Scriptural text: Jeremiah 37-38
Zedekiah’s Meeting with Jeremiah (Jeremiah 38:14-16).
Jeremiah was one of the foremost of the Hebrew prophets. Jeremiah’s long career began in the thirteenth year of Josiah (c. 627 BC) and continued through the end of the Southern Kingdom. Jeremiah was a firsthand witness to Jerusalem’s final days before exile. Nebuchadnezzar changed his name to Zedekiah, which means, “The Lord Exalts” or “The Lord Throws Down.”
King Zedekiah, the ruler over Judah, sought to meet face to face with God’s prophet, Jeremiah. This passage records the fourth and last time the two talked together before the Babylonian conquest. The king pleaded for Jeremiah to tell him the truth, so Jeremiah told him that the Lord was offering the king one last chance to repent. Jeremiah begged the king to listen to God. Jeremiah praised the Lord Almighty, the covenant keeper of Israel, and told the king to stop fighting the Babylonians so that his life would be spared and the city would not be burned to the ground. These Babylonians were serving God’s judgment upon Judah. Fighting their army was equal to fighting God. But Zedekiah was afraid of the people, that they might blame him for the downfall of the city.
Jeremiah’s Message to Zedekiah (Jeremiah 38:17-18).
Jeremiah pleaded with Zedekiah to simply follow the voice of the Lord, but the king refused to listen. Listening is a discipline. Committing yourself to listen and obey the Lord results in things in your life going more smoothly. That does not mean no troubles whatsoever, but it does mean hearing a voice delivering the greatest wisdom for your life. A word of warning: Don’t make Zedekiah’s mistake!!!
Zedekiah’s Fear of the Jews (Jeremiah 38:19).
The special form of fear was characteristic of the weak and vacillating king. It was not enough to know that his life would be safe. Would he also be saved from the insults of his own subjects, who had already deserted to the enemy? These were, in the nature of the case, friends and followers of the prophet, and had acted on his advice. The king, who had shrunk from Jeremiah’s taunts, could not, for very shame, expose himself to the derision of others. Perhaps even he feared more than mere derision-outrage, death, mutilation, such as Saul fearing the hands of the Philistines. Jeremiah’s Second Message to Zedekiah (Jeremiah 38:20-23). Jeremiah pleaded with Zedekiah to listen to him and obey the Lord. Verse 22 spells out the consequences of King Zedekiah’s decision to disobey God. The people who suffered most would be the women who remaining in the king’s house and in the city. Zedekiah’s own wives, concubines, and children, would suffer rape, humiliation, and degradation at the hands of Babylonians soldiers. Jeremiah uttered a lament that the women would probably speak