Jeremiah 39

The City Is Broken Up

After eighteen months of siege the walls give way, the last king of Judah is blinded and carried off, and the prophet the city jailed is the one the conquerors protect.

Zedekiah’s ninth to eleventh years, ending with the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.; verses 15–18 look back to the siege, while Jeremiah was still in the court of the prison Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

This is the chapter Jeremiah's whole ministry had been pointing toward.

This is the chapter Jeremiah's whole ministry had been pointing toward. He had warned for years that the city would fall; here it does. Chapters 39–44 are “the prophet’s history and other events after the fall of the city,” and Jeremiah prophesied until “after the downfall of Jerusalem, a period of over 40 years, 626–586 B.C.”

Babylon had set Zedekiah on the throne when his nephew Jehoiachin was deposed, and Zedekiah, “no wiser than his brother, Jehoiakim, and his nephew, Jehoiachin,” began “to look for ways to break the Babylonian yoke.” Babylon returned. Chapters 37–38 told what happened inside the city during the siege: Jeremiah's counsel to surrender was “not welcome,” and he was “viewed as a traitor,” jailed, and nearly left to die in a cistern. Chapter 39 tells how it ended.

The Church's chapter heading names its two halves: “Jerusalem is taken, and the people are taken captive—Jeremiah and Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian, are preserved.” The first half is the fall (verses 1–10), told briefly and from outside, with Jeremiah himself absent from it. The second turns back to the two men who were spared (verses 11–18). The same fall is told again in 2 Kgs. 25 and Jer. 52, and its other side is in the Book of Mormon: Lehi's family left this city before it happened, and a son of Zedekiah, Mulek, escaped it.

The thread through the chapter

Jeremiah 39 shows what happens to those who hear the Lord's word and those who do not, and it sets two men side by side.

Jeremiah 39 shows what happens to those who hear the Lord's word and those who do not, and it sets two men side by side. Zedekiah had been told exactly what to do: go out to the Babylonian princes and live (Jer. 38:17–18). He said he was afraid, and when the walls fell he fled by night anyway, and lost his sons, his sight, and his throne. Ebed-melech, a foreign court official, took a risk for a prophet whom the king's own officers had thrown into a pit, and the Lord says of him, “because thou hast put thy trust in me.”

The two halves answer each other. The first is the long-promised judgment, each piece of it already announced: the king taken to Babylon, the city burned, the people carried off. The second is the promise inside the judgment: “I will surely deliver thee” (verse 18). Between them the chapter keeps showing that the Lord's words came to pass “in that day” (verse 16), exactly as spoken, to the one who feared and to the one who trusted.

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

Verses 1–2

The siege ends

In plain words

In the ninth year of Zedekiah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and besieged it. In the eleventh year, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the city was breached.

1 In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it.

Context #

A siege of eighteen months

The siege began in Zedekiah's ninth year, in the tenth month, and the walls were breached in his eleventh year, in the fourth month, on the ninth day: about eighteen months.

The siege began in Zedekiah's ninth year, in the tenth month, and the walls were breached in his eleventh year, in the fourth month, on the ninth day: about eighteen months. By then the city had no food. 2 Kgs. 25:3 gives the same date and says what the city was like that day: on “the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.” Jer. 52:6 says it again.

That is the setting of the whole chapter. The conquest is not a surprise attack; it is what Jeremiah had told the people would come to a city that refused to surrender. The fall is dated 586 B.C.

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

2 And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up.

Verses 3–7

The king taken

In plain words

All the officers of the king of Babylon came in and took their seats in the middle gate: Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim the chief chamberlain, Nergal-sharezer the chief magician, and the rest. When Zedekiah and all his soldiers saw them, they fled out of the city by night by the king's garden, through the gate between the two walls, toward the plain. The Chaldean army chased them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They brought him to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah in the land of Hamath, who passed sentence on him. At Riblah the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah's sons before his eyes, and he killed all the nobles of Judah. Then he blinded Zedekiah, bound him in chains, and took him to Babylon.

3 And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon.

Context #

Why the generals sat in the gate

A city gate was where public business was done: “the gate of a city was often a place for public business,” and a king did his own business there.

A city gate was where public business was done: “the gate of a city was often a place for public business,” and a king did his own business there. Zedekiah himself was “sitting in the gate of Benjamin” when Ebed-melech came to him about Jeremiah (Jer. 38:7). The Church edition's footnote to this verse points back to the Lord's word at Jeremiah's call: the kingdoms of the north “shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem” (Jer. 1:15). Now the Babylonian officers sit in a gate of Jerusalem.

One reading is that they stationed themselves there as the army pushed through the breaches in the wall. The text says only that they came in and sat down.

