Jeremiah (1-31) 21:3 Commentary and Bible Study

We see the strong contrast here. They had said, ‘Jeremiah, get a message of comfort from the Lord for us, because Nebuchadnezzar is about to attack us’, and back comes the reply from the Lord: ‘Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon.’ God says, ‘I will not only refuse to defend you, but I will myself fight against you, and I will turn back the weapons that in your hands against you. I have sent Nebuchadnezzar to punish you.’ It could not be a more forceful rejection of their request. Babylon was at the gates. We can only imagine it. The siege was being set up before the siege engines could be put in place. They formed mounds of earth into a ramp or gradient, so that they could get their battering engines rushed up those ramps to batter the tops of the walls. Before all this could be set in place and the barricades could be set up for the archers who would shoot arrows over the walls, the forces of Judah would dash out from the city to try to frustrate the enemy and attack them, even while they were trying to lay siege. They would take advantage of a moment of weakness or exposure on the part of the enemy. Attack them while you can; that was the idea. But as those raiding parties come out, they are easily thrust back into the city. They don't achieve anything. There will be bloodshed and injury and death, and they will retreat back into the city. ‘And I will assemble them’, that is, the Judaean forces – ‘into the midst of this city’, and they will have got precisely nowhere. They will be thrown back with hardly a battle.Again it is repeated in verse 5: ‘I myself’ – with great emphasis – ‘will fight against you.’ It isn't Nebuchadnezzar, it’s me, says the Lord, ‘with an outstretched hand’, with full force, ‘and with a strong arm.’ There is a buildup in the words – ‘even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath.’ There will be a mounting up of fury against them. Is there, in that, a hint that there could be mercy for them, even at the beginning of the battle, if they would only relent and repent? There must be some reason beyond a poetic reason for the crescendo at the end of the verse: anger, then fury, then great wrath: mounting intensity. It expresses God’s determination to punish them, so that their last minute and less-than-honest request for deliverance is dismissed as a fraud.‘And I’ – once again; God will do it – ‘will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence.’ That is important to note. They are taking in animals. It could be a long siege: a year, two years. In the event it was eighteen months before the city fell. They would need food. So the people crowded into that city from the towns and villages around, as well as the troops; all shared the confined area of the city with the beasts that would be slain for food. ‘They will die of a great pestilence’, and when the Old Testament mentions pestilence, it is referring to a kind of disease like bubonic plague that might be spread by rats. Something of that order is intended by the word. So pestilence will strike the city and there will be much death.’ And afterward, saith the LORD,’ – this is to Zedekiah – ‘I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah,’ – the current king of Judah, and the last king – ‘and his servants, and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.’ But be careful how you read this. You might get the impression that no one is going to survive, but of course the majority of people did survive, because they gave themselves into the hands of the Chaldeans and were taken into captivity. And so verse 7 evidently refers therefore to the people who were obdurate who held out. Zedekiah himself would be preserved, but his eyes would be put out, and he would be a prisoner captive in Babylon. The prophecy is designed to crush all false hope, all possibility that they could be spared or dealt with leniently or escape. God will see to it that they are carried away captive.