Jer 38 | TNotes | STEP | Summary for Jer 38:1-13: 38:1-13 Jeremiah was free to talk to people while he was in the prison courtyard. He repeated the Lord’s decrees of judgment, but this stirred fierce anger among some of the government officials. Zedekiah showed his cowardice by letting these men put Jeremiah in a muddy cistern; the king also had a courageous moment when he permitted a palace servant to rescue Jeremiah and return him to the palace prison. 38:1 The Gedaliah mentioned here had a different father than the Gedaliah in 40:6 . • The first Pashhur might have been the man in 20:1 . The second Pashhur had a different father.

Summary for Jer 38:1-13: 38:1-13 ^a Jeremiah was free to talk to people while he was in the prison courtyard. He repeated the Lord’s decrees of judgment, but this stirred fierce anger among some of the government officials. Zedekiah showed his cowardice by letting these men put Jeremiah in a muddy cistern; the king also had a courageous moment when he permitted a palace servant to rescue Jeremiah and return him to the palace prison. 38:1 ^b The Gedaliah mentioned here had a different father than the Gedaliah in 40:6 ^c.

• The first Pashhur might have been the man in 20:1 ^d. The second Pashhur had a different father.
38:4 ^e The officials apparently believed that the morale of the men resisting the Babylonian army outside the walls of the city would be harmed if Jeremiah continued to prophesy, so they put him on trial for treason.
38:5 ^f When the officials angrily confronted King Zedekiah and made their demands, he was weak and cowardly.
38:6 ^g In the presence of everyone in the palace courtyard, Jeremiah was thrown into an empty cistern. At the bottom was a thick layer of mud that slowly enveloped Jeremiah’s body.
Summary for Jer 38:7-8: 38:7-8 ^h the Ethiopian (cp. Luke 17:18 ⁱ; Acts 28:28 ^j): Jeremiah’s rescuer was not from Judah; he was a foreigner who dared to defy the other officials. He ran to the Benjamin Gate, where Jeremiah was first arrested (Jer 37:11-13 ^k), and rushed into the king’s presence without ceremony.
38:10 ^l The rescue party included thirty ... men, perhaps indicating that Zedekiah felt the need to keep his officials from attacking it.
Summary for Jer 38:11-12: 38:11-12 ^m Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian rescuer (38:7 ⁿ), was a caring person who wanted to protect Jeremiah’s weakened body as much as possible.
Summary for Jer 38:14-16: 38:14-16 ^o Zedekiah so desperately wanted a miracle to save his kingdom from the attacking Babylonian armies that he arranged a secret meeting with Jeremiah. 38:14 ^p The location of the third entrance of the Lord’s Temple is not known. The gates of the Temple had small rooms nearby, so the private meeting probably took place in one of them.
Summary for Jer 38:17-18: 38:17-18 ^q Jeremiah laid out the Lord’s decree. Zedekiah could save the city by surrendering or he could watch as it was destroyed by the invaders.
38:19 ^r Zedekiah still feared his fellow countrymen—this time, those who had defected—more than he feared the Lord or the Babylonians, so he rejected Jeremiah’s advice. This was Jeremiah’s last message to the king.
Summary for Jer 38:20-22: 38:20-22 ^s Jeremiah reassured Zedekiah that everything would go well if Zedekiah chose to obey the Lord. If he refused, even his friends would abandon him.
Summary for Jer 38:24-28: 38:24-28 ^t When Zedekiah’s fear of his officials surfaced again, he demanded that Jeremiah keep secret what he had told the king.

• The officials might have suspected that Zedekiah was about to surrender to the enemy. Jeremiah obeyed the king’s order to keep quiet, and he spent the final days of the siege in the palace prison under the king’s protection.