THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF JEREMIAH

XIII. Jeremiah’s Faithfulness Amid A False Accusation

(Jeremiah 37:1-21)

I. Introduction

A. God called Jeremiah to prophesy in Judah during its apostacy until God’s judgment fell on the nation.

B. Jeremiah’s ministry is then similar to what God’s servants face in our era of spiritual decline. Such a calling can be marked by political opposition that seeks to cause God’s servants to cease being able to do His work.

C. Jeremiah 37:1-21 reports on Jeremiah’s faithfulness to his divine calling amid a false accusation, a passage that offers a lesson for our insight, application and edification (as follows):

II. Jeremiah’s Faithfulness Amid A False Accusation, Jeremiah 37:1-21.

A. Though Jeremiah had long predicted that the Babylonian army would besiege and invade Jerusalem, Judah’s king, princes, prophets, priests and people had not believed Jeremiah’s words until the Babylonians had actually come and besieged the city, Jeremiah 37:1-2.

B. However, Pharaoh’s army then approached Judah to defend her, so the Babylonians had withdrawn from Jerusalem to fight the Egyptians, and Judah’s king Zedekiah sent a delegation to Jeremiah to ask him to pray for Jerusalem, Jeremiah 37:3, 5. Zedekiah possibly “hoped that Jeremiah’s prayers would induce God to grant a victory to the Egyptians and force Babylon out of Palestine,” a request Zedekiah had previously made in Jeremiah 21:1-7 (Bible Knowledge Commentary, Old Testament, p. 1182).

C. God then sent Jeremiah to Zedekiah to warn him not to deceive himself into thinking that Jerusalem would escape a Babylonian invasion, for Pharaoh’s army would return to Egypt and Babylon’s army would again come and besiege Jerusalem, Jer. 37:6-9. God added that though Judah’s men had wounded all the men in the Babylonian army, those wounded men would still rise up and burn Jerusalem down, Jeremiah 37:10.

D. Jeremiah had not yet been imprisoned, and he was free to come and go among the people (Jer. 37:4), so when the Babylonians temporarily withdrew from Jerusalem to fight the Egyptians, Jeremiah tried to leave the city likely to inspect the field he had purchased from Hanameel back in Jeremiah 32:1-15 (Jeremiah 37:12).

E. However, when Jeremiah tried to leave through the gate of Benjamin in northeastern Jerusalem, Irijah, the captain of the guard, arrested Jeremiah, charging him with deserting to the Babylonians, Jer. 37:13. Jeremiah denied the charge, but Irijah refused to believe him, and turned him over to the princes who had Jeremiah beaten and imprisoned for many days in the dungeon of the house of Jonathan the secretary, Jer. 37:14-16.

F. King Zedekiah then retrieved Jeremiah from Jonathan’s house and secretly asked him if there was a word from the Lord, Jer. 37:17a. Jeremiah replied that there was, that God predicted that Zedekiah would be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, Jer. 37:17b. Regardless of the difficult experiences he had recently faced, Jeremiah still boldly proclaimed God’s word that gave a harsh message for the king!

G. Jeremiah then asked Zedekiah what wrong had he done to the king, his servants, or the people that he had imprisoned him, Jer. 37:18. Jeremiah reminded Zedekiah that the king’s prophets had told him that Babylon would not come against him or Judah, what had proved to be false where Jeremiah’s word to the king had proved to be true, implying that Zedekiah should treat Jeremiah well since he was God’s true prophet, v. 19.

H. Jeremiah then asked the king not to send him back to the dungeon in Jonathan’s house lest he die there, v. 20.

I. Zedekiah responded to Jeremiah’s request by committing him to the court of the guard and assigning him a daily ration of bread from the baker’s street until all the bread in the city was gone, Jeremiah 37:21a. Thus, God honored His promise to protect Jeremiah when he obeyed him back in Jeremiah 1:17-19, and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard, a place frequented by the captain who had falsely charged him, v. 21b!

Lesson: Though falsely accused by a captain of the guard of deserting to the enemy, and though beaten and imprisoned in a dungeon by the princes who believed the captain’s charge, Jeremiah stayed true to his calling to proclaim God’s message to Judah’s king even if that message was a harsh one for the king. The Lord thus fulfilled His promise to protect Jeremiah by having even this king direct Jeremiah to be stationed protectively in the court of the guards and fed daily from the baker’s street until all the bread of the city was gone. Remarkably, though initially falsely accused by the captain of the guard, Jeremiah ended up assigned to the court of the guard that the captain of the guard frequented, and there to be fed a daily ration of bread until the bread in the city was all gone. God thus met Jeremiah’s needs and honored him in front of the officer who had initially wronged him!

Application: May we stay faithful to God’s calling even if we face false accusations, for God will take care of us.