For Teaching

Jeremiah 34: What the Passage Says

106 claims across 22 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Jeremiah 34 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

While Nebuchadnezzar's army is attacking Jerusalem and the last fortified cities of Judah, the LORD sends Jeremiah to tell King Zedekiah that the city will be burned and that he himself will be captured and taken to Babylon, though he will not die by the sword but in peace, with the mourning rites given to kings. The chapter then turns to an agreement Zedekiah and the people had made in the temple to free their Hebrew slaves, which they kept at first and then broke by taking the freed people back into slavery. The LORD points to the old law requiring release in the seventh year, and says that because they did not proclaim freedom, he will proclaim a freedom for them to die by sword, plague, and famine. Those who broke the covenant, sealed by walking between the pieces of a slaughtered calf, will be handed to their enemies, and the Babylonian army that had pulled back will return, burn the city, and leave the cities of Judah empty.

Claim by Claim

34:1
- A word came to Jeremiah from the LORD.
- At that time Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem.
- All of Nebuchadnezzar's army was fighting against Jerusalem.
- All the kingdoms of the earth under Nebuchadnezzar's rule were fighting against Jerusalem.
- All the peoples were fighting against Jerusalem.
- They were also fighting against all the cities belonging to Jerusalem.
34:2
- The LORD, the God of Israel, said this.
- The LORD told Jeremiah to go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah.
- Zedekiah was king of Judah.
- The LORD told Jeremiah to tell Zedekiah what the LORD says.
- The LORD said he was giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon.
- The LORD said the king of Babylon would burn the city with fire.
34:3
- The LORD said Zedekiah would not escape from the king of Babylon's hand.
- The LORD said Zedekiah would certainly be captured.
- The LORD said Zedekiah would be given into the king of Babylon's hand.
- The LORD said Zedekiah's eyes would see the eyes of the king of Babylon.
- The LORD said the king of Babylon would speak with Zedekiah mouth to mouth.
- The LORD said Zedekiah would go to Babylon.
34:4
- Jeremiah told Zedekiah king of Judah to hear the word of the LORD.
- The LORD spoke this concerning Zedekiah.
- The LORD said Zedekiah would not die by the sword.
34:5
- The LORD said Zedekiah would die in peace.
- The LORD said that as burnings were made for Zedekiah's fathers, the former kings who were before him, so they would make a burning for him.
- The former kings were before Zedekiah.
- The LORD said they would lament for Zedekiah, saying, 'Ah, lord!'
- The LORD said he himself had spoken the word.
- This is a declaration of the LORD.
34:6
- Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah.
- Jeremiah was a prophet.
- Jeremiah spoke these words in Jerusalem.
34:7
- The army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem.
- The army of the king of Babylon was fighting against all the remaining cities of Judah.
- The army was fighting against Lachish.
- The army was fighting against Azekah.
- Lachish and Azekah were what remained of the fortified cities of Judah.
34:8
- A word came to Jeremiah from the LORD.
- This word came after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem.
- The covenant was to proclaim liberty to them.
34:9
- The covenant required each man to let his Hebrew manservant go free.
- The covenant required each man to let his Hebrew maidservant go free.
- The covenant required that no one should make a slave of a fellow Jew, his brother.
34:10
- All the officials heard.
- All the people heard.
- These officials and people had entered into the covenant.
- The covenant was that each man would let his manservant and his maidservant go free.
- The covenant was that none should make slaves of them any more.
- They obeyed.
- They let them go.
34:11
- Afterward they turned back.
- They brought back the manservants and the maidservants whom they had let go free.
- They forced them into subjection as manservants and maidservants.
34:12
- The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying:
34:13
- The LORD, the God of Israel, said this.
- The LORD said he made a covenant with their fathers.
- The LORD made that covenant on the day he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
- Egypt was a house of slaves.
- The covenant said the following.
34:14
- At the end of seven years each man was to let go his Hebrew brother who had been sold to him.
- The Hebrew brother was to serve six years.
- Then the master was to let him go free from him.
- Their fathers did not listen to the LORD.
- Their fathers did not incline their ear.
34:15
- They had recently turned back.
- They had done what was right in the LORD's sight.
- They had proclaimed liberty, each man to his neighbor.
- They had made a covenant before the LORD.
- They made that covenant in the house that is called by the LORD's name.
34:16
- Then they turned back again.
- They profaned the LORD's name.
- Each man brought back his manservant and his maidservant whom he had set free to go where they wished.
- They forced them into subjection to be their manservants and maidservants.
34:17
- Therefore the LORD said this.
- The LORD said they had not listened to him.
- They had not proclaimed liberty, each man to his brother and to his neighbor.
- The LORD said he was proclaiming a liberty for them.
- This is a declaration of the LORD.
- The liberty he proclaims is to the sword.
- The liberty he proclaims is to the plague.
- The liberty he proclaims is to the famine.
- The LORD said he would make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
34:18
- The LORD said he would give over the men who transgressed his covenant.
- Those men did not carry out the words of the covenant.
- They had made that covenant before the LORD.
- They cut a calf in two.
- They passed between its pieces.
34:19
- The officials of Judah passed between the pieces of the calf.
- The officials of Jerusalem passed between the pieces of the calf.
- The court officials passed between the pieces of the calf.
- The priests passed between the pieces of the calf.
- All the people of the land passed between the pieces of the calf.
34:20
- The LORD said he would give them into the hand of their enemies.
- The LORD said he would give them into the hand of those who seek their life.
- The LORD said their corpses would become food for the birds of the sky.
- The LORD said their corpses would become food for the beasts of the earth.
34:21
- The LORD said he would give Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of his enemies.
- The LORD said he would give Zedekiah's officials into the hand of their enemies.
- The LORD said he would give them into the hand of those who seek their life.
- The LORD said he would give them into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon.
- That army had withdrawn from them.
34:22
- The LORD said he was giving a command.
- This is a declaration of the LORD.
- The LORD said he would bring them back to this city.
- The LORD said they would fight against the city.
- The LORD said they would capture it.
- The LORD said they would burn it with fire.
- The LORD said he would make the cities of Judah a desolation with no inhabitant.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

