Resource > Expository Notes on the Bible (Constable) >  Jeremiah >  Exposition >  II. Prophecies about Judah chs. 2--45 >  D. Incidents surrounding the fall of Jerusalem chs. 34-45 >  2. Incidents during the fall of Jerusalem chs. 37-39 > 
Zedekiah's prayer request and its answer 37:1-10 
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This event happened about 18 years after the one recorded in chapter 36.

 The historical situation 37:1-5
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37:1 Nebuchadnezzar, sovereign over Judah since Jehoiakim's unsuccessful rebellion against him in 598 B.C., set up Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, as Judah's king in 597 B.C. (cf. 2 Kings 24:17). Jehoiakim's son, Jehoiachin (Coniah), had reigned for three months following his father's deposition, but then Nebuchadnezzar deported him to Babylon (2 Kings 24:12). Jehoiachin was never the authorized king of Judah. Thus Jeremiah's prophecy about Jehoiakim's end had come to pass (cf. 36:30).

37:2 Neither Zedekiah nor his nobles nor the people of the land paid any attention to Jeremiah's prophecies to them.

37:3 However, Zedekiah sent two messengers to Jeremiah requesting the prophet's prayers on the nation's behalf. This was the second time that the king asked Jeremiah for information about the outcome of the invasion (cf. ch. 21). It is always easier to pray than to repent (cf. Isa. 1:10-20). Perhaps Zedekiah was hoping for a last-minute deliverance such as God granted Jerusalem in Hezekiah's days (2 Kings 19:32-37). But Jeremiah had already predicted the fates of this king and the city at the commencement of the siege (34:1-7).

Zephaniah the priest was a member of the delegation that Zedekiah had sent to Jeremiah at the beginning of the siege (21:1-10). He was also the recipient of a letter from the false prophet Shemaiah, who was already in Babylonian exile, demanding Jeremiah's imprisonment (29:24-32). Jehucal appears later as Jeremiah's enemy (38:1).

37:4 Jeremiah was at this time still free to move about the city. Later his arrest and confinement prohibited this.

37:5 About this time Pharaoh Hophra's Egyptian army moved eastward toward Judah to support Zedekiah in his revolt against Babylon (2 Kings 24:7; Ezek. 17:11-21). This caused the Babylonians to lift the siege of Jerusalem and to prepare to battle the Egyptians (cf. 34:8-11).

 The Lord's message to Zedekiah 37:6-10
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37:6-7 The Lord told Jeremiah to tell Zedekiah that the Egyptian army, which had come to help him, would return home. It did, in fact, retreat before joining battle.

37:8 The Babylonians would return, besiege, capture, and burn Jerusalem.

37:9-10 Zedekiah should not deceive himself by thinking that the Chaldeans had departed from Jerusalem permanently. Jerusalem's destruction was so certain that even if the Judeans defeated the entire Babylonian army the Lord would use the wounded Chaldean soldiers to rise up and destroy the city. In other words, deliverance was out of the question.



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