Jeremias 32:1

XXXII.

(1) In the tenth year of Zedekiah... — We are carried over a period of six years from the prophecy of Jeremias 28:1 to B.C. 589, when the treacherous and intriguing policy of Zedekiah had provoked Nebuchadnezzar to besiege Jerusalem in the ninth year of the king of Judah’s reign, and the king, irritated by Jeremiah’s continued predictions of defeat, had imprisoned him in the dungeon for state-prisoners attached to the palace (Neemias 3:25). It would appear from Jeremias 37:15; Jeremias 38:26, both of an earlier date than this chapter, that he had previously been confined in the house of Jonathan the scribe as a private prison, and that the king had removed him thence with a view to consulting him on the probable issue of the siege. He was not allowed to leave his prison, but friends were permitted to have access to him.

(3. 4) Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon... — A comparison of these verses with Jeremias 34:2; Jeremias 38:23, shows that Jeremiah never for a moment varied in his tone. To see the king of Babylon face to face, to stand before him in shame and confusion — that was to be the end of the king’s frantic resistance to the Divine purpose. The prophecy of Ezekiel (Ezequiel 12:13), and the fact that Nebuchadnezzar put out the eyes of the captive king (Jeremias 39:7), give a special force to Jeremiah’s word. The face of the great king, in all the terror of his wrath, was to be the last object Zedekiah was to behold on earth (2 Reis 25:6; Jeremias 39:6; Jeremias 52:10).