Jeremiah;- The false arrest (ch37), page 1

In the middle of the final siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, Pharaoh led out the army of Egypt against them. The Babylonian army was withdrawn from the siege in order to redeploy and face the Egyptians.

This gave great hope and encouragement to the party in Jerusalem which was against religious reform and against the Babylonians (the two things went together, for the moment). Their strategy had always depended on getting help from Egypt, although the prophets had been warning against that policy since the time of Isaiah. The withdrawal of the Babylonian army had already given them the confidence to go back on their promise to free their slaves (ch34 v21).

But Jeremiah warned the people (ch37 vv6-10) that this relief would not last. Pharaoh would soon go back to his own country, which meant that the Babylonians would return to the siege. In fact if every Babylonian soldier lay wounded in his tent, after fighting the Egyptians, they would still be capable of taking Jerusalem and burning it with fire.

Meanwhile, the gates were open again, allowing people to go out into countryside and conduct any business they had there. This included Jeremiah who had a “portion” to receive in Benjamin, presumably the field he bought in ch32. But as he went out of the main gate on the northern side, known as the Benjamin gate, he was spotted and recognised by one of his enemies, who had been posted as a sentry. The sentry seized him and arrested him on a charge of trying to desert to the Babylonians. If Jeremiah really had that intention, wouldn’t it have been better, from their viewpoint, to let him go and remove his influence from the city?

Jeremiah was taken to the “princes”, the leaders of the city, who believed the false report. They had him beaten and imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the secretary. Jonathan must have been one of his enemies, because Jeremiah was evidently treated harshly. He must have been kept under close guard and given a starvation diet, if he was being fed at all.

His salvation was that Zedekiah the king wanted to talk to him. Zedekiah was much more sympathetic to the message of Jeremiah than his older brother had been, although he was bereft of the political power and political courage which would have been necessary for him to act upon what Jeremiah told him. Zedekiah questioned Jeremiah “secretly”, being afraid of the reaction of his own princes. He asked if there was any word from the Lord. Jeremiah just repeated the word he had already given many times; “You shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

Jeremiah also complained about his own treatment. What harm had he done to the king and people of Jerusalem, that he deserved being put in prison? The real harm had been done by the men who prophesied falsely that the king of Babylon would not come, and they were not being punished at all. And he made one request for himself, that he should not be sent back to his death in the house of Jonathan the secretary, So Zedekiah sent Jeremiah instead to the court of the [royal] guard, where he had been kept at the beginning of the siege (ch32). This was a much healthier place to stay, and Jeremiah even received a loaf of bread daily, as long as the city still had supplies.