Sources: “Gate”, Bible Dictionary. 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 #

Names and titles of the Babylonian officers

The list reads like six names, but “Rab-saris” and “Rab-mag” are offices, not names.

The list reads like six names, but “Rab-saris” and “Rab-mag” are offices, not names. Rab-saris is the chief chamberlain, or chief of the eunuchs (a chamberlain was “a private and confidential servant of an eastern king,” and the word is also translated “eunuch”); Rab-mag is the “chief of the magi.” On one reading the verse names four men, two of them with titles: “Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, chief chamberlain, Nergal-sharezer, chief magician.” When the officers are named again in verse 13, Nebushasban is the Rab-saris and Nergal-sharezer is still the Rab-mag.

The Nergal-sharezer who held the office of Rab-mag accompanied Nebuchadnezzar to Jerusalem and “is probably to be identified with the man of the same name who afterwards became king of Babylonia and is known in classical literature as Neriglissar.” So one of the officers who sat in Jerusalem's gate was probably a future king of Babylon.

Sources: “Nergal-sharezer”, Bible Dictionary. “Chamberlain”, Bible Dictionary. 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.

4 And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain.

Context #

He fled instead of going out

Zedekiah had been told what to do and did the opposite. Jeremiah's word to him in the cistern days was: “If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon’s princes, then…

Zedekiah had been told what to do and did the opposite. Jeremiah's word to him in the cistern days was: “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 answered, “I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me,” and Jeremiah replied, “They shall not deliver thee. Obey, I beseech thee, the voice of the Lord” (Jer. 38:19–20).

Now the princes are in the gate, and the king goes out, but by night, by “the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden,” as 2 Kgs. 25:4 also says, and not to them. It fits what the siege chapters had already shown of his “weak, vacillating character.” His fear of what men might do to him cost him what the Lord had offered through Jeremiah: that he would live, and his house, and that the city would not be burned.

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

5 But the Chaldeans’ army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him.

6 Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.

Related Scriptures #

Zedekiah's sons, and Mulek

The Bible says Zedekiah's sons were killed at Riblah, and the Book of Mormon says one of them was not.

The Bible says Zedekiah's sons were killed at Riblah, and the Book of Mormon says one of them was not. Nephi the son of Helaman asks his accusers, “Will ye say that the sons of Zedekiah were not slain, all except it were Mulek? Yea, and do ye not behold that the seed of Zedekiah are with us?” (Hel. 8:21). This is “a notable contribution” of the Book of Mormon: one son, Mulek, “came to the Western Hemisphere.” The Bible records that all the sons were slain, “but the Book of Mormon clarifies that Mulek survived.”

The Book of Mormon names him twice more. “The land north was called Mulek, which was after the son of Zedekiah; for the Lord did bring Mulek into the land north” (Hel. 6:10), and the people of Zarahemla “came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon” (Omni 1:15).

How he escaped is not told. One suggestion is that he “was not in Jerusalem at the time it was destroyed,” either sent out as an envoy or led out earlier to preserve an heir to the throne; that is a reading, not a record. Verse 6 does not say how many sons there were or how old they were.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Zedekiah”, Bible Dictionary. “Mulek”, Guide to the Scriptures. Scripture Central, “How Did Mulek Get to the New World?”, KnoWhy #753 (September 20, 2024).

7 Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon.

Related Scriptures #

Seeing the king of Babylon, never seeing Babylon

Two earlier prophecies about Zedekiah seem to disagree, and verse 7 shows how both came true.

Two earlier prophecies about Zedekiah seem to disagree, and verse 7 shows how both came true. Jeremiah had told him that “thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth” (Jer. 34:3; also Jer. 32:4). Ezekiel, in Babylon, had said of the prince in Jerusalem: “I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there” (Ezek. 12:13). Both appear to be fulfilled at Riblah: the last thing Zedekiah sees is the king of Babylon passing judgment and his own sons killed, and then he is blinded and taken to a Babylon he cannot see. Jer. 52:11 adds that Babylon “put him in prison till the day of his death.”

The Church edition's footnotes to these verses send the reader to Jer. 52:11 and Ezek. 12:13 for just this. The chapter is a case of the Lord's word being fulfilled in detail, and not only in outline.

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

Verses 8–10

The city burned

In plain words

The Chaldeans burned the palace and the people's houses and tore down Jerusalem's walls. Nebuzar-adan, captain of the guard, carried off to Babylon the people left in the city, the deserters who had gone over to Babylon, and the rest. But he left some of the poorest, who had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at that time.

8 And the Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem.

Context #

A month after the breach

The burning and the deportation come a month after the breach, and verse 8 does not mention the temple. 2 Kgs. 25:8–9 says Nebuzar-adan came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, after…

The burning and the deportation come a month after the breach, and verse 8 does not mention the temple. 2 Kgs. 25:8–9 says Nebuzar-adan came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, after the walls fell in the fourth, and that he “burnt the house of the Lord, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem.” Jer. 52:12–13 says the same, naming the house of the Lord.

