORD without eating or drinking)
- Sacrifice (Giving up something we want to serve the LORD)
- Submission (Willing to listen to others and LORD)
Jeremiah submitted to the kings request verse 27
- Solitude (Going to a quiet place without anyone)
SOUL
- Fellowship (Gathering together around the Word of God)
- Frugality (wise use of resources)
- Journalizing (Writing down what you have learned from the LORD)
- Study and Meditation (Thinking through your study in the Word)
- Secrecy (Doing your good deeds without others knowing but God)
SPIRIT
- Celebration (Gathering around a special occasion to worship LORD)
- Confession (Tell the LORD we are sorry for our sins on a daily basis)
- Prayer (Conversation with God on a personal level)
- Silence (Letting the LORD deal with some problems and needs)
- Worship (Time to praise the LORD alone or in a group)
House of the LORD verse 14
DOCTRINES OF THE FAITH:
Scripture (66 inerrant books of the Bible)
Word of the LORD verse 2, 20, 21
God the Father (First person of the Godhead)
LORD – Jehovah (Covenant keeping, Personal) verse 2, 3, 14, 16, 17,
20, 21
Creator verse 16
God – Elohim (Creator, Sovereign, Plural name) verse 17
God of hosts verse 17
God of Israel verse 17
Voice of the LORD verse 20
God the Son (Second person of the Godhead –God/man, Messiah)
God the Holy Spirit (Third person of the Godhead – our comforter)
Trinity (Three persons of the Godhead who are co-equal = ONE God)
Angels (Created before the foundation of the world – Good and Evil)
Man (Created on the sixth twenty-four hour period of creation)
Chaldeans verse 2, 18, 19, 23
King of Babylon verse 3, 17, 18, 22,
23
Ebedmelech the Ethiopian (eunuch) verse 7- 12
Sin (Missing the mark set by God on man and angels)
Not like message from God verse 4,
Killing God’s messenger verse 4
Not protecting God’s messenger verse 5
Evil verse 9
Afraid to obey verse 19
Mock obedient people verse 19
Salvation (Provided by Christ’s death on the cross for our sins)
Give message from God verse 2, 3, 14- 18
Hearken to message from God verse 15
Obedience verse 20
Begging people to obey God verse 20
Promise of wellness to those who obey verse 20
Israel (Old Testament people of God)
Shelphatiah verse 1
Gedaliah verse 1
Jeremiah verse 1, 6, 7, 9- 18,
20- 24, 27, 28
Princes verse 4
King Zedekiah verse 4, 5, 9, 10,
14- 19, 22,
24, 27
Dungeon of Malchiah verse 6
Benjamin verse 7
Israel verse 17
Jonathan verse 26
Jerusalem verse 28
Church (New Testament people of God)
Last Things (Future Events)
QUOTES
38:27 Even as Zedekiah anticipated, the officials did question Jeremiah about his conversation with the king. Jeremiah answered as the king had instructed him. Jeremiah’s answer creates a troublesome question about his ethics. Hyatt called it a “white lie” or “half truth.” It raises the question of whether there is ever an appropriate situation not to be truthful. In defense of Jeremiah, some have said he was not concealing the truth to protect himself but to protect the people, who would have been subjected to a bloody purge if they had heeded Jeremiah’s advice and had begun surrendering to the enemy. Others have suggested that Jeremiah was protecting the king’s life by not revealing the true conversation; they reason that it is right to lie if it means saving a life. Some have justified Jeremiah by saying he was not untruthful but did not reveal the entire conversation. He may have asked Zedekiah not to return him to Jonathan’s house. The most likely explanation for Jeremiah’s response is that it reveals his humanity (as did the confessions in chaps. 11–20). In a weaker moment of remembering past abuse and anticipating more suffering, and perhaps still picking mud from between his toes, Jeremiah complied with the king’s request. For the moment he had no desire for further abuse and possible death.
The men accepted his version of the conversation because none of them had been present to hear the actual words. Jeremiah’s moment of weakness is a reminder that all have their times of weakness and sin, but if the sin is confessed, God will forgive (1 John 1:9). (Huey, F. B. (1993). Jeremiah, Lamentations (Vol. 16, pp. 339–340). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.)
27Jeremiah’s compliance with the king’s request has been severely criticized on ethical grounds. One scholar thinks he agreed to tell a lie. Though he would not compromise on the word of God, he was more compromising in lesser matters (so Frost). Jeremiah’s answer has been called a “half-truth” or “a white lie” for the king’s sake (so Hyatt). But another interpretation is that he told the truth, nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth (so Clarke). Still another interpretation is that for Jeremiah to tell the partial truth was misleading, but he did it to shield the king (so Bewer). We must be extremely reluctant to fault a true prophet of God like Jeremiah—a man of courage, brotherly love, patriotism, tremendous spiritual stature, and unparalleled devotion. In his defense the following facts need to be considered.
1. The precarious position of the king must be taken into account.
2. To allay suspicion was as much in the king’s interest as in his own.
3. Jeremiah’s answer was not a falsehood because the petition was implied in vv.15–16 (so Laetsch).
4. At this critical time, the king did not want to occasion a break between himself and his generals (so Payne Smith).
5. Actually, the officials had no authority to question either the king or the prophet.
6. The officials wanted to use the information for evil purposes.
7. Jeremiah told only what was necessary and no more.
8. It was his way of bolstering Zedekiah’s battered morale (so Cunliffe-Jones) (Feinberg, C. L. (1986). Jeremiah. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel (Vol. 6, pp. 619–620). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.)
Still afraid of his own officers, the king told Jeremiah to keep their conversation confidential. There’s no suggestion that Jeremiah lied to the officers who questioned him. To begin with, we may not have a transcript of the complete conversation between Jeremiah and Zedekiah, and Jeremiah may have asked not to be returned to the house of Jonathan. Certainly in their second conversation, Jeremiah had made such a request (37:17–21). He was under no obligation to report everything to the officers, and he didn’t have to lie in order to keep the conversation confidential. (Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). Be Decisive (pp. 148–149). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.)
Ver. 27. Then came all the princes to Jeremiah, and asked him, &c.] After he had parted with the king, and was come back to the court of the prison; as soon as the princes had been informed of the interview between the king and the prophet, which soon came to their ears, they came in a body to him, to the court of the prison, where he was, and asked him of what passed between him and the king: and he told them according to all those words that the king had commanded; what he told them, no doubt, was truth; though he did not tell them all the truth; which he was not obliged to do, having no command from God, and being forbid by the king: so they left off speaking with him; or, were silent from him; went away silent, not being able to disprove what he had said, or object unto it, and finding they could get nothing more out of him: for the matter was not perceived; or, was not heard; though there were persons that saw the king and the prophet together, yet nobody heard any thing that passed between them; and therefore Jeremy could not be confronted in what he had said, or be charged with concealing any thing. (Gill, J. (1810). An Exposition of the Old Testament (Vol. 5, p. 620). London: Mathews and Leigh.)
Figuratively, this noun is employed to portray God’s deliverance of believers from enemies (II Sam 22:43) or his judgment upon foes (Mic 7:10; Zech 10:5) by trampling them like “mud” or dust in the streets. The figure of one sinking into the “mire” at the bottom of a cistern is used to depict the instability, loneliness, and helplessness of one in distress (Ps 40:2 [H 3]; 69:2, 14 [H 3, 15]). The abundance of “mud” in the ancient streets is employed to describe Tyre’s wealth in gold (Zech 9:3). (Alexander, R. H. (1999). 796 טוט. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (347). Chicago: Moody Press.)