I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Jeremiah 39-41.

King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, refused to take Jeremiah’s advice to surrender to the Babylonians because he was afraid of what the Babylonians would do to him.  Instead, he chose to continue the fight until the city walls fell, at which point he attempted to flee in the night.  However, the end result was exactly what Jeremiah had told him would happen.  If Zedekiah had done as Jeremiah advised, the worst that would have happened would have been what happened and those for whom he was responsible would have suffered less and Zedekiah would probably have been treated better than he was.  An important lesson for us: if we do as God directs, we may experience the suffering we fear, but we will save others from suffering.  However, if we do not do as God directs we will definitely suffer and will likely cause others to suffer needlessly as well.

I find interesting what the rest of this passage reveals about the military defense of the Kingdom of Judah.  I had written an entire paragraph about this, but realized it did not lead to the point.  Jeremiah had prophesied that those who remained in Judah after the first group taken into Exile by the Babylonians would be killed or scattered.  After the fall of Jerusalem, they had an opportunity to live in the land peacefully under the Babylonians.  Something Jeremiah had been advising them to accept for years.  However, after one of those too zealous to accept such an outcome killed the governor appointed by the Babylonians, the rest were too fearful to remain.  So, we see that Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled through the actions of the people themselves.