This chapter begins a new series, in which the proof of the wickedness of the people is brought out. We see their spasmodic efforts at repentance. Alas! it was no true work of God in their conscience, but simply the pressure of calamity for a time, which led them to form resolves, in a measure after the law of the Lord, but which proved utterly powerless when the affliction was stayed forever so little a while. Hence the word comes to Jeremiah from Jehovah, “When Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people, fought; against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof.” And the Lord then told him to speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, from Himself, assuring him that He would “give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he should burn it with fire.” To fight it out was even to resist the Lord. It was not Nebuchadnezzar merely that was taking Jerusalem; Jehovah was giving up the city and their king of the house of David—a most solemn sign of His displeasure.
Indeed there is never any good received from a trial except it be taken from the hand of God. When humiliation comes, it is no use laying the blame on others, on this one or that one, but rather on God's people as a whole—on ourselves—more especially if we have the chief responsibility of action. Here the king had an immense place, and of course the priests also. If the king was a righteous man, Jehovah always brought blessing to the people for his sole sake: if the king was ungodly, his evil drew down chastening on the people. Alas! if there was an ungodly king, there was also an ungodly people. We may say, Like people, like king; and not only, “Like people, like priest.” In this case Jehovah intimates to Zedekiah a part of that which should befall him. “Thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth; and thou shalt go to Babylon.” (Ver. 3.) This is the more remarkable, because another prophet was given to prophesy that Zedekiah's eyes should be put out, and that he should not see Babylon. “I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans: yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there.” (Ezek. 12:1313My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there. (Ezekiel 12:13).) Both are true. His eyes did not see the king of Babylon in Babylon, but he was taken prisoner in “the plains of Jericho” and brought to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath. There his eyes were put out. After seeing his sons put to death, he was blinded by the indignant king of Babylon, and not without deserving it. For Zedekiah had behaved extremely ill before God and man. He had profaned the name of Jehovah, he had shown less respect for that name than Nebuchadnezzar himself. The Gentile chief trusted that the name of Jehovah would bind the Jewish king in his oath: but it did not. Zedekiah, the son of David, broke the oath of Jehovah, and Nebuchadnezzar's anger was great. Therefore he punished Zedekiah thus fiercely, giving him to see the death of his own sons, then putting his eyes out and bringing him to Babylon. Nevertheless his eyes did previously behold the eyes of the king of Babylon. He was confronted with the head of gold, haughty and in the pride of his power, to whom God had given universal power. Thus Ezekiel was proved true, because Zedekiah went blinded from Riblah to Babylon; and Jeremiah was proved true, because he was taken prisoner in the land, did with his eyes behold the king of Babylon and was afterward taken to Babylon. Thus most minutely can every word of the prophets be trusted.
But there was another instructive dealing of God. Along with the humiliation that would surely come upon the king, the son of David, God tells him, “Thou shalt not die by the sword.” He might have dreaded not merely the sword, but the furnace. Nevertheless God says to him, “Thou shalt not die by the sword: but thou shalt die in peace and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, so shall they burn odors for thee; and they will lament thee, saying, Ah, lord! for I have pronounced the word, saith the Lord.” That is to say, he would have a funeral suited to his dignity as a king, and after the usual mode of the Jews—a bed of spices prepared to burn the king's body, and lamentations over him. The reason was this, that God, even in His judgment, carefully remembers whatever good there may have been. The Lord says, as it were, I will recompense; and He never fails. Zedekiah had acted wickedly: nevertheless his heart was towards the prophet, and he would have gladly spared him, but he was pushed on by others more wicked than himself. Consequently, when the supreme moment came, God extends mercy towards him; and thus he stands in full contrast with Jehoiakim, who had only the burial of an ass, as Jeremiah had proclaimed in an earlier chapter.
“Then the prophet spite all these words unto Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem. And the king of Babylon's army fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish, and against Azekah” (ver. 6, 7), the cities that were intended to form a bulwark and a stay if an enemy came up against Jerusalem. But the people and the king formed a covenant, and this was what brought fresh displeasure from the Lord upon them. There was an old law from the days of the desert imposed on the children of Israel, that no Hebrew could ever be a servant to his brother longer than seven years, unless by his own voluntary choice, when his ear was bored, and he, with his wife and children, if he had any, remained servants to their master forever. But as a rule, a manservant or maidservant could only serve six years, and in the seventh they went out free. The sabbatical year proclaimed that they could no longer righteously be kept in bondage. But it had been neglected, it seems for a very long period, probably for several hundreds of years; for the prophecy of the seventy years' captivity notices this, and seems to imply a period of four hundred and ninety years, during which they had paid no heed to the sabbatical year. However that may be, “When all the princes, and all the people, which had entered into the covenant, heard that every one should let his manservant, and every one his maidservant, go free, that none should serve themselves of them any more, then they obeyed and let them go.” (Ver. 10.)
But afterward, when the sight of danger was past for the moment—for Nebuchadnezzar for a while raised the siege— “They turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.” (Ver. 11.) Then the word of the Lord comes by Jeremiah again, “Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen.” How disgraceful then, if God had brought them out of bondage, that they should forget the will of the Lord as to their brethren in bondage. They might possess a stranger unlimitedly; but they might not keep one of their own brethren more than six years. Thus they had quite forgotten their obligations at home until the time of their affliction, when they read and obeyed, letting their Hebrew bondmen go. Hence their guilt was much greater, because they had felt their sin and their fathers' sin; they had seen what the will of God was, and having resolved to do it under pressure of danger, directly the occasion was gone they returned to their evil ways. “Therefore thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.” (Ver. 17.)
Nor was it merely that they had singularly lost sight of Jehovah's will and transgressed His covenant, but they contracted a solemn covenant made afresh, “when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof.” There was something similar in early days between their father Abram, as recorded in Gen. 15, and God. There was a remarkable covenant, when it is said that he took all the victims named and “divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.” (Ver. 10-12) Thus and then it was made known to him, in presence of this sacrifice, that his seed were to be afflicted four hundred years, but that the nation whom they should serve, God would judge, and afterward they should come out with great substance. “And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.” (Ver. 17.) This set forth the destiny of Israel, the smoking furnace representing their trial and affliction; the burning lamp that passed between them, the hope of the deliverance that would spring up out of darkness. Such were the dealings of God in His righteous government.
These men seem to have imitated in a manner this covenant with Abram; but in them there was no faith counted for righteousness, though they solemnly acknowledged their obligation to the will of God, passing between the calf, which was not only a sacrificial sign for confirmation before the Lord, but a kind of imprecation of death upon themselves if they were unfaithful to the covenant, like the children of Israel in Ex. 24 And so says the Lord to those who had passed between the parts of the calf; “I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth. And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are gone up from you.” (Ver. 20, 21.) They were not to be killed as the others, but to be taken prisoners and put to humiliation; though God might assuage their calamity, as we have seen in the case of Zedekiah. As for the city, they flattered themselves that the Babylonians would never come back again; but says the Lord, I will “cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant.” (Ver. 22.) So solemn are the ways of Jehovah, whether with the guilty king, in not forgetting his kindness to the prophet, whatever might be the judgment of his iniquity; or with the princes and priests, the still more guilty advisers of the king. Destruction came upon them to the uttermost, as also upon the city itself where such conscienceless deeds were allowed.