Speaking of Kings (21:1-23:8) 107of Malchiah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to him. The request was that
Jeremiah inquire of Yahweh, since Nebuchadrezzar had come to Jerusalem
and was making war against the city. Zedekiah expressed the hope that Yahweh
would perform another of his miraculous deeds and that Nebuchadrezzar
would return home or depart for some other place. The audience will remem-
ber hearing about what happened when Sennacherib came to besiege Jerusa-
lem and how Yahweh miraculously intervened, causing the Assyrian king to
hurry home. And they will have recalled often enough and recited in worship
the miracles associated with the Exodus and other grand deliverances of the
past. But some may also recall Nebuchadrezzar's last visit to Jerusalem, when
the city surrendered, and Jehoiachin, the queen mother, and many prominent
citizens were shamefully marched off to Babylon.
To this embassy Jeremiah gives two oracles, which are to be brought back to
the king. In the first, Yahweh says he will turn around the weapons currently in
the hands of Jerusalem's defenders. What is more, he will bring the Babylo-
nians now outside the wall into the city center. Yahweh, to everyone's horror,
says he is warring against his own people with the same flexed hand and arm
that once worked the grand deliverances they celebrate. Reversing a familiar
metaphor will drive home the point that Yahweh is reversing the direction that
the holy war is now taking. He will do this in a terrible fit of rage, striking down
both humans and beasts in the city, leaving them to die by a pestilence that
will race through every quarter once the dead bodies accumulate and there is
nowhere to bury them.
In a second oracle, Yahweh says he will give Zedekiah, his servants,
people of the city, and the survivors of the pestilence, sword, and famine
into Nebuchadrezzar's hand and also into the hands of others who are seek-
ing their lives. In a final merciless act, the enemy will finish off would-be
survivors with the sword, which is consistent with the aims and purpose of
holy war.
In connection with the present crisis, Yahweh tells Jeremiah to speak a sec-
ond word directly to the people. In the first of two oracles, the people are pre-
sented with a way of life and a way of death. No longer will this have anything
to do with obedience to the commandments. The choice is now to wait out the
crisis with others and die by sword, famine, or pestilence or to surrender to the
Chaldeans and gain the modest war booty of their own lives. In a second or-
acle, Yahweh says that he has set his face against the city for evil and not for
good. The king of Babylon will capture it and burn it with fire.
All four oracles date to the time when the Babylonian army arrived in Jeru-
salem in 588 B.C. and began their siege of the city. The Egyptians have not yet
made their move that forced a temporary lifting of the siege. Two oracles are
sent with the messengers to King Zedekiah, who requested them, and two are
spoken by Jeremiah directly to the people-if not in the Temple courtyard,
then in some other public place. Anytime after this, the oracles and their intro-
ductions could have been written down by Baruch or some other scribe in the
prophet's confidence.