Jeremiah;- The instant trial (ch26)

This very important episode takes place “at the beginning of the reign of king Jehoiakim” (ch26 v1).

However, it isn’t clear how early in the reign the “beginning” is supposed to be. The next chapter is dated from the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, but “the same year” in ch28 is also the fourth year of Zedekiah. So could this chapter be as late as the fourth year of Jehoiakim? At least two other chapters name the fourth year of Jehoiakim, so this could be the opening stage of a very controversial “season”.

It was probably later, anyway, than the proclamation in ch7, which is the first account of Jeremiah’s public preaching in Jerusalem.

He is told to “stand in the court of the Lord’s house”, moving in from the gate where he stood on the first occasion.

He is to speak to “all the cities of Judah which come in to worship in the house of the Lord”. One advantage, for me, of this gradual approach to Jeremiah is that it’s forcing me to observe how much Jeremiah’s public preaching was prompted by the month of sacred celebrations at the beginning of the year, which brought all the countryside into Jerusalem. “It may be that they will listen.”

This chapter is about the reaction to the message, not the message itself, so the report mentions only the key point which causes the the trouble. If they continue refusing to listen to the Lord, if they neglect the law he gave them and ignore his prophets, “Then I will make this house like Shiloh.”

Shiloh was the original home of the tabernacle within Israel, the predecessor of the temple. Scholars in general do not think we know exactly what happened to Shiloh. In my own opinion, it’s obvious enough. Surely it must have been devastated by the Philistines in the same campaign that captured the ark. In support of this theory, when David fled from Saul he went to the priests in Nob, who were continuing the ritual of setting out the shewbread. The shewbread ought to be sufficient evidence that Nob was not just any old shrine but the current location of the tabernacle.

Threatening the destruction of the temple was one of the charges against Jesus and against Stephen. Those who heard Jeremiah were also offended by his threat against the Jerusalem”- “I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth.” That is, curses would take the form “May you become like Jerusalem.” Therefore “all the people” took hold of him and seemed on the verge of lynching him.

The forces of authority, in the form of the “princes of Judah”, were quickly on the scene, rushing up from the king’s house, probably drawn by the noise. In Jeremiah’s usage, the “princes” are those who govern the land under the king. The same people covered by the modern expression “the great and the good” (I believe this is supposed to be a Britishism). Not necessarily hereditary, except to the extent that power and influence tend to be inherited.

They enforce a more orderly procedure by setting up an impromptu court on the spot. They take their seat “in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord”. My guess is that this is the same place as “the Benjamin Gate of the house of the Lord”, where Jeremiah was placed in the stocks. I’ve already observed, in discussing previous chapters, how the North or Benjamin Gate of the city was the location where the kings followed the ancient custom of settling disputes and giving judgements. My speculation was that the priests imitated this practice by using the equivalent gate of the court of the house of the Lord for religious judgements. Would this be a “new” gate? I haven’t been able to find any information on the original layout of the court of the house. However it seems plausible to me that it was built with a single east-facing gate, and a new gate could have been cut into the north wall to provide a more direct access from the city gate.

This is obviously a “religious” case, but in the interests of law and order the princes do not leave the affair in the hands of the priests. As when Paul was arrested by the Romans, stopping a riot was more important than respecting the rights of the priesthood.

The charge laid by the priests and the official prophets is that Jeremiah deserves death because he has prophesied against the city. In effect, they are treating the speech as blasphemy, which implicitly raises the city itself to the level of equality with God.

Jeremiah’s answer is that the Lord had sent him to speak in this way. Therefore the speech cannot be an offence against God. So if they kill him, they will be killing an innocent man, which will leave his blood on their hands.

The princes and the people, who are the judges and the jury in this emergency court, believe and accept Jeremiah’s plea.

Furthermore, some of the elders of the land quote the precedent of the prophet Micah, who also prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem. They point out that Hezekiah did not punish Micah, but led the people in repentance. That was why Jerusalem was not destroyed in Micah’s time.

