The big picture
Babylon's army is attacking Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, and the kingdom's remaining fortified towns. God sends Jeremiah, his prophet, to warn King Zedekiah that he will be captured. A further message concerns the city's slaveholders. They have sworn to free their fellow Hebrews, members of their own people, and have released them. Then they reverse that act and force them back into service. God treats the broken pledge as a profaning of his name and announces the return of the besieging army.
In this chapter
- The King Will Be Taken but Mourned Jeremiah 34:1-7
Jeremiah must speak to Zedekiah during the attack.
- A Public Release Is Reversed Jeremiah 34:8-11
Zedekiah makes a covenant with the people in the capital to proclaim liberty.
- The Broken Pledge Profanes the Divine Name Jeremiah 34:12-16
God recalls the covenant made when he rescued the ancestors from slavery in Egypt, the southern kingdom.
- A Terrible Liberty Answers Withheld Freedom Jeremiah 34:17-22
Because they refused liberty to neighbours, God proclaims them free to the sword, disease, and famine.
Central truth
God condemns people who reverse a sworn release of fellow Hebrews, answering their renewed enslavement with exposure to war, disease, and hunger.
Scripture beside the summary
Jeremiah · King James Version · 22Jeremiah 34:1-7
The King Will Be Taken but Mourned
Jeremiah must speak to Zedekiah during the attack. Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon's king, has brought his forces and allies against the city. The capital will be handed over and burned. Zedekiah will not escape. He will face the invading king and be taken to Babylon. Yet God says he will not die by the sword. He will die in peace. People will burn fragrant substances and mourn him as they mourned earlier kings. Jeremiah delivers the words while Lachish and Azekah, two defended towns, remain under attack alongside the capital. The promise of mourning does not cancel captivity.
In everyday life
A royal records curator reads a captive ruler's burial instructions beside reports of the lost capital. The record preserves both defeat and the intended honour at death. One does not undo the other. Jeremiah receives God's word about a living king's future, while the curator handles records without power to promise how a life will end.
Notice
Jeremiah 34:5 Zedekiah is promised lament and a death other than by the sword. These limits on his fate stand alongside, not in place of, the announced capture.
Jeremiah 34:1-7
King James Version1The word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying,
2Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire:
3And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon.
4Yet hear the word of the LORD, O Zedekiah king of Judah; Thus saith the LORD of thee, Thou shalt not die by the sword:
5But thou shalt die in peace: and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee, so shall they burn odours for thee; and they will lament thee, saying, Ah lord! for I have pronounced the word, saith the LORD.
6Then Jeremiah the prophet spake all these words unto Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem,
7When the king of Babylon’s army fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish, and against Azekah: for these defenced cities remained of the cities of Judah.
Jeremiah 34:8-11
A Public Release Is Reversed
Zedekiah makes a covenant with the people in the capital to proclaim liberty. Each owner must free male and female Hebrew servants instead of holding fellow members of the people in bondage. Officials and other participants agree and release them. For a time the pledge changes what happens to the enslaved people. Afterwards the same owners reverse course. They make the freed men and women return and subject them to service again. They were truly free for a time. The owners then took back that freedom by force.
In everyday life
A labour advocate sits with a worker whose employer gave written release from a binding arrangement, then seized the papers and demanded his return. She dates both events carefully. He was freed. The later force cannot erase that fact. Jeremiah describes actual enslavement among covenant people, not only an unfair employment contract.
Notice
Jeremiah 34:11 The servants had already been let go before they were brought back. The wrong is a deliberate reversal of freedom, not merely failure to begin the promised release.
Jeremiah 34:8-11
King James Version8This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them;
9That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being an Hebrew or an Hebrewess, go free; that none should serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother.
10Now when all the princes, and all the people, which had entered into the covenant, heard that every one should let his manservant, and every one his maidservant, go free, that none should serve themselves of them any more, then they obeyed, and let them go.
11But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.
Jeremiah 34:12-16
The Broken Pledge Profanes the Divine Name
God recalls the covenant made when he rescued the ancestors from slavery in Egypt, the southern kingdom. A fellow Hebrew sold into service was to be released after six years, in the seventh. The ancestors had refused to listen. The present people briefly did right by proclaiming freedom and making their pledge in God's house. Then they turned back and profaned his name. They forced the men and women they had freed to return as servants. God once freed them from slavery. They made this pledge in his house. Both facts make their act worse.
In everyday life
A charity trustee signs a public promise to end coercive work practices in the organisation's meeting room. Soon afterwards she orders the same restrictions restored. She has broken her word. The signed record makes that plain. God invokes his rescue of an enslaved people and a covenant made before him, not a charity's public pledge.
Notice
Jeremiah 34:15 The release is called right before God condemns its reversal. The later wrong does not mean the first act was meaningless; it means the people withdrew an acknowledged good.
Jeremiah 34:12-16
King James Version12Therefore the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
13Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying,
14At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear.
15And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name:
16But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.
Jeremiah 34:17-22
A Terrible Liberty Answers Withheld Freedom
Because they refused liberty to neighbours, God proclaims them free to the sword, disease, and famine. Those who passed between the halves of a calf in a solemn covenant act will be handed to enemies. Their bodies will be left for birds and beasts. Officials, priests, and ordinary people are included. Zedekiah and his officials will also face the army that has temporarily withdrawn. God will call it back to fight, capture, and burn the city. The land's towns will be left empty. They broke their word. The rite they performed will not shield them from the result.
In everyday life
A human-rights researcher reviews a signed liberation agreement beside testimony that its signers restored forced service. The names of officials and private participants remain on the same pages. A solemn event cannot substitute for keeping its terms. God answers this broken covenant with death and siege; the researcher documents responsibility rather than imposing that judgement.
Notice
Jeremiah 34:17 Liberty is turned back upon those who withheld it. Their new freedom means being left exposed to deadly forces, reversing the protection they expected to retain.
Jeremiah 34:17-22
King James Version17Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.
18And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,
19The princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf;
20I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth.
21And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, which are gone up from you.
22Behold, I will command, saith the LORD, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant.
Details worth noticing
The opening image
Jeremiah 34:1 begins with “The word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion…”
Where the chapter turns
Jeremiah 34:11 forms a natural hinge: “But afterward they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants…”
The final note
Jeremiah 34:22 leaves the reader with “Behold, I will command, saith the LORD, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I…”
A word trail through the chapter
The words LORD, king, hand, Judah, covenant, cities help reveal the chapter’s repeated concerns.
KJV words made clear
- bondmen
- People held as slaves under the control of others.
- twain
- Two parts, here the halves of a calf used in a solemn pledge.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
