The Brethren & the Cistern

There is about a 17 year difference between chapters 36 and 37. Chapters 37 & 38 take place just before Jerusalem falls. The year is around 588-587 BC. The hatred of Jeremiah by his own people has grown strong. The king, Zedekiah, is desperate for help. In fact, he gets so desperate he even seeks out Jeremiah for help. Other leaders are convinced Jeremiah is a traitor and want him killed. We’re going to move fairly quickly through chapter 37 and spend a little more time in chapter 38.

Chapter 37

1. Zedekiah asks for prayer (1-5).

Zedekiah is an interesting guy. He was placed as King over Jerusalem by the King of Babylon. Therefore, he was perceived by some as nothing more than a puppet. For many he wasn’t perceived as a legitimate rule. But his greatest problem weas he didn’t listen to the words of Jeremiah. However, on more than one occasion he asked for Jeremiah to pray for the nation (21:1-2). It appears to me he was more superstitious than anything else. One of the guys sent to get Jeremiah, Zephaniah, was friendly toward him (29:25). But we will see Jehucal is ready to kill Jeremiah in chapter 38.

At this point Jeremiah was not yet in prison. As well, Egypt was sending help to Jerusalem. As a result the Babylonians withdrew from the siege against Jerusalem to fight against the Egyptians.

There are many in our culture like Zedekiah. We have political rulers who ask people to pray for the country but they have no intention of leading the country to obey God. A National Day of Prayer is of little value if there is not a national day of repentance. There is nothing magical or even spiritually profitable in praying if there is no obedience to God.

2. Jeremiah responds to Zedekiah’s request (6-10).

Jeremiah does not respond with his own words. He shares with the King the Word of the Lord. This is what he told the king:

The Egyptians will not succeed in helping you (7).

The Babylonians are coming back to finish the job they started (8).

Don’t deceive yourself into thinking there is hope for victory (9).

God tells him that even if all the Babylonian army was wounded, they would still rise up and destroy the city with fire. I don’t think this is a testament to the resolve of the Babylonians as much as it is proof that the Lord is the One who is fighting against Jerusalem. Zedekiah is warned against having any hope at all concerning victory. The temporary lull in the battle should not give him hope. The ability to wound some of the Babylonian soldiers should not give him hope either. Jerusalem was going to fall at the hands of the Babylonians.

This was certainly not the reaction Zedekiah wanted from Jeremiah. He asked for prayer, he received a sermon. Jeremiah could not pray for the Lord to spare the city because it was not the Lord’s will to spare the city.

3. Jeremiah is arrested by his own people (11-15).

Jeremiah knowing the city is about to fall begins a journey likely to his hometown which was in territory of Benjamin. This was not in response to him buying the land in chapter 32 because this event happens before then. He was probably simply going home to get some affairs in order concerning some land. That’s all we know.

On his way out of the city he was charged with treason by an officer named Irjah. His job was to watch those who came in and out of the gate. It was his opinion that Jeremiah was defecting to the side of the Babylonians. Evidently other officers believed the charge and they beat and imprisoned Jeremiah even though he denied the charge. Jeremiah was placed in the house of Jonathan the secretary. His home had been converted into a jail cell.

4. Jeremiah is transferred to another prison (16-21).

The language used in verse 16 suggests Jeremiah is placed in an underground cell. It was probably connected to Jonathan’s house. We see that Zedekiah still has interest in him. However, he doesn’t want people to know he is speaking with the prophet. He arranges a secret meeting with Jeremiah. This is probably because he doesn’t want his officers thinking he has any sympathy at all for one who was considered a traitor by many of them.

Zedekiah asks Jeremiah if there is any word from the Lord. Jeremiah says that there is. However, nothing is new. The message has not changed. Zedekiah will be delivered to the King of Babylon.

What we see next is personal. Jeremiah has some things he wants to ask the king:

What have I done to deserve prison?

Where are the prophets who told you Babylon would not succeed?

The false prophets are the ones who deserved to be in prison.

Next Jeremiah has a request for the king. Notice the brokenness of the prophet in verse 20.

He humbly asks the king to please not send him back to the dungeon. Jeremiah fears he will die there. The circumstances must have been difficult there. Surprisingly the king grants Jeremiah’s request. He was transferred to the court of the guard. This was connected to the palace (32:12). The living conditions would have been better and some interaction with people would have been possible. The king also made a provision for Jeremiah to be given a loaf of bread each day for as long as bread was available. The grace of God is evident here. The Lord was taking care of Jeremiah. He moved the hardened heart of a king to compassion to ease the suffering of the prophet.

Chapter 38

5. Jeremiah is confined in a cistern for continuing to preach (1-6).

While in prison Jeremiah continued to preach. His message is detailed in verses 2-3.

The people who stay in the city will die by the sword, famine, and disease.

The people who surrender to Babylon will live.

The city will be taken by Babylon.

It was the opinion of the Jewish officials listed in verse 1 that the preaching of Jeremiah was doing harm to the morale of the people. Look at verse 4. The soldiers and the people were not fighting as they should because Jeremiah was telling the people it was useless. The Jewish officials believed Jeremiah’s actions worthy of death. He was causing them to lose the war. The fact that Jeremiah had an audience is proof that his movement from the dungeon to the court of the guard allowed him to have some interaction with people.

