Jeremiah 34

A Liberty to the Sword

With Babylon at the gates, King Zedekiah and his people free their Hebrew slaves in a solemn covenant, take them back when the siege lifts, and hear the Lord proclaim a liberty of His own.

The reign of Zedekiah (597–586 B.C. by the Bible Dictionary), during the siege of Jerusalem, which began in his ninth year; the chapter gives no date of its own Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

The chapter has two scenes, both inside the siege that ended Judah's kingdom.

The chapter has two scenes, both inside the siege that ended Judah's kingdom. Verses 1–7 are a message to King Zedekiah: Jerusalem will burn, he will be taken to Babylon, and he will not die by the sword. Only Lachish and Azekah, among the fortified cities of Judah, are still standing. Verses 8–22 tell what the king and the people did in those weeks. They made a covenant to free their Hebrew slaves, as the law of Moses required, and then took the slaves back.

Chapters 34–38 are “narratives of the treatment of the prophet and other events during the last times of the siege.” The chapter heading names the result: “Jeremiah prophesies the captivity of Zedekiah—The people of Judah will be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.” Jeremiah gives Zedekiah this message more than once (Jer. 21:3–10; Jer. 32:3–5; Jer. 38:17–18). What is new here is a particular crime. The leaders swore before the Lord, in His house, to keep a commandment, and did not.

Zedekiah is also the king in whose first year, as Lehi's record opens, “many prophets” were warning the people to repent “or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed” (1 Ne. 1:4), and the Book of Mormon preserves one of his sons (Hel. 8:21).

The thread through the chapter

Jeremiah 34 turns on one word, “liberty” (Hebrew deror). In verse 8 the king and the people proclaim liberty to their slaves; in verse 15 they are said to have “done right in my…

Jeremiah 34 turns on one word, “liberty” (Hebrew deror). In verse 8 the king and the people proclaim liberty to their slaves; in verse 15 they are said to have “done right in my sight” by doing it; in verse 17 the Lord answers, “I proclaim a liberty for you… to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine.” The word is the same each time. What the people refused to give, they receive: release from the protection of the God they had sworn before, into the hands of the enemy.

The reason is stated twice. The people broke a covenant they made “before me in the house which is called by my name” (verse 15), and so they “polluted my name” (verse 16). The chapter does not charge them with failing to keep a hard law. They kept it for a short season, when they were frightened, and abandoned it when the danger seemed to pass. The Lord's word, however, is not tied to their change of mind: the army that left will return (verse 22).

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–7

A word to the king

In plain words

While Nebuchadnezzar and his army fought against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, the Lord told Jeremiah to say to Zedekiah: “I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it. You will not escape. You will stand before the king of Babylon face to face, and you will go to Babylon. But hear the Lord's word: you will not die by the sword. You will die in peace, and as they burned spices for your fathers, so they will for you, and they will mourn you, ‘Alas, lord!’” Jeremiah told the king all this in Jerusalem, while the Babylonian army fought against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that were left, Lachish and Azekah, the last fortified cities.

1 The word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying,

Context #

A siege with a pause in it

The chapter is set in the last siege of Jerusalem, in a gap in the fighting.

The chapter is set in the last siege of Jerusalem, in a gap in the fighting. The siege began “in the ninth year of Zedekiah… in the tenth month” (Jer. 39:1), where the king's name is spelled Nebuchadrezzar, the same Babylonian king as the Nebuchadnezzar of this verse. “A growing patriotic feeling among the people brought Zedekiah to seek the support of Egypt in rebellion against the power of the north.”

The pause comes when “Pharaoh's army was come forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they departed from Jerusalem” (Jer. 37:5). The chapter does not name Egypt, but its second half assumes the army has left: in verse 21 the enemy is “gone up from you,” and in verse 22 the Lord will “cause them to return.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Enrichment G: Babylonia and the Conquest of Judah, Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). “Jeremiah”, Bible Dictionary.

2 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire:

Context #

A message Zedekiah heard more than once

Jeremiah gives Zedekiah this message more than once, and it costs him.

