The Fall of Jerusalem (2 of 2)

In context

Four officials want Jeremiah dead for telling the people that whoever goes out to the Chaldeans will live, and they let him down with cords into a dungeon, where he sinks in the mire (Jeremiah 38:1–6). Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, an official in the king’s house, speaks up for him, and with thirty men and some worn-out rags to pad the cords under his arms they pull him out (38:7–13). In another secret talk Zedekiah asks Jeremiah to hide nothing, but Zedekiah is afraid (38:14–19).

It is a hard reading: the city falls, and Zedekiah’s sons are killed before his eyes (39:1–7). Nebuchadnezzar orders that Jeremiah be cared for, and he is given into the keeping of Gedaliah (39:11–14). The Lord tells Ebedmelech, “I will surely save you… because you have put your trust in me” (39:18). Jeremiah 52 tells the fall again, as 2 Kings does, and counts those carried away in three groups, “four thousand six hundred,” a different count from 2 Kings 24:14 (52:28–30).

Obadiah’s short book is about Edom, the people descended from Esau, Jacob’s brother, who stood aside when Jerusalem was taken and was “like one of them” (Obadiah 1:10–11). Psalm 137 remembers the same day (Psalm 137:7).