Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no one know of these words, and you shall not die. If the officials hear that I have spoken with you and come to you and say to you, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; hide nothing from us and we will not put you to death,’ then you shall say to them, ‘I made a humble plea to the king that he would not send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’” Then all the officials came to Jeremiah and asked him, and he answered them as the king had instructed him. So they stopped speaking with him, for the conversation had not been overheard. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken.
The above paragraph from Jeremiah’s prophecy gives us some encouragement about God taking care of His prophet, but also some pause as to the integrity of the prophet. Before looking deeper into these areas we first have to understand the context of Jeremiah’s dilemma. He has been prophesying, as instructed by God, to tell the king, leaders and people of Jerusalem to surrender to the king of Babylon. He has been encouraging the soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender. He has told the people to go freely into the Babylonia army and they would be safe. This would be seen as an insurrection today and a weakness of Jeremiah to not be loyal to the Jews. But that is what he was instructed to do. The king, Zedekiah, has asked Jeremiah, again, what he should do. After hearing this message from the prophet, again, he now is asked by Jeremiah to keep him safe. The kings plan is for Jeremiah to lie to those men who want to kill him. He is to tell them that the reason he talked to the king was to beg for protection. Remember, this counsel came from a disobedient king. But the truth is Jeremiah was telling the king to surrender. As per the kings instructions, Jeremiah tells these men that he was talking to the king about his own personal safety. It is supposed that by saying that these men believed Jeremiah. He did talk to the king about his personal safety. He did not lie. But he did not tell them all that he talked to the king about. Here is are moral dilemma. Is telling someone a partial truth morally acceptable to God, when you know that what they really want to hear is the entire truth? Is it okay to tell a partial truth knowing full well you are deceiving those you are speaking to? God did reward Jeremiah in this endeavor. If we use that has a measuring stick we can live with Jeremiah’s actions. But remember that Satan gave Eve partial truth and deceived her with it. It might be wise to simply to understand that Jeremiah is a mere man and he, too, is full of sin. From the very beginning of the book God had promised to protect Jeremiah . Just has Zedekiah had falsely trusted in the Egyptians to protect him from the Babylonias (something God despised) so now Jeremiah was trusting wicked Zedekiah to protect him, instead of God. So far God has not allowed Jeremiah to be killed. He has not failed in His promises to the prophet. But Jeremiah is now turning to a king who disobeys God for his personal safety. The real sin in the above passage was not Jeremiah lying to these men (although he did and it was a sin). The real sin was Jeremiah trusting in this king and not God. When we turn to the wrong source for our salvation we often find ourselves compromising our holiness for personal gain. God continues to protect Jeremiah. But we ought not use the story of Jeremiah lying to cover our desires to protect ourselves the same way. We ought to live above his example and trust God, no matter the consequences.
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