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Context No. 522 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 38:16-22: in context

16So Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, “As the LORD lives, who made our souls, I will not put you to death, neither will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your life.” 17Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The LORD, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you will go out to the king of Babylon’s princes, then your soul will live, and this city will not be burned with fire. You will live, along with your house. 18But if you will not go out to the king of Babylon’s princes, then this city will be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they will burn it with fire, and you won’t escape out of their hand.’” 19Zedekiah the king said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have defected to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me.” 20But Jeremiah said, “They won’t deliver you. Obey, I beg you, the LORD’s voice, in that which I speak to you; so it will be well with you, and your soul will live. 21But if you refuse to go out, this is the word that the LORD has shown me: 22‘Behold, all the women who are left in the king of Judah’s house will be brought out to the king of Babylon’s princes, and those women will say, “Your familiar friends have turned on you, and have prevailed over you. Your feet are sunk in the mire, they have turned away from you.”

King Zedekiah secretly summons Jeremiah, swears to protect him, and asks, in effect, for the truth. And Jeremiah gives it to him as plainly as it can be given. If you surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, God says, you will live, and this city will not be burned, and your family will be spared. But if you refuse to go out, the city will be burned and you will not escape. The choice could not be clearer: obey and live, refuse and lose everything. Zedekiah has the true word from the prophet, in private, with a guarantee of his safety. And then he tells Jeremiah exactly what is holding him back, and it is not doubt about whether the word is true.

I am afraid, Zedekiah says, of the Jews who have already deserted to the Babylonians, in case I am handed over to them and they mock me. There it is. The king will not do the thing that would save his life, his family, and his city, because he is afraid of being ridiculed. Not afraid of death, not afraid of the fall of Jerusalem, but afraid of the humiliation, of how it would look, of being laughed at by those who defected before him. Jeremiah pleads with him: obey the LORD's voice, and it will be well with you. But the fear of looking weak in front of others outweighs, in Zedekiah's heart, the catastrophe bearing down on him, and he cannot bring himself to obey. He loses everything, in the end, to avoid being mocked.

That is a terrifying mirror, because the fear that ruined Zedekiah is the same one that quietly rules so many of my own decisions. I know the right thing, sometimes I even know it clearly and privately, and what stops me is not doubt but the fear of how I will look, of being thought weak or foolish, of the ridicule of certain people. Zedekiah shows where that fear can lead when the stakes are high. Is there a clear obedience I am avoiding, not because I doubt it is right, but simply because I am afraid of what people will think of me, and what is that fear actually costing me?

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