Jeremiah gives Zedekiah this message more than once, and it costs him. The Church edition's footnote sends the reader to Jer. 21:10, Jer. 38:3, and Jer. 52:13. In Jer. 32:3, Jeremiah is shut up in the court of the prison because Zedekiah “had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it.”

Zedekiah, the last king of Judah (his birth name was Mattaniah), consults the prophet but does not follow him. “The weak, vacillating character of King Zedekiah manifested itself. He called Jeremiah to him secretly, asking if there was any word from the Lord concerning Jerusalem's fate.” The message in verses 1–7 is therefore not new; what is new is the charge in verses 8–22.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Zedekiah”, Bible Dictionary. Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

3 And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon.

Context #

Eyes to eyes

Verse 3 was fulfilled to the letter, at Riblah. After Zedekiah was caught on the plains of Jericho, “they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of…

Verse 3 was fulfilled to the letter, at Riblah. After Zedekiah was caught on the plains of Jericho, “they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him” (Jer. 39:5). “Mouth to mouth” is a hearing in person before the king against whom Zedekiah had rebelled (2 Chr. 36:13).

What the king saw there is told in 2 Kgs. 25:7: “they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon.” The text puts the killing of his sons immediately before the blinding. Ezekiel had said, in a different idiom, that Zedekiah would be brought to Babylon “yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there” (Ezek. 12:13). The two prophecies look contradictory until the blinding is known: he is brought to Babylon, and, blinded, does not see it. Both prophets “were vindicated by subsequent events.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chapter 19: Judah’s Return to Wickedness (2 Kings 21–25), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003), 213–17.

4 Yet hear the word of the LORD, O Zedekiah king of Judah; Thus saith the LORD of thee, Thou shalt not die by the sword:

5 But thou shalt die in peace: and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee; and they will lament thee, saying, Ah lord! for I have pronounced the word, saith the LORD.

Context #

“Die in peace”

Verse 5 is hard to square with what happened to Zedekiah, and the text does not settle it.

Verse 5 is hard to square with what happened to Zedekiah, and the text does not settle it. Verse 4 says he will not “die by the sword,” and verse 5 that he will “die in peace.” But Jeremiah 52 says Babylon blinded him, bound him in chains, took him to Babylon, “and put him in prison till the day of his death” (Jer. 52:11). Our texts do not tell how or where he died, or whether he was buried with honor.

One reading is that “die in peace” means a death “on a bed of sickness in contrast with execution,” and that imprisonment “would not necessarily be an obstacle in the way of an honourable burial after the fashion of his fathers.” Some have read verses 4–5 as a condition (if Zedekiah surrendered, he would die as king in Jerusalem); against that, verse 4 says only “hear the word of the Lord,” not “obey” it, and it gives no directions, only a statement of how his life will end. An explicit condition does appear later: “If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon's princes, then thy soul shall live, and this city shall not be burned with fire” (Jer. 38:17). Zedekiah answers, “I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen to the Chaldeans” (Jer. 38:19), and chooses the other course.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

Language #

Burnings for a king

“Burn odours” means the burning of spices at a king's funeral, not burning the body.

“Burn odours” means the burning of spices at a king's funeral, not burning the body. When Asa died his people “laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very great burning for him” (2 Chr. 16:14). The burning of aromatic spices is meant, since burning corpses “was not customary among the Hebrews.”

The final clause, “Ah lord!”, is the lament that was due a king. Jeremiah had said that Jehoiakim would be denied it: “they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory! … He shall be buried with the burial of an ass” (Jer. 22:18–19). Zedekiah, Jehoiakim's brother, is promised what Jehoiakim was denied, though the text does not say whether it happened.

6 Then Jeremiah the prophet spake all these words unto Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem,

7 When the king of Babylon’s army fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish, and against Azekah: for these defenced cities remained of the cities of Judah.

Verses 8–11

Liberty proclaimed, then undone

In plain words

After King Zedekiah made a covenant with everyone in Jerusalem to proclaim liberty, so that each person would free his Hebrew slaves, men and women, and no one would keep a fellow Jew in slavery, the princes and the people agreed and set them free. But afterward they changed their minds and forced the people they had freed back into slavery.

