Jeremiah 37: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Zedekiah is king in Judah under Babylon's authority, and neither he nor his people listen to the LORD's words through Jeremiah. When Egypt's army marches out and the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem lifts, the king sends men to ask Jeremiah to pray, and the answer comes back that Egypt will go home and the Babylonians will return, take the city, and burn it. Jeremiah tries to leave the city, is arrested as a deserter, beaten, and jailed in a house turned into a prison. Zedekiah questions him privately, hears the same message, and moves him to the guard's courtyard with a daily loaf of bread.

Claim by Claim

1. 37:1
   • Zedekiah son of Josiah reigned as king in place of Coniah son of Jehoiakim.
   • Coniah was the son of Jehoiakim.
   • Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made him king in the land of Judah.
   • The text does not make explicit whether the one Nebuchadrezzar made king is Zedekiah or Coniah.
2. 37:2
   • Zedekiah did not listen to the words of the LORD.
   • Zedekiah's servants did not listen to the words of the LORD.
   • The people of the land did not listen to the words of the LORD.
   • The LORD spoke those words through Jeremiah the prophet.
3. 37:3
   • King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah to Jeremiah the prophet.
   • King Zedekiah sent Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest to Jeremiah the prophet.
   • The message they carried was a request that Jeremiah pray to the LORD for them.
   • They called the LORD 'our God.'
4. 37:4
   • Jeremiah was coming in and going out among the people.
   • They had not put Jeremiah into the prison house.
5. 37:5
   • Pharaoh's army had come out of Egypt.
   • The Chaldeans were besieging Jerusalem.
   • The Chaldeans heard the report of Pharaoh's army.
   • The Chaldeans withdrew from Jerusalem.
6. 37:6
   • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet.
7. 37:7
   • The LORD, the God of Israel, spoke.
   • The LORD is called the God of Israel.
   • The messengers were told to say this to the king of Judah.
   • The king of Judah had sent them to the LORD to inquire of him.
   • Pharaoh's army had come out to help them.
   • Pharaoh's army would return to its own land, Egypt.
8. 37:8
   • The Chaldeans would come back.
   • The Chaldeans would fight against this city.
   • The Chaldeans would capture the city.
   • The Chaldeans would burn the city with fire.
9. 37:9
   • The LORD spoke.
   • They were commanded not to deceive themselves.
   • They were saying that the Chaldeans would certainly go away from them.
   • The Chaldeans would not go away.
10. 37:10
    • Even if they struck down the entire Chaldean army fighting against them,
    • and only wounded men were left among them,
    • those men would rise up, each in his tent,
    • and they would burn this city with fire.
11. 37:11
    • The army of the Chaldeans withdrew from Jerusalem.
    • They withdrew because of Pharaoh's army.
12. 37:12
    • Jeremiah went out from Jerusalem.
    • Jeremiah was going to the land of Benjamin.
    • His purpose there was to take a share among the people, whether a portion of property or something else is not made explicit.
13. 37:13
    • Jeremiah was at the gate of Benjamin.
    • A captain of the guard was there.
    • The captain's name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, son of Hananiah.
    • Irijah seized Jeremiah the prophet.
    • Irijah said that Jeremiah was deserting to the Chaldeans.
14. 37:14
    • Jeremiah said the charge was false.
    • Jeremiah said he was not deserting to the Chaldeans.
    • Irijah did not listen to Jeremiah.
    • Irijah seized Jeremiah.
    • Irijah brought Jeremiah to the officials.
15. 37:15
    • The officials were angry with Jeremiah.
    • The officials beat Jeremiah.
    • The officials put Jeremiah in the house of confinement, the house of Jonathan the scribe.
    • They had made that house into the prison.
16. 37:16
    • Jeremiah went into the pit house and into the cells.
    • Jeremiah stayed there many days.
17. 37:17
    • King Zedekiah sent and had Jeremiah brought to him.
    • The king questioned Jeremiah secretly in his house.
    • The king asked whether there was any word from the LORD.
    • Jeremiah said there was a word.
    • Jeremiah said the king would be handed over to the king of Babylon.
18. 37:18
    • Jeremiah spoke to King Zedekiah.
    • Jeremiah asked what sin he had committed against the king.
    • Jeremiah asked what sin he had committed against the king's servants.
    • Jeremiah asked what sin he had committed against this people.
    • Jeremiah said they had put him in the prison house.
19. 37:19
    • Jeremiah asked where their prophets were.
    • Those prophets had prophesied to them.
    • Those prophets said the king of Babylon would not come against them.
    • Those prophets said the king of Babylon would not come against this land.
20. 37:20
    • Jeremiah asked the king to listen to him.
    • Jeremiah addressed the king as 'my lord the king.'
    • Jeremiah asked that his plea be accepted before the king.
    • Jeremiah asked not to be sent back to the house of Jonathan the scribe.
    • Jeremiah said he would die there if sent back.
21. 37:21
    • King Zedekiah gave a command.
    • They placed Jeremiah in the court of the guard.
    • They were to give Jeremiah a round loaf of bread each day.
    • The bread came from the bakers' street.
    • This was to continue until all the bread in the city was gone.
    • Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard.

