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Context No. 487 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 37:11-15: in context

11When the army of the Chaldeans had withdrawn from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh’s army, 12then Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the middle of the people. 13When he was in Benjamin’s gate, a captain of the guard was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are defecting to the Chaldeans!” 14Then Jeremiah said, “That is false! I am not defecting to the Chaldeans.” But he didn’t listen to him; so Irijah seized Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes. 15The princes were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison.

The Babylonian army has temporarily pulled back from Jerusalem, and in the lull Jeremiah tries to leave the city on a purely private errand, to go to his home territory in Benjamin and see to a piece of family property. It is an ordinary, innocent trip. But at the city gate a sentry named Irijah seizes him and accuses him: you are deserting to the Chaldeans. Jeremiah denies it flatly, that is false, I am not deserting to the Chaldeans, but Irijah will not listen. He hauls the prophet before the officials, who are enraged, beat him, and throw him into a makeshift prison in a scribe's house. Jeremiah is innocent of the charge, he says so plainly, and it makes no difference at all.

There is a particular bitterness in this kind of suffering, and Jeremiah knew it well. It is one thing to suffer for something you actually did, or even for a truth you deliberately spoke. It is another to be seized on a false charge, to state the plain truth of your innocence, and to have your word simply ignored by someone who has already decided what you are. Jeremiah says, clearly and honestly, that is false. And the accusation stands anyway, because Irijah is not really interested in whether it is true. The prophet who had spent his life telling the truth is now punished for a lie told about him, unable to make anyone believe the truth about himself.

Most of us taste some version of this: being misjudged, accused of a motive we did not have, and finding that our denial changes nothing because the other person has already made up their mind. It is maddening, and it can tempt me either to rage or to give up on being understood at all. Jeremiah's story does not tie it up neatly; he simply goes to prison, innocent. When I am falsely accused and my honest denial is brushed aside, can I entrust the truth about myself to God, who sees it clearly, even when the people around me refuse to?

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