34:1: "The LORD" in capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, which Hebrew writes with four consonants and which Jewish readers traditionally do not pronounce aloud. Nebuchadnezzar ruled Babylon, the dominant empire of the region, from 605 to 562 BC; the siege described here is the one that ended with Jerusalem's fall in 587/586 BC. "All the kingdoms of the earth that he ruled" means the subject peoples who were obliged to supply troops to his army, the phrase is sweeping rather than literally global.
34:2: Zedekiah was the last king of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar himself had placed him on the throne as a subject ruler after deporting the previous king; Zedekiah then rebelled, which is why the Babylonian army is at the walls.
34:3: "Look him in the eye" and "face to face" are Hebrew expressions for a direct personal encounter. For a rebel vassal this meant being brought before his overlord in person for judgment.
34:4: "Not die by the sword" means not killed in the fighting or executed afterward, which is what a captured rebel king would normally expect.
34:5: Kings were honored at death by burning large quantities of spices and aromatic wood, not a cremation of the body, but a ceremonial fire as part of the funeral. "Oh, our master!" was a set cry of formal public mourning, called out by lamenters at a funeral. To "die in peace" here means to die of natural causes rather than in battle or by execution.
34:7: Lachish and Azekah were fortified towns guarding the approaches to Jerusalem from the southwest. Letters written on pottery fragments, found in the ruins of Lachish, appear to come from this very campaign; one mentions watching for the fire signals of Lachish because the signals of Azekah can no longer be seen.
34:8: "Announce freedom" translates a specific Hebrew legal term for the release of people from debt-slavery and of property from debt, the same word used for the jubilee release. A king proclaiming it was making a formal public act of law, not simply giving advice.
34:9: Slavery here is mainly debt-slavery: an Israelite who could not pay his debts sold himself or his children into service to work them off. Israelite law treated a fellow Israelite in this position differently from a foreign slave, which is why the agreement is limited to Hebrew slaves.
34:10: "Princes" in the King James means senior officials and nobles of the court, not the king's sons. They are named first because they were the ones who actually owned the slaves.
34:13: "The place where they were slaves" is literally "the house of slaves," a fixed phrase for Egypt used in Israel's law and worship. The point is that a people freed from slavery are bound by law not to hold each other permanently in it.
34:14: The law referred to is in Exodus 21:2 and Deuteronomy 15:12: a Hebrew debt-slave served six years and went free in the seventh. "At the end of every seven years" reflects the Hebrew wording, which counts by the recurring seventh-year cycle; the following clause gives the actual term of service.
34:15: "The house that is called by my name" is the temple in Jerusalem. Swearing an agreement there made it a binding oath, with God as witness.
34:16: To "treat my name as worthless" translates a verb meaning to profane or make common. Because the agreement had been sworn in God's name at the temple, breaking it was treated as an insult to the name itself.
34:17: This is a bitter play on words. The same legal term for the "freedom" they refused to give their slaves is now announced over them: they are released, into the reach of war, plague and famine. "Sword, plague and famine" is a standard trio in Jeremiah for the deaths that follow a siege.
34:18: This describes how agreements were sealed. An animal was cut in half, the halves laid apart, and the parties walked between them, in effect calling down on themselves the fate of the animal if they broke their word. The same ritual appears in Genesis 15. The Hebrew idiom for making a covenant is literally "to cut a covenant."
34:19: "Court officers" translates a word that can mean a castrated palace official or, more broadly, a high-ranking royal servant; the sense here is officials of the king's household. "The people of the land" is a set term for the free, property-owning citizens of Judah, the class with legal standing, and the class that would have owned slaves.
34:20: Leaving a corpse unburied for scavengers was the ultimate disgrace in this culture, and a stock image in prophetic warnings of defeat.
34:21: The Babylonian army had temporarily lifted the siege to face an Egyptian force marching to Judah's aid (see Jeremiah 37:5). That reprieve is almost certainly why the slave-owners took their slaves back: the emergency seemed over.
34:22: "I will give the order" pictures the Babylonian army as acting under God's command; the prophecy is that the withdrawal will prove temporary and the siege will resume.

Read Jeremiah 34