Then Zedekiah the king commanded that they should commit Jeremiah into the court of the prison, and that they should give him daily a piece of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city were spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.
Zedekiah commanded that they should commit Jeremiah into the court of the prison - (Jeremiah 32:2; Jeremiah 38:13; Jeremiah 38:28).
Bakers' street. Persons in the same business commonly reside in the same street in cities in the East.
Until all the bread ... spent. Jeremiah had bread supplied to him until he was thrown into the dungeon of Malchiah, at which time the bread in the city was spent. Compare this verse with Jeremiah 38:9; that time must have been very shortly before the capture of the city (Jeremiah 52:6). God saith of His children, "In the days of famine they shall be satisfied" (Psalms 37:19; Isaiah 33:16). Honest reproof (Jeremiah 37:17) in the end often gains more favour than flattery (Proverbs 28:23).
Remarks:
(1) Zedekiah and the people of Jerusalem, with the fate of Jehoiakim and Jeconiah, the immediately preceding kings, before their eyes, yet trod in the same steps of impiety which had brought ruin on those two kings, and serious loss to their subjects. Multitudes witness the ruinous consequences of other men's sins, and yet, with reckless infatuation, follow the same deadly paths (Jeremiah 37:2).
(2) While the issue of the diversion made in favour of Jerusalem by the Egyptian army under Pharaoh-hophra was as yet uncertain, Zedekiah applied to Jeremiah to intercede with God for the deliverance of the Jewish people from the King of Babylon, who had come to besiege their capital. The worldly and ungodly are glad to have recourse to the once-despised people of God for intercessory prayers in times of danger and distress. But no intercessions can be of any avail that are craved by those who only wish an escape from justly-merited punishment, but have no desire for repentance and deliverance from sin. Therefore, Jeremiah tells Zedekiah plainly that the deliverance given to Jerusalem through the Egyptian army is but for a time, and that the Chaldeans will return and take the city and burn it (Jeremiah 37:5-8). If God be not for us, vain is the help of man. If He will not help us, no creature can. When He is against us, the feeblest and most unlikely instruments, as for instance "wounded men" (Jeremiah 37:10), are sufficient to execute God's wrath upon us.
(3) Sinners most frequently "deceive themselves" (Jeremiah 37:9) with the thought that, because there is a respite, the sentence of judgment will not be executed at all. Like Agag, the doomed Amalekite king, they say, "Surely the bitterness of death is past" (1 Samuel 15:32). And "because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily," thinking that sin will escape punishment altogether, their, "heart is fully set in them to do evil." But "though a sinner's days be prolonged" (Ecclesiastes 8:11-13), it is only so in appearance; "he shall not" really "prolong his days, which are as a shadow, because he feareth not before God."
(4) Jeremiah was apprehended as a deserter to the Chaldeans, when he was merely withdrawing to his native place, Anathoth, from the scenes of turmoil in the metropolis. But had that been his object, there would have been doubtless many better opportunities of doing so than when the Chaldean army was broken up from the siege of Jerusalem, and had withdrawn in the direction of the Egyptian army (Jeremiah 37:11). He could only protest his innocence, and commit himself and his cause to Him who knoweth all hearts; and the prophet who had told the truth from God again and again, at the cost of shame and the peril of his life, in the face of a hostile court-and who, had he consented to utter flattering lies, would have insured to himself honours from the king-was committed, as a liar and a traitor, to the lowest dungeon, just because he spake the truth (Jeremiah 37:16). But Jeremiah's is no unprecedented case of the ungodly treating the best friends of the state as if they were her worst enemies.
(5) Still, what a striking testimony to the force of truth its enemies are often compelled to give, in spite of themselves! Zedekiah the king secretly sent for him who was ostensibly imprisoned for unfaithfulness and treachery to his country, as the only one who was favoured with, and who could declare the revelations of the God of truth. Surely "their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges" (Deuteronomy 32:31).
(6) Arrived in the king's presence, whereas he had every inducement of regard to life and liberty to induce him to soften the sternness of the threat of Yahweh, he diminishes not a word in order to win the king's favour or avert his resentment, but plainly announces the "word from the Lord:" "Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon" (Jeremiah 37:17). What makes this unflinching faithfulness the more remarkable is, that Jeremiah was naturally of a timid, sensitive nature; and, accordingly, presently after this extraordinary display of spiritual firmness in the cause of God, we find the same man, in making his request on his own behalf, submissive and supplicatory (Jeremiah 37:18-20). The natural instincts of the believer make him shrink from death, and yet so entirely can the Spirit gain the dominion over the flesh, that in the cause of his Lord he is ready to brave death rather than be unfaithful to his Divine Master.
(7) In the end, faithfulness to God often wins involuntary respect and favour to the children of God from the children of the world. Zedekiah, to his credit, instead of punishing the prophet for his holy boldness and truth-speaking, ameliorated his condition as a prisoner, and provided that he should be supplied with bread so long as there was any left in the city (Jeremiah 37:21). The Lord can make even the cells of a prison the abode of peace, and will never break His word, that when a man's ways please Him, He will make even His enemies to be at peace with Him. Whosoever may want, the children of God have a never-failing supply for all their real needs, engaged to them out of the riches of God's grace.