Lawyers set great store on precedents. Although, as A.P. Herbert points out in one of his parody legal reports, “There is no precedent for anything until it is done for the first time.”

Jeremiah must have been released, and would have continued his work under the partial protection of this verdict, though ch19 shows that venturing into the court of the house of the Lord would always be risky.

At least, as we learn from the appendix at the end of the chapter, he had some political support. The story in vv20-23 shows what could happen to a contentious prophet without this backing. Uriah the son of Shemaiah preached a similar message, which aroused the hostility of king Jehoiakim. Uriah fled to Egypt. Unfortunately, Egypt was no longer a safe refuge for exiles from Judah. Pharoah himself had appointed Jehoiakim and remained his patron for seven or eight years before Nebuchadnezzar obliged the king to change his allegiance. Jehoiakim was allowed to send an extradition party which collected Uriah from Egypt and returned him to Jerusalem, where he was killed by the sword in the king’s presence.

This did not happen to Jeremiah because he was under the wing of Ahikam son of Shaphan. Ahikam was a member of a very influential reform-minded family. His father, as Josiah’s secretary, was involved in the “discovery of the book of the law in the temple” (2 Kings ch22). His brother Gemariah had a chamber close to the New Gate, which he lent (in ch36) for the reading of a scroll of Jeremiah’s prophecies. His own son Gedaliah was appointed by Nebuchadnezzar to govern the land after the fall of Jerusalem, and got assassinated by the hard-liners.

It appears that Ahikam was able to give Jeremiah the same kind of protection that John Wycliffe received from John of Gaunt.

We need to be able to follow the sequence of kings between the battle of Megiddo and the fall of Jerusalem, as part of the background of this prophet’s work, so I’ll be re-describing the sequence from time to time whenever it’s relevant to the setting of the chapter.

The history is complicated by the habit of adopting a new “throne-name” at the beginning of the reign, which is probably how David’s precious child Jedidiah became the ruler Solomon. This practice remains the norm for the Popes, but it used to be more common among the kings of Europe generally. .

When Josiah died, the people in Jerusalem chose his son Shallum, son of Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. He took the name Jehoahaz.

Pharaoh Neco took Jehoahaz captive, and replaced him with his elder brother Eliakim, son of Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. Eliakim was made to take the name Jehoiakim. Why was he not not chosen in the first place? My theory is that he was a captive in Pharaoh’s hands.

Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylon, died before Nebuchadnezzar got there, and was followed by his own son, confusingly called Jehoiachin. Certainly the similarity is enough to confuse the writers of 2 Chronicles and Daniel ch1, let alone any modern reader. This young man is the one who gets taken off into the first stage of the Babylonian exile. Jeremiah calls him “Coniah”.

Nebuchadnezzar then replaced him with Mattaniah, the last of the sons of Josiah, son of Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. Mattaniah was made to take the name Zedekiah. Obviously he was Coniah’s uncle, as identified correctly in 2 Kings. The Chronicler calls him Coniah’s brother, but that’s part of the confusion caused by the similarity of names. This is the king involved in the final Fall of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah’s answer is that the Lord had sent him to speak in this way. Therefore the speech cannot be an offence against God. So if they kill him, they will be killing an innocent man, which will leave his blood on their hands.

The princes and the people, who are the judges and the jury in this emergency court, believe and accept Jeremiah’s plea.

Furthermore, some of the elders of the land quote the precedent of the prophet Micah, who also prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem. They point out that Hezekiah did not punish Micah, but led the people in repentance. That was why Jerusalem was not destroyed in Micah’s time.

that little episode is like a flicker of light in an otherwise dark and dreary time.
the prophets and the book of Judges similar story; repentance, restoration, blessings, complacency, rebellion, discipline...repeat. the cycle got worse until Israel was lost.
after the restoration cycle resumed until the time of Jesus, and ultimately the fall of Israel.