Scripture Daily

Context No. 1702 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 38:23-28: in context

23They will bring out all your wives and your children to the Chaldeans. You won’t escape out of their hand, but will be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon. You will cause this city to be burned with fire.’” 24Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no man know of these words, and you won’t die. 25But if the princes hear that I have talked with you, and they come to you, and tell you, ‘Declare to us now what you have said to the king; don’t hide it from us, and we will not put you to death; also tell us what the king said to you;’ 26then you shall tell them, ‘I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to Jonathan’s house, to die there.’” 27Then all the princes came to Jeremiah, and asked him; and he told them according to all these words that the king had commanded. So they stopped speaking with him, for the matter was not perceived. 28So Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken.

King Zedekiah has secretly summoned Jeremiah to hear God's word, and Jeremiah has told him plainly: surrender to Babylon and live, or resist and see the city burned. But Zedekiah is afraid, afraid of the officials, afraid of the people who have already defected. He begs Jeremiah to keep their conversation secret, and coaches him on what to tell the princes if they ask. Jeremiah does as the king asks, and remains in the court of the guard until the day Jerusalem falls.

Zedekiah is a study in a particular tragedy: the man who knows the truth but is too afraid of others to act on it. He believed, or half-believed, that Jeremiah spoke for God; he kept seeking him out, secretly, hungry for a word. He was told plainly what he must do to save the city and his family: surrender. And he could not bring himself to do it, not because he doubted it was right, but because he was afraid of what people would think and do, afraid of the officials, afraid of the deserters, afraid of the shame. So he knew the truth and did not obey it, and the city burned, and his family perished, exactly as he had been warned. His fear of people cost him everything. There is a sobering warning here about the fear of others as a force that keeps us from doing what we know is right. Zedekiah is not condemned for ignorance; he knew. He is undone by his cowardice, by letting the fear of what people would think override what God had made plain. We can be like this, knowing the right thing, the honest word we should speak, the obedience God is asking, and drawing back from it because we are afraid of others' opinions, their anger, their scorn. The fear of man, Scripture says, is a snare; it snared Zedekiah into disobeying what he knew, and it can snare us the same way. The remedy is to fear God more than people, to let what God has made plain weigh heavier than what others might think, and so to do the truth we know rather than shrink from it in fear of human faces.

Is there something I know to be right, an honest word to speak, an obedience God has made plain, that I am drawing back from out of fear of what others will think or do, and can I learn from Zedekiah, who knew the truth and was too afraid of people to act on it, to fear God more than human faces and do the truth I know?

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