Jeremiah 35

The year was 588 BC and Nebuchadnezzar’s army was successfully conquering the kingdom of Judah. The last two fortified cities were about to fall: Lachish, twentythree miles from Jerusalem, and Azekah, eighteen miles from Jerusalem (34:7). Not only did Nebuchadnezzar bring his own invincible Babylonian troops, but also he demanded that the vassal countries he’d conquered send their share of recruits. In a sense, the entire Near East was attacking God’s chosen people (see Ps. 74).

The destiny of the king (34:1–7). God gave weak Jeremiah’s ministry and the fall of King Zedekiah another opportunity to repent and save

the city and the temple from ruin, but he refused to listen. Jeremiah warned him that the royal family and the court officials would not escape judgment and that he would be taken captive to Babylon, where he would die in peace. One act of faith and courage would have saved the city from ruin and the people from slaughter, but Zedekiah was afraid of his counselors (38:1–6) and was only a pawn in their hands.

The treachery of the people (34:8–22). At one point during the siege, Zedekiah and the people made a covenant with the Lord in the temple (v. 15) to free all the Jewish slaves. A calf was slain and then cut in half, and the priests, officers, and people walked between the halves as a sign that they would obey the terms of the covenant (vv. 18–19; Gen. 15:17). In so doing, they were agreeing to free their Jewish slaves or be willing to suffer what the calf had suffered.

According to the law of Moses, a Jewish master had to free his Jewish slaves at the end of seven years of service (Ex. 21:1–11; Deut. 15:12–18). The Jews hadn’t done this for years, and now they decided it was a good thing to do. Why? Perhaps they felt that God would honor their obedience and defeat the enemy in some miraculous way, as He had done for Hezekiah (Isa. 36—37). Instead of believing God’s Word and submitting to Babylon, the Jews tried to bargain with the Lord and “bribe” Him into helping their cause.

Of course, there were probably some practical considerations behind this covenant. If the slaves were free, they’d have to care for themselves; their masters wouldn’t have to feed them or care for them. Also freemen were more likely to want to fight the enemy and maintain their newfound freedom. Whatever the reason, the effects of the covenant didn’t last very long, for when there was a lull in the siege and Nebuchadnezzar went off to confront the Egyptian army (Jer. 34:21–22; 37:5–11), the masters all forced their slaves back into servitude. The solemn covenant made in the temple meant nothing.

Before we condemn these dishonest masters too much, let’s admit that God’s people often make promises to the Lord when they’re in tough times, only to repudiate them when things get better. In my pastoral ministry, I’ve heard more than one suffering saint on a hospital bed promise to be the best Christian in the church if only God would give healing, and when He granted the request, he or she immediately forgot Him.

Jeremiah took advantage of this event to preach a sermon about Judah’s treachery against the Lord (34:12–22). God had set the Israelites free from Egyptian bondage and had made a covenant with them to be their God, but they broke the covenant and returned to idolatry. Now they broke the law by enslaving their own people unjustly. By what they did in the temple and the way they treated their fellow Jews, they profaned the name of the Lord. They hadn’t really proclaimed freedom to their slaves, but God would proclaim “freedom” to the nation— freedom “to fall by the sword, plague, and famine” (v. 17 niv). The prophet predicted a terrible death for all the treacherous people who had participated in the covenant, and his predictions came true (vv. 19–20).

The integrity of the Rechabites (35:1–19). This event occurred eighteen years earlier, during the reign of Jehoiakim (609–597 BC). Jeremiah probably put the account at this point in the book for the sake of contrast: The people of Judah dishonored the Lord by disobeying His law, while the Rechabites honored their father by obeying his command.

The Rechabites were a clan of nomadic people loyal to their ancestor Jonadab (2 Kings 10:15–23), who commanded them not to live in houses, not to have farms or vineyards, and not to drink wine. They were related to Moses’ father-in-law (Judg. 1:16; 4:11) and for over 250 years had composed a small “separatist” clan in the nation. Because of the Babylonian invasion, they had forsaken their tents and moved into Jerusalem.

God didn’t ask Jeremiah to serve the Rechabites wine in order to tempt them, because God doesn’t tempt us (James 1:13–15). This was another action sermon to give Jeremiah an opportunity to tell the leaders of Judah how unfaithful they had been to God’s covenant. It wasn’t wrong for the Jewish people to drink wine so long as they didn’t get drunk, but it was wrong for the Rechabites to drink wine because they had made a commitment not to drink it. God didn’t commend these men for their personal standards but for their faithfulness to their father’s command.

The message to the nation was clear. If the command of a mere man, Jonadab, was respected and obeyed by his family for over two centuries, why didn’t the people of Israel and Judah obey the command of Almighty God—a command that the prophets had repeated over and over again? If a family tradition was preserved with such dedication, why was the very law of God treated with such disrespect? Obeying Jonadab’s words had only a limited and temporal significance, but disobeying God’s Word had eternal consequences!

How often God’s people are put to shame by the devotion and discipline of people who don’t even know the Lord but who are intensely loyal to their family, their religion, or their personal pursuits. Even people who want nothing to do with the Word of God can be loyal to traditions and man-made codes. If Christians were putting into their spiritual walk the kind of discipline that athletes put into their chosen sport, the church would be pulsating with revival life.