Jeremiah - episode 7

Go where it is right to you

In the present post we conclude Jeremiah’s story. Despite some good signal by the king and the prophet’s promises of salvation («Thus says the LORD, the God of Hosts, the God of Israel: ‘If you will go forth to the king of Babylon’s officers, then your soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire; and you shall live, and your house», Jer 38,17), King Zedekiah decides to disobey the Lord resisting to the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar’s second siege to Jerusalem lasts about two years and it ends in 587 BC: «the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden; (now the Chaldeans were against the city all around;) and they went toward the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he gave judgment on him. The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he killed also all the officials of Judah in Riblah. He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death. Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem: and he burned the house of the LORD, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned he with fire. All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around. Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the residue of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude. But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be vineyard keepers and farmers» (Jer 52,6-16). This second defeat has worse consequences than the first one in 597: it caused distruction and looting in Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, the Lord’s house.
A Babylonian officer frees Jeremiah by Nebuchadnezzar’s order. «The captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said to him, “The LORD your God pronounced this evil on this place; and the LORD has brought it, and done according as he spoke: because you have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you. Now, behold, I release you this day from the chains which are on your hand. If it seems good to you to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will take care of you; but if it seems bad to you to come with me into Babylon, do not: behold, all the land is before you; where it seems good and right to you to go, there go.” Now while he had not yet gone back, “Go back then,” he said, “to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go.” So the captain of the guard gave him food and a present, and let him go. Then went Jeremiah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land» (Jer 40,2-6). Jeremiah maintains his solidarity with the people even at the time of the maximum difficulty, refusing a certainly quieter and more comfortable future in Babylon.
Unfortunately for him, the difficulties are not over: Gedaliah is killed a few months later by Ishmael, an officer of royal lineage who had allied with the Ammonites. The captains of the forces and the people who remained in the country ask Jeremiah to consult the Lord to decide what to do, for they fear the king of Babylon’s vengeance, even though they did not participate or agree to the murder of Governor Gedaliah. «It happened after ten days, that the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah. [...] “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him: ‘If you will still live in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you. Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; do not be afraid of him, says the LORD: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land.’



But if you say, ‘We will not dwell in this land’; so that you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, saying, ‘No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell’: now therefore hear the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to live there; then it shall happen, that the sword, which you fear, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, shall follow close behind you there in Egypt; and there you shall die» (Jer 42,7.9-16). The people prefer to believe in their fears more than in the Lord’s Word and decide to flee in Egypt. Jeremiah and his assistant Baruch are taken with them (Jer 43,5-6), faithful until the end to their mission: to be the presence of God in the midst of an unfaithful people. Jeremiah’s story has its conclusion in Egypt, with his last prophecies reported in the text (chapter 44); the Bible does not say anything else about his fate.
To conclude the Book examination, in the next post we will read some well-known Jeremiah’s salvation prophecies.