Biblical scholars and theologians, Tremper Longman and Raymond Dillard, in their book, An Introduction to the Old Testament, write this about Jeremiah the prophet,
“Jeremiah often withstood the political and religious establishment of his day, and, as with many others in the succession of prophets in Israel, he would suffer for it. He was persecuted for his message, whipped, and put in stocks by a temple overseer, accused of treason, sedition, and desertion, plotted against, imprisoned in a cistern, and held under arrest in the courtyard of the guard. The prophet’s own suffering may be in part the background for the intensely personal outcries and prayers commonly called Jeremiah’s ‘confessions.’ The prophet gives expression to feeling abandoned by God or prays that God will take vengeance on his enemies or questions the goodness and constancy of God in the face of his suffering.”[1]
Key Point: “Standing with God will not make you popular with the world, but it will save you from the world.”
In Jeremiah 38, there are two different characters that we should look at in more detail: Jeremiah and Zedekiah. Contrasting the two, there are also two different responses to God. Let’s take a closer look…
· Zedekiah: A man of compromise.
Jeremiah 38:19 (NLT), “But I am afraid to surrender,” the king said, “for the Babylonians may hand me over to the Judeans who have defected to them. And who knows what they will do to me!”
· Jeremiah: A man of integrity.
Jeremiah 38:17-18 (NLT), 17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the Babylonian officers, you and your family will live, and the city will not be burned down. 18 But if you refuse to surrender, you will not escape! This city will be handed over to the Babylonians, and they will burn it to the ground.’”
[1] Raymond B. Dillard and Tremper Longman III, An Introduction to the Old Testament (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan; 1994), 289.