8 This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them;

Language #

“Liberty”

“Liberty” is deror in Hebrew, a word tied to the release of persons. In Lev. 25:10 it is the Jubilee proclamation: “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the…

“Liberty” is deror in Hebrew, a word tied to the release of persons. In Lev. 25:10 it is the Jubilee proclamation: “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” The lexicon notes that Jeremiah 34:8, 15, and 17 “all reference to liberty of Sabbatical year,” meaning the release of Hebrew slaves in the seventh year, and that in verse 17 the word is used ironically.

The same word comes back in Isaiah's prophecy of the one anointed “to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Isa. 61:1).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

9 That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being an Hebrew or an Hebrewess, go free; that none should serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother.

10 Now when all the princes, and all the people, which had entered into the covenant, heard that every one should let his manservant, and every one his maidservant, go free, that none should serve themselves of them any more, then they obeyed, and let them go.

11 But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.

Context #

Why they took them back

The people freed their slaves while the city was besieged and took them back when the siege lifted, and the chapter does not say that they were forced to.

The people freed their slaves while the city was besieged and took them back when the siege lifted, and the chapter does not say that they were forced to. The release “may have been done partly because the old law required the release of slaves… and partly because of the need of manpower to defend the besieged city.” “Then the advance of the Egyptians seems to have caused the Babylonians to lift the siege. In spite of their solemn oath… the men of the city proceeded to re-enslave their unfortunate brethren.” That is one scholar's reconstruction; the text gives the sequence but not the motives.

The Church edition's footnotes gloss the verse's key words: “enslave them” for “serve himself of them” in verse 9, and “turned back on their word” for “turned” here. The Lord's message through Jeremiah to Zedekiah in the same weeks was that the relief would not last: “the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire” (Jer. 37:8).

Sources: Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 12–22

The Lord's answer

In plain words

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. The Lord reminded them of the covenant He made with their fathers when He brought them out of Egypt: at the end of seven years each Hebrew slave was to be set free. Their fathers did not listen. Recently they had done right, proclaiming liberty before the Lord in His house, and then they turned and profaned His name by taking the slaves back. “You have not listened to me about proclaiming liberty, so I proclaim a liberty for you,” says the Lord: liberty to the sword, plague, and famine, and they will be scattered through all the kingdoms of the earth. The leaders who passed between the halves of the calf will be given to their enemies, and their bodies will be food for the birds and animals. Zedekiah and his officials will be given to the army that has just gone away. The Lord will order that army back, and it will fight against the city, capture it, and burn it, and the cities of Judah will be desolate.

12 Therefore the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

13 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying,

14 At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear.

Related Scriptures #

The law of release

The law the people had ignored is in the law of Moses: “If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing” (Ex. 21:2);…

The law the people had ignored is in the law of Moses: “If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing” (Ex. 21:2); Deut. 15:12 extends it to a Hebrew “man, or an Hebrew woman.” The Church edition's footnote on verse 14 points to the Topical Guide's “Sabbatical Year.”

The Lord ties the commandment to His covenant with their fathers at the Exodus (verse 13). Deuteronomy gives the reason: “thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day” (Deut. 15:15). Verse 14 says of the fathers, “your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear,” so the law had gone unkept before this generation as well.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

15 And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name:

16 But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.

Language #

“Polluted my name”

To break this covenant was to profane the Lord's name, because the covenant had been made in His name and in His house (verse 15).

To break this covenant was to profane the Lord's name, because the covenant had been made in His name and in His house (verse 15). The footnote gives the Hebrew sense of “polluted” as “profaned.” The people had made the covenant “before me in the house which is called by my name” (verse 15), and then reversed it.

It was not the king's only broken oath. Zedekiah “rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel” (2 Chr. 36:13).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

17 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

Language #

Liberty to the sword

The Lord uses their own word against them. They had refused to “proclaim liberty” (deror) to their brothers, so the Lord proclaims deror to them.

The Lord uses their own word against them. They had refused to “proclaim liberty” (deror) to their brothers, so the Lord proclaims deror to them. The lexicon marks verse 17 as ironic: “lo! I proclaim to you liberty unto the sword.” What they are given is the freedom to fall by sword, pestilence, and famine.

