Jeremiah Is Shut Up In Prison For Prophesying That Jerusalem Will Be Taken By Nebuchadrezzar (Jeremiah 32:1-5).
The scene now shifts from the rebuilding of the new Jerusalem to the time of the siege of the old Jerusalem, with the enemy camped around the city, and its people within being slowly starved into submission. All could look out over the walls and see the Babylonian siege engines and siege mounds, and all the related activity connected with the besieging of a city. This was relieved for a short time when an Egyptian army arrived to challenge the Babylonians, but that army was soon sent packing, with the siege being resumed. It was not until after this that Jeremiah was shut up, first in prison (Jeremiah 37:4-5; Jeremiah 37:11-13), and then in the court of the guard (Jeremiah 37:21). All efforts would meanwhile be being made to uphold the morale of the slowly starving city, so that Jeremiah's prophecy that the city would fall would therefore have been seen as little short of treachery, which was one reason why he was subsequently put under guard in the court of the guard in the king's palace complex.
‘The word that came to Jeremiah from YHWH in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.'
The date was around 588/7 BC. The siege began in c. 589 BC, and was now at its intensest, with hope of help from the Egyptians having faded. It was the time when, as a result of the attempted rebellion of Zedekiah (largely forced on him by his advisers), Nebuchadrezzar had surrounded the city with a view to forcing it into submission. 588/7 BC would be Nebuchadrezzars's seventeenth year by Babylonian reckoning (omitting the accession year), and therefore the eighteenth year by this reckoning (including the accession year).
‘Now at that time the king of Babylon's army was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah's house.'
With the city surrounded by the enemy Jeremiah, who was falsely accused of wishing to desert to the enemy (Jeremiah 37:13), had been imprisoned in the palace-complex prison in the court of the guard which was probably retained for the purpose of imprisoning high state officials who fell from grace. It was a far better situation than he had experienced earlier when he had been in what was basically little better than a cess pit (Jeremiah 38:6), a situation which could have proved fatal, and from which he had mercifully been delivered by a friendly party who had appealed to the king on his behalf (Jeremiah 38:7-10). And there in the palace-complex prison he was occasionally consulted surreptitiously even by Zedekiah, and could be visited by his friends and relatives.
‘For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, and say,
“Thus says YHWH,
Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon,
And he will take it,
And Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans,
But will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon,
And will speak with him mouth to mouth,
And his eyes will behold his eyes,
And he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon,
And there shall he be until I visit him,
The word of YHWH,
Though you fight with the Chaldeans,
You will not prosper?
We are then given, in words spoken by Zedekiah, the gist of what Jeremiah had prophesied, which was why he had been shut up in prison. This was basically that there was no point in resistance to the Chaldeans as the end was certain, and any resistance to them would not prosper. And that end was that the city would be delivered into the hands of the Babylonians, along with Zedekiah himself. Zedekiah would then be carried off to Babylon, and would at some stage be brought face to face, and eyeball to eyeball, with Nebuchadrezzar, speaking with him mouth to mouth (while no doubt crouched in terror before him. As it turned out this would be the last sight, along with the execution of his sons, that he would see on earth before he was blinded). And he would remain in Babylon until YHWH ‘visited' him. And this was the sure word of YHWH.
The idea of ‘visiting' can sometimes signify release or judgment. Here it simply indicates YHWH's carrying out of His intentions. As there is no record of his release at the time of the release of Jehoiachin it is probable that he was ‘visited' by death prior to that date. All this is a reminder to us that if we do not pay heed to the word of God we must expect to face the consequences.