Jeremiah 34

Jeremiah 34 contains two oracles (prophetic messages conveying the word of God) received during the reign of King Zedekiah, while Babylon was besieging Jerusalem. Following Jeremiah 33, which promised restoration and affirmed the Davidic covenant, this chapter returns to the reality of a Judah on the verge of collapse.

Outline

• Verses 1–7 While the army of Nebuchadnezzar is fighting against Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, Jeremiah delivers the word of the Lord to Zedekiah. The city will be burned, and the king will be captured, will meet the king of Babylon face to face, and will be carried off to Babylon. Yet he will not die by the sword but will die in peace, and he will be honored with burnings and lamentation, as the kings before him were. At this time Lachish and Azekah were the only fortified cities of Judah that remained.
• Verses 8–11 Zedekiah makes a covenant with the people to set free their Hebrew menservants and maidservants and to forbid holding fellow Judeans as slaves. The princes and the people comply, but they later change their minds and bring back the servants they had released.
• Verses 12–16 God reminds them of the covenant He made when He brought their fathers out of Egypt: the law that a Hebrew servant who has served six years is to be set free in the seventh. He then rebukes them for breaking the covenant they had made in the house called by His name, thereby polluting His name.
• Verses 17–22 Because they did not proclaim liberty to their neighbors, God proclaims to them a "liberty" that delivers them "to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine." He declares that He will give into the hands of their enemies the princes, eunuchs, priests, and people who cut the calf in two and passed between its parts, together with Zedekiah, and that the Babylonian army, which had withdrawn, will return and burn the city.

Key Verses

• Jeremiah 34:14 "At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew" — a direct reference to the law of releasing servants found in Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15.
• Jeremiah 34:17 "Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine" — a wordplay that turns the "liberty" the people had taken back into a word of judgment.
• Jeremiah 34:18 "When they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof" — this reflects an ancient oath ritual in which the parties swore that, if they broke the covenant, they would become like the divided animal.

People and Places

• Jeremiah — the prophet who receives the word and delivers it to the king.
• Zedekiah — the last king of Judah.
• Nebuchadnezzar — the king of Babylon who besieged Jerusalem.
• Jerusalem — the besieged capital of Judah.
• Lachish — a fortified city of Judah in the Shephelah (lowland hill country) southwest of Jerusalem.
• Azekah — a fortified city of Judah north of Lachish.
• Egypt — recalled in verse 13 as "the house of bondmen."

Points for Reflection

• The promise to Zedekiah and its actual outcome: According to Jeremiah 52 and 2 Kings 25, Zedekiah's eyes were put out, and he was carried off to Babylon and kept in prison until his death. Interpretations of the promise in verses 4–5 differ. Some regard it as a conditional promise premised on surrender (compare Jeremiah 38:17–18), while others hold that it was fulfilled in that he did not die by the sword and received a funeral.
• Reasons for the release and its reversal: The text does not state the people's motive for releasing their servants. On the basis of verse 21 and Jeremiah 37:5, many interpreters hold that the release was reversed during the interval when the Babylonian army temporarily withdrew in response to the advance of the Egyptian army. Some explain the motive for the release in terms of food supplies or manpower during the siege, but this is an inference that goes beyond the text.
• The ritual of passing between divided animals: This ritual is often compared with the scene in Genesis 15 in which God makes a covenant with Abraham.
• The word "liberty": The word translated "liberty" in this chapter (Hebrew deror) also appears in Leviticus 25:10, which proclaims the Jubilee, and in Isaiah 61:1. In Luke 4, Jesus read from Isaiah 61 and proclaimed liberty to the captives. For this reason, the chapter is sometimes read in contrast with the New Testament message of liberation.
• The Lachish Letters: The ostraca (inscribed potsherds) excavated at the site of Lachish, known as the Lachish Letters, include a statement that the signals of Azekah could not be seen, and they are said to be frequently read in connection with verse 7.