Ver. 23. — The end of Zedekiah'* irresolution. Irresolution it may he called rather than disobedience. There is nothing to show that he had definitely made up his mind not to obey the voice of the Lord. In spite of the clear announcement made to him, he seems to have gone on, lioping against hope that some decisive disaster would over- take the Chaldeans. Yet Jeremiah closes his address by this sentence, so well calcu- lated to bring even an iiresolute man to decision : " Thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire."
I. A DECi.AR\TiON OF PERSONAL BEBP0N8IBILITT. Already in ver. 18 there is the declaration that, the Chaldeans will burn the city with fire, and Zedekiah is well able to infer, if lie likes, that this is a calamity he may prevent. But he is not left to irilerence. The prophet's exhortation goes on, maintaining its cogency and directness, and then in the last word he individually is made responsible. The sting of the address is emphatically in the tail. Zedekiah is now brought face to face with his ohligatioHs as a king. Jeremi.'i could not have said to any one else, " Thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire," because no one else could have set in train the course of events which would avert such a calamity. Here is an example to teach those who are tempted to envy the grandetir of kings and the fame of such ai
ofc, xxxTin. 1— 28.] THE BOOK OP THE PBOPHET JEREMIA.H. 145
ftre ruling men !n a state. Zedekiah's decision affected not liimself only, or a few people, but a whole city. The responsibility was further increased by his having sent for the prophet who said this very thing. It is not every ruler who at a critical moment has his way made so clear as wag the way of Zedekiah here. How much in the way of preventing evil may depend on one single man I
II. Matter is furnished to embitter the reflection's of the future. Whether Zedekiah saw the blazing city we cannut be sure. If he did, what a pang for his heart to think that the city where he was king, in which he and his ancestors had taken such pride, was burning, through his want of decision at a critical time ! He feared to do what looked unpatriotic, and in the end he virtually destroyed the city he might have saved.
III. There was a limit to Zedekiah's power over the situation. Truly it was a great deal for one man to be able to do — either to save a city from the flames or hand it over to them. But this power only looks great according to the standard given by temporal and superficial relations. An almost boundless area for human powers and opportunities lay altogether outside of Zedekiah's reach. As man is unable purely by his own effort to confer the highest benefits on his fellow-man, so he is also unable to inflict the worst evil. The worst evils are ever self-originated. Zetlekiah did far more to hurt himself than any one else. Jeremiah had been charged to make it quite clear to every one that he who went forth to the Chaldeans should live. — Y.
Vers. 24 — 28. — The unhwgly position of a king. I. The profession of a kinolt attribute. The king holds the power of life and death. He can pardon without giving a reason. And Zedekiah maintains the name of this kingly right, even upon the very heels of Jeremiah's awful words. Such is the power of long-accepted habit and privi- lege. Did he really think that if Jeremiah published the conversation he had power to put him to death ? Or did he think that such a suggestion would move the prophet in the least ? Possibly he did ; or more likely he was talking at random ; or it may be that in these last decaying days of diijnity he asserted, by a kind of instinct, all that was left him to assert. We know well that he had no real power over Jeremiah, for the Lord who had hidden his proiihet before could hide him again (ch. xxxvi. 26). Pilate followed in the train of Zedekiah when he said to Jesus, " Enowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?" (John xix. 10). 'J'his, then, is the first element in the unkingly position, that Zedekiah is professing what he cannot perform.
II Hb is afraid of the leading men in the state. He will not rise independent of them, neither will he consult them. Instead of fearing Jehovah and trembling at the thought of what he has just heard, his soul is filled with the fear of men who probably derived their places from his own appointment. He shrinks from being forced to tell any of them that he has had to contemplate as a possibility a voluntary sur- render to the Chaldeans. Truly it was quite time for a new order of things to rise in Jerusalem, even if it meant the destruction ot a city. A true king would not have feared that his interview with a prophet of God should be known anywhere. Kings emong men, those who are kings by nature and by the grandeur of their acts, fear no one but God They act in the darkness just as if they were in the light ; in private relations just as if they were in public. They never need to go begging and entreating people to conceal thin-is.
III. He is a suppliant to one of his subjects. In the same breath he tells Jeremiah he shall not die and begs Jerenniah to grant him a favour. All at once he sets before this prophet, so straightforward and nnri served, a nice question of casuistry. With the sugsjestion of burning Jerusalem before him, he is tliinkiug first on the present inconvenience to himself and providing a nice quibble to escape from it. Yet even here is a sign of God's bearing with him to the last. The request he makes, utidignified as it is, is nevertheless one within the power of the prophet to grant. If Zedekiah feels it to be consistent with his regal dignity, Jeremiah feels it not inconsistent with hie integrity. The impression we get from the whole couveisatiun is that the torches di the Chaldeans did not come at all too soon.— Y.
jbbemiah— n.
14«
THK BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [oh. xxxn. 1— 18
EXPOSITION.
OHAPTBB XXXIX.