The punishment fits the crime. They would not release their brothers; the Lord releases them, and the result is the loss of their own freedom: they will be “removed into all the kingdoms of the earth,” the words the chapter heading uses to sum up the prophecy.

18 And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,

Imagery #

Between the pieces

“Cut the calf in twain” refers to an ancient covenant ritual in which the parties passed between the halves of a slain animal.

“Cut the calf in twain” refers to an ancient covenant ritual in which the parties passed between the halves of a slain animal. Verses 18–19 call the people's covenant that kind of covenant, and the Church edition's footnotes send the reader to Abram's covenant: he took animals, “divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another” (Gen. 15:10), and “a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp… passed between those pieces” (Gen. 15:17). The Hebrew idiom for making a covenant, “to cut a covenant” (karat berit), is explained by the rite.

In Genesis the smoking furnace and the burning lamp pass between the pieces, and “in the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram” (Gen. 15:17–18). In Jeremiah it is the princes, priests, and people who passed between them. One reading is that the rite meant the covenant-breaker would be treated like the slaughtered animal. The verses themselves do not say so; the Lord's sentence in verse 20 is that their “dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth.”

19 The princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf;

20 I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth.

21 And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, which are gone up from you.

Related Scriptures #

Zedekiah's sons

The sentence on Zedekiah is carried out, but his line does not end with it.

The sentence on Zedekiah is carried out, but his line does not end with it. His sons were killed before his eyes (2 Kgs. 25:7), but the Book of Mormon adds that “not all of the sons of Zedekiah were slain (as implied in Jer. 52:10), for one son, Mulek, came to the Western Hemisphere.” Nephi the son of Helaman asks the Nephites who disputed his words, “Will ye say that the sons of Zedekiah were not slain, all except it were Mulek?” (Hel. 8:21), and the land north was named for him (Hel. 6:10). The Book of Mormon records that one son survived, a detail Jeremiah's own book does not have.

Sources: “Zedekiah”, Bible Dictionary. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

22 Behold, I will command, saith the LORD, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant.

Related Scriptures #

The word that is fulfilled

The army that left will come back, and the Lord says He will “command” it.

The army that left will come back, and the Lord says He will “command” it. The pause in the siege was not the end of the danger. “The Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire” (Jer. 37:8). It happened: “the Chaldeans burned the king's house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem” (Jer. 39:8).

The Lord's word does not depend on the people's mood. “My word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same” (D&C 1:38). In Zedekiah's case it was spoken by the servant, and it stood.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Seeing Christ in Jeremiah 34

The Lord who proclaims liberty in this chapter is the Lord who “brought [Israel] forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen” (verse 13), and the release He commanded rests on that redemption: “the Lord thy God redeemed thee” (Deut. 15:15). Isaiah describes the Anointed One sent “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isa. 61:1); in the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus reads the passage and says it is fulfilled, with “deliverance to the captives” (Luke 4:18). The liberty Christ gives is spiritual: “obedience to gospel principles frees a person from the spiritual bondage of sin.” Judah's leaders would not give the liberty they had been given. Christ gives it.

Worth exploring next

The rest of the siege: Jeremiah in the court of the prison and the pit (Jer. 37–38), and the fall of the city (Jer. 39).
The next chapter returns to Jehoiakim's reign, where another covenant is kept: the Rechabites (Jer. 35).
The sabbatical and jubilee laws in the Torah: Ex. 21:1–6; Lev. 25:8–55; Deut. 15:1–18.
Mulek, the surviving son of Zedekiah, in the Book of Mormon (Hel. 6:10; Hel. 8:21; Omni 1:15–16).

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Jeremiah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Zedekiah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Lachish”, Bible Dictionary.
“Azekah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Eunuch”, Bible Dictionary.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
Chapter 19: Judah’s Return to Wickedness (2 Kings 21–25), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003), 213–17.
Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).
Enrichment G: Babylonia and the Conquest of Judah, Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).
Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
“Liberty”, Guide to the Scriptures.

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