Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Jeremiah · About this commentary
Arrested at the Gate of Benjamin
Jeremiah 37:1-21
1 Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah. · WEB
A lifted siege convinces the city that the danger has passed, and the prophet who says otherwise is arrested at the gate on his way to claim a field.
Zedekiah's request opens the chapter and its shape is familiar: Pray now to Yahweh our God for us, from a king whose own summary is that neither he nor his servants nor the people listened to a word. What made the request seem promising was that an Egyptian army had marched, and the Babylonians had lifted the siege to meet it. For a few weeks Jerusalem was free. Its farmers were back on the roads, and every prophet who had predicted deliverance appeared to be right.
The word given is one of the flattest in the book. Pharaoh's army will go home; the Chaldeans will come back and burn the city; don't deceive yourselves. And then a sentence pushed to the point of absurdity, to close off the last hope. Even if the whole besieging army were struck down and only wounded men were left in the tents, those men would get up and burn the city. The outcome is not a matter of the military balance, and the passage says so in the most extreme terms it can find.
During the lull Jeremiah leaves by the gate of Benjamin to go north and take possession of his portion among his people — the errand of a man who had bought a field in exactly that district Jeremiah 32:9. He is seized by an officer with the charge You are defecting to the Chaldeans! The charge is not stupid. He had been telling the whole city that surrender was the way to live Jeremiah 21:9. His denial is two words long and is not believed. He is beaten, put into the vaulted cells of a house that had been converted into a prison, and left there many days.
The king then has him brought out secretly and asks the question the whole book has been about: Is there any word from Yahweh? The answer comes back in two syllables — There is — followed by the same sentence Zedekiah has been imprisoning men for repeating. Nothing is softened for a private audience with the man who controls his release. Then Jeremiah asks his own question, and it is a fair one: where are your prophets who told you the king of Babylon would not come? And he makes the single personal request recorded of him in the book. It is not for freedom. It is not to be sent back to that house, lest I die there. It is granted. He is moved to the court of the guard and given a loaf of bread a day from the bakers' street, until there was no bread left in the city.
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