So Jeremiah 39 compresses events that were a month apart and leaves out the temple. One reading is that the temple is omitted “as being of no consequence for the immediate purpose of this short notice.” The fuller account is in Jeremiah 52.

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.

Related Scriptures #

What Lehi saw

Lehi had read of this before it happened and later saw in vision that it had, and the Book of Mormon remembers it as the fulfillment of Jeremiah's words.

Lehi had read of this before it happened and later saw in vision that it had, and the Book of Mormon remembers it as the fulfillment of Jeremiah's words. Nephi records that his father read “many things… concerning Jerusalem—that it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof; many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon” (1 Ne. 1:13). Years later Lehi tells his sons, “I have seen a vision, in which I know that Jerusalem is destroyed; and had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished” (2 Ne. 1:4).

Jeremiah was in the same city, and the people had “cast into prison” the prophet whose words were now being fulfilled (1 Ne. 7:14). Centuries later Nephi the son of Helaman puts it as proof: “now we know that Jerusalem was destroyed according to the words of Jeremiah” (Hel. 8:20).

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

9 Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him, with the rest of the people that remained.

10 But Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.

Context #

The poor who had nothing

The poorest people, who had no property, were left in the land and given vineyards and fields. 2 Kgs. 25:12 says why: they were left “to be vinedressers and husbandmen,” and Jer.…

The poorest people, who had no property, were left in the land and given vineyards and fields. 2 Kgs. 25:12 says why: they were left “to be vinedressers and husbandmen,” and Jer. 52:16 says the same.

They were not left leaderless. Babylon “had committed unto” the governor Gedaliah “men, and women, and children, and of the poor of the land, of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon” (Jer. 40:7).

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

Verses 11–14

Jeremiah released

In plain words

Nebuchadnezzar gave orders about Jeremiah to Nebuzar-adan: “Take him, look after him, do him no harm, and do for him whatever he asks.” So Nebuzar-adan and the other Babylonian officers sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison and put him in the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan, to take him home. So he lived among the people.

11 Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard, saying,

12 Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee.

Context #

Why Babylon spared Jeremiah

Nebuchadnezzar's order to protect Jeremiah rests on his having foretold Babylon's victory: “Because Jeremiah had foretold Babylon’s eventual success, he was released by the…

Nebuchadnezzar's order to protect Jeremiah rests on his having foretold Babylon's victory: “Because Jeremiah had foretold Babylon’s eventual success, he was released by the Chaldeans and allowed to remain in Jerusalem as a free person.” The man the city's own leaders had treated as a traitor had told his people to submit.

The release was not as smooth as this verse makes it. Jer. 40:1 says Nebuzar-adan found him “bound in chains among all that were carried away captive,” taken as far as Ramah, and there set free. He gave him a choice: “If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come; and I will look well unto thee: but if it seem ill unto thee… forbear” (Jer. 40:4). Jeremiah stayed.

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.

13 So Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard sent, and Nebushasban, Rab-saris, and Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, and all the king of Babylon’s princes;

14 Even they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison, and committed him unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home: so he dwelt among the people.

Context #

Gedaliah, from a family that had protected Jeremiah

Gedaliah belonged to a family with a record of standing by Jeremiah. His father Ahikam is the man who, when the priests and people wanted Jeremiah put to death for the temple…

Gedaliah belonged to a family with a record of standing by Jeremiah. His father Ahikam is the man who, when the priests and people wanted Jeremiah put to death for the temple sermon, kept him alive: “the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death” (Jer. 26:24). Shaphan, his grandfather, was King Josiah's scribe (2 Kgs. 22:3).

Babylon made Gedaliah “ruler” over the people left in Judah (2 Kgs. 25:22). He did not last. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah “smote Gedaliah… with the sword, and slew him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land” (Jer. 41:2).

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

Verses 15–18

The word to Ebed-melech

In plain words

While Jeremiah was still shut up in the court of the prison, the word of the Lord had come to him: “Go and tell Ebed-melech the Ethiopian: I am about to bring my words upon this city for harm and not for good, and you will see them fulfilled on that day. But I will deliver you on that day, and you will not be given into the hands of the men you fear. I will surely rescue you, and you will not fall by the sword. You will have your life as a prize of war, because you have trusted in me.”

15 Now the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, while he was shut up in the court of the prison, saying,

Context #

Why the word to Ebed-melech comes last

Verses 15–18 go back in time: this word came to Jeremiah while he was still in the court of the prison, before the city fell.

