Jeremiah 37:1-28

The Disobedience Of Judah And Its King Is Highlighted By Their Treatment Of The Prophet Of YHWH (Jeremiah 37:1 to Jeremiah 38:28).

These events once again took place during the reign of Zedekiah, the final king of Judah before the exile. Along with Jeremiah 34:1 this passage forms an inclusio for this subsection on disobedience, paralleling the similar inclusio in Chapter s 21-24, which brings out that the final intention of the prophecy at this stage is to concentrate on the destruction of Jerusalem and its aftermath in the light of the sin that has gone before.

With this in view the different imprisonments of Jeremiah at the hands of both king and people are emphasised in what follows. The passage commences by underlining the fact that he had not been imprisoned at first (Jeremiah 37:4), and then goes on to deal with a number of imprisonments (Jeremiah 37:15; Jeremiah 37:21; Jeremiah 38:6; Jeremiah 38:13; Jeremiah 38:28), something which is emphasised in the concluding verse (Jeremiah 38:28). Thus there is a continual emphasis throughout on his imprisonment. In this we have the fourth and greatest example of the disobedience of both king and people in that they sought to restrain the prophet of YHWH, something in the main unknown in previous generations.