Jeremiah 34, Zedekiah’s Future and a Forsaken Covenant

You are the king of Judah, who had made a vassal covenant with Nebuchadnezzar to be a satellite nation to Babylon, paying tribute to them annually, but then you saw a chance to get out from under them by allying yourself with Egypt, who was making a bid, you thought, to defeat Babylon in battle. Babylon has come to exact their vengeance on you but been distracted by the Egyptian army making a foray into Israel. The prophet Jeremiah comes to you with a word from Yahweh.

^34:1 While Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms and peoples in the empire he ruled were fighting against Jerusalem and all its surrounding towns, this word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh: ² “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: Go to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him, ‘This is what Yahweh says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down. ³ You will not escape from his grasp but will surely be captured and given into his hands. You will see the king of Babylon with your own eyes, and he will speak with you face to face. And you will go to Babylon.

⁴ “‘Yet hear Yahweh’s promise to you, Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what Yahweh says concerning you: You will not die by the sword; ⁵ you will die peacefully. As people made a funeral fire in honor of your predecessors, the kings who ruled before you, so they will make a fire in your honor and lament, “Alas, master!” I myself make this promise, declares Yahweh.’”

⁶ Then Jeremiah the prophet told all this to Zedekiah king of Judah, in Jerusalem, ⁷ while the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah that were still holding out—Lachish and Azekah. These were the only fortified cities left in Judah.

Zedekiah must know that Babylon is going to defeat Israel and burn the city. There is no way out of this judgment from God. But Nebuchadnezzar is not going to slay Zedekiah, rather, he is going to take him prisoner back to Babylon where he will die a natural, peaceful death. A funeral fire will be made in his honor. The Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary explains that this ritual “involved the building of an artificial mound over the ground (called a tumulus)… shaped like a truncated cone with a flat top and steep slopes…twenty feet high and one hundred fifty feet in diameter…to burn incense and perfumes as a ritual that accompanied the body’s interment.”

If Zedekiah were smart and believed Yahweh’s word, he should have surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar. But instead, he prepares for a siege against the city.

⁸ The word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves. ⁹ Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage. ¹⁰ So all the officials and people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their male and female slaves and no longer hold them in bondage. They agreed, and set them free. ¹¹ But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again.

¹² Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah: ¹³ “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said, ¹⁴ ‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you six years, you must let them go free.’ Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. ¹⁵ Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to your own people. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name. ¹⁶ But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again.

¹⁷ “Therefore this is what Yahweh says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares Yahweh—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. ¹⁹ The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, ²⁰ I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.

²¹ “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them, to the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you. ²² I am going to give the order, declares Yahweh, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, take it and burn it down. And I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.” (Jeremiah 34)

Zedekiah and the people decide to make a covenant with Yahweh to release all their slaves in accord with Yahweh’s law of releasing slaves after seven years (Deuteronomy 15:12), probably so they can be conscripted into the army to fight against the Babylonians. But when Babylon gets distracted by the army of Egypt coming toward them and leave off their assault of Jerusalem, the people break covenant and take back their slaves. Yahweh is not happy. They have profaned His name by making an oath in His name to free their slaves. They had “cut” a covenant with Yahweh by sacrifice, killing and halving several animals and walking between the pieces, saying, in effect, that if they broke covenant they should be slain as these animals were. Indeed, they will be. This pretense of obeying Yahweh’s law has been exposed and the people will be delivered into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand.

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Discussion Questions:

1. What might you be feeling, if you were Zedekiah, about what Jeremiah is telling you about your future?
2. Why do you think the people made a covenant with Yahweh to release these slaves instead of just releasing them?
3. What experiences of making a vow to God have you had?
4. Read this article and the comments and discuss the value of making a vow to God to help you stop sinning.