Verses 15–18 go back in time: this word came to Jeremiah while he was still in the court of the prison, before the city fell. Ebed-melech had drawn him out of the cistern, and “Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison” (Jer. 38:13). The word for Ebed-melech came “very soon after his deliverance,” on one reading, and is placed here “by way of supplement, lest its introduction previously should break the chain of events” in chapter 38. On that reading the verb is a pluperfect, “had come,” which the plain-words section above follows.

The effect is that the chapter ends with a promise given before the fall, placed right after the account of the fall it spoke of.

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

16 Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring my words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee.

Context #

Ebed-melech the Ethiopian

Ebed-melech was a foreign court official who rescued Jeremiah from the cistern.

Ebed-melech was a foreign court official who rescued Jeremiah from the cistern. He was “the Ethiopian, one of the eunuchs which was in the king’s house” (Jer. 38:7), a man from Cush, the land that extended “from Syene on the frontier of Egypt southward to the neighborhood of Khartoum.”

When the princes had put Jeremiah in the cistern, Ebed-melech went to the king and said the men had done evil, and the king told him to take thirty men and lift Jeremiah out “before he die” (Jer. 38:9–10). “If not for the courage and Christlike service of Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian servant to the king, Jeremiah would have surely died.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Ethiopia or Cush”, Bible Dictionary. Jean A. Tefan, “Jeremiah: As Potter’s Clay”, Ensign, October 2002, 11.

17 But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the LORD: and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid.

18 For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee: because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the LORD.

Language #

A life for a prey

To have one's life “for a prey” is to leave a lost battle alive. The Hebrew word (shalal) is “prey, spoil, plunder, booty”: the thing a soldier carries home from the field.

To have one's life “for a prey” is to leave a lost battle alive. The Hebrew word (shalal) is “prey, spoil, plunder, booty”: the thing a soldier carries home from the field. The promise to Ebed-melech is that when everything else is taken, his life will be what he carries out.

Jeremiah uses the same phrase of others. To the people in the siege: “he that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a prey” (Jer. 21:9; Jer. 38:2). To his own scribe, when the Lord is about to bring evil on all flesh: “thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest” (Jer. 45:5). In each case the promise is that the person's “life shall be spared”: what the Lord guarantees is that he comes out alive.

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

Language #

Because thou hast put thy trust in me

The reason given for Ebed-melech's deliverance is trust. The Hebrew verb is batach, and the lexicon lists this verse among those that speak of trusting in God, next to Jer. 17:7;…

The reason given for Ebed-melech's deliverance is trust. The Hebrew verb is batach, and the lexicon lists this verse among those that speak of trusting in God, next to Jer. 17:7; trusting in people is listed separately, with Jer. 17:5.

Those two verses are the book's own measure. “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord… Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is” (Jer. 17:5–7). The chapter shows both: a king who feared what other people might do to him (Jer. 38:19), and a foreign servant who acted for the Lord's prophet and was told he had trusted the Lord.

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.

Seeing Christ in Jeremiah 39

The last king of Judah is blinded and carried off in chains. His name, Zedekiah, means “The Lord (is) righteousness,” and the Bible Dictionary's entry for him points to Jer. 23:6. That verse is the promise of “a righteous Branch,” a King who “shall reign and prosper,” and “this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord Our Righteousness”: the “promise of the king Messiah.” The chapter itself draws no connection; the two facts stand side by side. Nephi the son of Helaman names Jeremiah, “that same prophet who testified of the destruction of Jerusalem” (Hel. 8:20), among the prophets who “all testified of Christ” (heading to Helaman 8).

Worth exploring next

Read Jeremiah's earlier warning to Zedekiah in Jer. 38:14–28 and the account of the prophet's rescue in Jer. 38:1–13; then the parallel accounts of the same events in Jer. 52 and 2 Kgs. 25, which add the burning of the temple. Follow Gedaliah's brief rule in Jer. 40–41. For the Book of Mormon side, read 1 Ne. 1:13, 2 Ne. 1:4, and the Mulek passages (Hel. 6:10; Hel. 8:21; Omni 1:15–16). The Church's Scripture Helps: Old Testament entry on Jeremiah 38–39 is a short guide to the same ground.

Sources & further reading

“Jeremiah”, Bible Dictionary.
The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), 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.
“Gate”, Bible Dictionary.
“Nergal-sharezer”, Bible Dictionary.
“Chamberlain”, Bible Dictionary.
“Zedekiah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Mulek”, Guide to the Scriptures.
Scripture Central, “How Did Mulek Get to the New World?”, KnoWhy #753 (September 20, 2024).
“Ethiopia or Cush”, Bible Dictionary.
Jean A. Tefan, “Jeremiah: As Potter’s Clay”, Ensign, October 2002, 11.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
Jeremiah 31–33; 36–38; Lamentations 1; 3, Scripture Helps: Old Testament.

I’ve studied Jeremiah 39