Words Worth Explaining

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

37:1

Coniah is another form of the name Jehoiachin, the boy king who ruled Judah about three months before Babylon took Jerusalem in 597 BC and carried him off into exile. Zedekiah, his uncle, did not inherit the throne: Nebuchadnezzar installed him as a vassal ruler answerable to Babylon, which is why the verse is careful to say who made him king. ("Nebuchadrezzar" is the King James spelling, closer to the Babylonian original; "Nebuchadnezzar" is the same man.)

37:2

"The people of the land" is not a general word for the population. In Judah it normally means the landholding free citizens of the countryside, a group with enough weight to have placed earlier kings on the throne. Listing king, officials and this group together is a way of saying that every level with any power refused.

37:3

Sending a delegation to a prophet with the request "pray for us" was a formal act, not a pious courtesy. A prophet was understood to be someone who could put a question to the LORD and bring back an answer, and kings sent officials to obtain one much as they would consult any other source of counsel. That the delegation includes a priest signals its official standing.

37:5

"Chaldeans" means the Babylonians; the Chaldeans were the people of southern Mesopotamia who supplied Babylon's ruling dynasty, and the two words are used interchangeably through this book. The Egyptian advance is a real historical episode of about 588 BC: Pharaoh moved north, the Babylonians broke off the siege of Jerusalem to deal with him, and the city had a few months' reprieve.

37:7

"Enquire of me" is the standard phrase for consulting God through a prophet in order to get a decision or a forecast, the way one might consult an oracle. Zedekiah's delegation in verse 3 asked for prayer; the answer treats the request as a question submitted for reply.

37:8

Cities then had thick walls around them. An army would sit outside and wait. No food could get in, so the people grew very hungry. That is what "besieged" means.

37:10

The King James Version says "smitten," which means beaten in a fight.

37:12

The Hebrew of this clause is obscure and has been understood in more than one way: either that Jeremiah went to claim or divide a piece of family land among his relatives, or simply that he slipped away from the crowd. Jeremiah's home was Anathoth, a few miles north-east of Jerusalem in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin, and elsewhere in the book he deals in family property there, which is why the property reading is usually preferred.

37:13

The Benjamin Gate was in the north wall, the road out toward Benjamin's territory, and also the direction of the Babylonian lines. The charge of desertion was not invented out of nothing: Jeremiah had been telling the city publicly that anyone who went out and surrendered to the Babylonians would live, so a sentry who saw him heading out that gate had an obvious accusation to hand.

37:15

A "scribe" here is not a copyist but a senior government officer, a secretary of state who drafted documents and kept records. That his private house had been converted into a lock-up suggests the regime was improvising jails, and it explains why Jeremiah later begs not to be sent back to it: it was not built to hold anyone humanely.

37:16

The Hebrew is literally "the house of the pit and the vaults." It describes an underground chamber, probably a disused cistern hollowed out of rock, with small cells or arched recesses off it. Such a place had no light and no drainage, which is the point of Jeremiah's fear in verse 20 that he would die there.

37:17

The secrecy matters: Zedekiah is a king who cannot be seen consulting Jeremiah, because the officials who jailed him hold the real power in the city. The same pattern repeats in the next chapter.

37:19

Prophets who promised that Babylon would not attack were a recognized and popular party in Jerusalem, and much of this book is a quarrel with them. There was no test available in advance to tell which prophet spoke truly; Jeremiah's question is the retrospective test, the Babylonians came, so where are the men who said they would not?

37:20

"My lord the king" was the polite way to speak to a king, the way we might say "your majesty." Jeremiah is a prisoner asking a favor, so he speaks carefully.

37:21

The "court of the prison" (courtyard of the guard) was an open compound attached to the palace where prisoners were held under watch but not confined underground; Jeremiah could receive visitors and conduct business there. Trades in an ancient city clustered by street, so "the bakers' street" is simply the district where bread was made. The clause about the bread running out is a note on the siege: the daily ration lasted only as long as the city's food did.