1And King Zedekiah son of Josiah became king instead of Coniah son of Jehoiakim, as Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia had made him king in the land of Judah. 2And he and his servants and the people of the land had not heeded the words of the LORD that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet. 3And King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Pray for us to the LORD our God.” 4And Jeremiah was coming and going in the midst of the people, and they had not put him in prison. 5And Pharaoh’s force had gone out from Egypt, and the Chaldeans besieging Jerusalem heard of them and withdrew from Jerusalem. 6And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, 7“Thus said the LORD God of Israel, thus shall you say to the king of Judah who is sending you to Me to seek Me: Look, Pharaoh’s force coming out to you to help is turning back to its land, Egypt. 8And the Chaldeans shall turn back and battle against this city and capture it and burn it in fire. 9Thus said the LORD: Do not deceive yourselves, saying, ‘The Chaldeans will surely go away from us,’ for they shall not go away. 10Though you strike down the whole Chaldean force battling against you and there remain men run through, each in his tent, they shall rise up and burn this city in fire.” 11And it happened when the Chaldean force withdrew from Jerusalem before Pharaoh’s force, 12that Jeremiah went out from Jerusalem to go to the region of Benjamin to hide there in the midst of the people. 13And as he came to the gate of Benjamin, there was a prison warden there named Irijah son of Shelemiah son of Hananiah, and he caught Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are going over to the Chaldeans.” 14And Jeremiah said, “That is a lie! I am not going over to the Chaldeans.” But he did not listen to him, and Irijah caught Jeremiah and brought him to the nobles. 15And the nobles were furious with Jeremiah and struck him and put him into the place of confinement, the house of Jonathan the scribe, for they had turned it into a prison. 16So did Jeremiah come to the house of the pit and to the cells, and Jeremiah stayed there many days. 17And King Zedekiah sent and took him, and the king questioned him secretly in his house and said, “Is there any word from the LORD?” And Jeremiah said, “There is—into the hand of the king of Babylonia you shall be given.” 18And Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “How have I offended you and your servants and this people that you should have put me in prison? 19And where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, the king of Babylonia shall not come against you and against this land? 20And now, listen, pray, my lord the king, let my supplication fall before you and do not turn me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe and let me not die there.” 21And Zedekiah gave the command, and they placed Jeremiah in the court of the guard and gave him a loaf of bread each day from the Baker’s Street, till there was no longer any bread in the city. And Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard.
CHAPTER 37 NOTES
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
1. Coniah. This is a shortened form of Jeconiah.
as Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia had made him king. Nebuchadrezzar had removed Jeconiah from the throne and put Zedekiah in his place, assuming he would serve submissively as a vassal king, which did not prove to be the case.
3. Pray for us to the LORD our God. The usual linguistic protocol is to say “the LORD your God” when addressing a prophet. The king evidently wants to emphasize his solidarity with Jeremiah—they share the same God. His attitude toward the prophet is ambivalent: he regards him as someone who has direct access to God but dismisses his prophecies of doom, even judging them to be seditious.
4. and they had not put him in prison. Not yet, but this would very soon happen.
10. and there remain men run through. This is a hyperbole used for dramatic effect: even should you slaughter the Chaldeans, the very men you have stabbed with your swords will rise up from their tents and complete the assault against your city.
12. to hide there. The verb ḥalaq usually means “to share,” and so many interpreters understand this to say that Jeremiah was going on personal business, to realize a share in an inheritance coming to him. The conduct of such business in a time of siege is unlikely. Hoffman cites an Akkadian cognate that means “to hide” or “to flee,” and that sounds plausible here: Jeremiah may be fleeing from a fate of death when the city falls to the Babylonians.
13. And as he came to the gate of Benjamin. This would be the gate in the wall of Jerusalem leading to the territory of Benjamin. All this takes place during the brief period when the Babylonians lifted the siege.
a prison warden. The Hebrew baʿal pequdot is linked with beyt hapequdot, one of several terms for “prison.”
You are going over to the Chaldeans. Given Jeremiah’s history of grimly predicting a Babylonian victory, he would readily be suspected of desertion to the enemy.
14. brought him to the nobles. The nobles (sarim) are royal officers, evidently superior to the prison warden.
16. So did Jeremiah come to the house of the pit and to the cells. The use of “house of the pit” for “prison”—“pit” for prison also occurs in the Joseph story—suggests that it was a harsh place of confinement. Ḥanuyot, “cells,” appears only here. In postbiblical Hebrew, it came to mean “shops,” but at least one Semitic cognate indicates that it had the ancient meaning of “cell” or “dungeon.”
17. Is there any word from the LORD? Zedekiah still clings to Jeremiah as a privileged source of knowledge of God’s intentions, but the answer to his question is a repetition of the prophecy of destruction.
20. let me not die there. Either he fears that he could not long survive in the harsh conditions of the prison pit at the house of Jonathan the scribe, or he is afraid that the nobles overseeing that place are so furious with him that they will end up killing him if he stays there in their charge.
21. they placed Jeremiah in the court of the guard and gave him a loaf of bread each day. As we have seen before, this amounts to a kind of house arrest on the palace grounds in which Jeremiah is given some freedom of movement and access to visitors. The provision of a daily loaf reflects the king’s concern for Jeremiah, especially because food supplies would have been very scarce during the siege, as the next clause, “till there was no longer any bread in the city,” clearly indicates.