Zedekiah told them to do what they wanted with Jeremiah. Zedekiah could have ordered the death of the prophet but he did not. This shows that Zedekiah was weak on both sides. He didn’t have enough backbone to release Jeremiah and he didn’t have enough backbone to order Jeremiah to be killed. For that reason some have compared him to Pilate in the New Testament.

Zedekiah said he could not stop the officials. That wasn’t true. He could have stopped them from killing Jeremiah, but he refused. I think what we see in Zedekiah is simply weak leadership. Perhaps he is ready to give up. Perhaps he thinks there is nothing he can do about anything any longer. Maybe he feared siding with one like Jeremiah who was labeled as a traitor.

The officials tossed Jeremiah into a cistern. Cisterns were used to gather rain water. They were often dug into limestone and could be very deep. This one was empty. The only thing it contained was mud. The water had evaporated from it and the only thing that remained was the muddy bottom. Jeremiah sank down into the mud. We can imagine the prophet covered in mud and stuck in this horrible place. He was left there to die. The cistern would be his grave.

6. Jeremiah is rescued from the cistern (7-13).

Jeremiah finds help from an unlikely person. He’s rescued but not by one of his own. An Ethiopian eunuch is introduced to us. His name is Ebed-Melech and that means “the king’s servant”. This implies he was probably a prisoner of war. Eunuchs were often used to watch over the king’s harem and it’s likely what this man’s role was. Because of his position he would have the ear of the king. Evidently people were talking about what the men did to Jeremiah. When this eunuch got word of it he told Zedekiah. Let’s look at what he told him in verse 9.

What they did was evil

They cast him into a cistern

They are starving him to death

It could be that the eunuch knew Zedekiah had some interest in Jeremiah. That may be the reason he told the king. Zedekiah gives instructions to have a team of thirty mean go and rescue the prophet. The depth of the cistern is seen in verse 11. Old clothes are used for padding so as Jeremiah is lifted by a rope he is not injured. The clothing was probably helpful because Jeremiah would have been very weak and probably unable to hoist himself up on the rope by himself. Tying the rope under his arms insured he would give out of energy and fall. Once Jeremiah was removed from the cistern he was returned to the court of the guard.

I don’t know how Jeremiah’s enemies responded to this, but they couldn’t have been happy.

7. Jeremiah is again privately summoned (14-28).

He is taken through an entrance called “the third entrance”. We don’t know where that is but it was probably a private entrance. Jeremiah is taken to the King’s residence discreetly.

The king wants information about what the Lord is going to do to Jerusalem. Jeremiah asks the king to promise not to kill him. Then he says that the king isn’t going to listen to him anyway so what is the point of telling him what the Lord says. Zedekiah assures Jeremiah that he will not kill him or hand him over to anyone who would.

In verses 17-18 Jeremiah tells Zedekiah what he has been preaching all along. The kings only hope is to surrender. If he doesn’t things will be worse. Either way, Babylon is taking Jerusalem.

Zedekiah says something interesting in verse 19. He is afraid of the Jewish people who had defected to the Babylonians. A number of the people who could see the writing on the wall surrendered to Babylon. They were looking for mercy. Zedekiah said if he obeyed what Jeremiah was saying the Babylonian king might give him over to the Jewish defectors. They would lame him for the large loss of life in Jersualem and would probably torture and maybe even kill him. Zedekiah’s reluctance to obey the Lord, he claims, is for his own safety.

Jeremiah assures the king this will not happen and tells him to surrender. He warns that if he refuses to surrender things will be worse for him. He says that the women of the palace once captured by the Babylonians would taunt King Zedekiah on their way out. Look at verse 22 and you see the taunt. It’s written as a song and the first part of it is contained in Obadiah 7 as well.

The song mocks Zedekiah for being deceived by the nations that promised to help him. It ends with a reference to Jeremiah’s time in the cistern. Except now it would be the King who was tossed in the mud. Zedekiah would be more humiliated than Jeremiah was. In verse 23 we see all of the kings wives and children including himself would be victim to Babylon and the city burned with fire.

Zedekiah isn’t planning on listening to what Jeremiah says. All he is concerned about is whether people know what he and the prophet discussed. In verses 24-26 the King gives Jeremiah instructions. He says if anyone asks what they were talking about he is to tell them he was asking the king not to send him back to the dungeon at Jonathan’s house.

Just as Zedekiah suspected, Jeremiah was quizzed about the conversation. Jeremiah told the officers what the king told hi to tell them. They believed him and he remained in the court of the guard until the city fell.

Some have wondered if Jeremiah sinned in this instance. Let’s think about that for a moment:

1. Perhaps he did. Maybe he lied. I’m not justifying it but Jeremiah was a human. He was in a weakened state. He didn’t want to be put back in a dungeon.

2. Maybe Jeremiah did ask the king not to return him to the dungeon. We don’t have the full conversation in the text. If that’s the case Jeremiah was guilty of telling a partial truth.

Either way, Jeremiah is a great man of God. His life has been exemplary. His commitment to God should not be questioned at all.

As we conclude I think we should mention the similarities we see to Christ.

Christ was hauled before Kings.

Christ was beaten, arrested, and tortured by His own people.

Christ continued to preach even after He was arrested.

Jesus was not thrown in a cistern, His dead body was thrown in a grave. Three days later He rose again. Faith and repentance in Him is what is required of us.