AS SURELY AS THE LORD LIVES

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the Lord. “I am going to ask you something,” the king said to Jeremiah. “Do not hide anything from me.”

Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.”

But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah: “As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you.”

Jeremiah 38:14-16

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Have you ever told someone something, following it up with a statement to reinforce the truth of what you were saying?

I think we may have all done it at some time or another, especially when we might be trying to convince someone to believe something that might be hard to believe. At other times, we may do it if we feel the person we’re speaking to is showing signs of not believing what we are saying. Still at other times, a person might try and validate their statements if they had been guilty of not telling the truth in the past.

The point is that there are any number of things that may lead a person to do it and they may use any number of sayings to serve their purpose.

We can see a great example of this in today’s scripture passage as we continue our study of the Book of Jeremiah, and specifically, chapter 38. Look again at this exchange between Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and Jeremiah, God’s prophet:

Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the Lord. “I am going to ask you something,” the king said to Jeremiah. “Do not hide anything from me.”

Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.”

But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah: “As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you.”  Jeremiah 38:14-16

To review a little, you’ll recall that Jeremiah had been on a roller coaster ride of late.

First, he tried to leave Jerusalem after the withdrawal of the Babylonian army to check out the property he had purchased in the territory of Benjamin but before he departed, he was confronted, accused, arrested, and beaten before being placed in a dungeon cell.

Then, Jeremiah was called to have a private meeting with Zedekiah who asked if the Lord had any message for him. You’ll recall the prophet told the king he would be removed from power and handed over to the Babylonians. This was followed by Jeremiah asking Zedekiah why he was being held unjustly. Zedekiah agreed to release Jeremiah from his cell and allowed him to reside on the courtyard of the guard.

Everything seemed good for Jeremiah at that point but then some of Zedekiah’s officials came to the king and proposed that Jeremiah should be put to death for the messages he had shared, messages that had disturbed the Israelite soldiers and people. The king placed Jeremiah’s fate in the hands of his officials who lowered the prophet into a cistern where he sunk into mud, sure to either suffocate, starve, or both.

Finally, a Cushite by the name of Ebed-Melek approached Zedekiah and pleaded for him to not allow Jeremiah to die. Zedekiah gave Ebed-Melek permission to rescue Jeremiah from the cistern and again, Jeremiah had relative safety again in the courtyard of the guard.

And that brings us to today’s scripture and yet another encounter between Judah’s king and God’s prophet. We read where Zedekiah summons Jeremiah and asks to meet him in the temple of the Lord. Once there, the king is interested in hearing Jeremiah’s answer to a question he had and added the following:

“Do not hide anything from me.”

Of interest, Jeremiah had never held anything back from the king. The problem was that the king heard what he wanted to hear, not necessarily what the Lord wanted him to hear. The Israelite officials and people under his rule were guilty of the same thing.

When Jeremiah replies, we know his words are ones of reservation because as we have already discussed, the king was not much of a Jeremiah supporter. Rather, he seemed to flip flop between killing God’s messenger and saving him. That would make anyone uneasy so we should be able to completely understand Jeremiah’s state of mind when he replies to the king:

“If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.”

It seems the prophet knew the king all too well.

So Zedekiah needed to say something convincing to Jeremiah, something that would put the prophet at ease and willing to answer his question. His words were definitely not what one would expect to come from him, particularly since the scriptures have already told us that Zedekiah had no interest in the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 37:2). The king had done nothing but disrespect and disregard the Lord but now look at the words that he spoke back to Jeremiah:

“As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you.”

Wow! Now that was an amazing oath delivered by the king. And if Zedekiah truly meant what he said, it was quite a shift in his attitude toward the Lord. For note the following assertions about his apparent beliefs drawn from what he said:

1. The Lord lives.

In saying, “As surely as the Lord lives”, Zedekiah was confessing that the Lord was alive. In other words, the Lord who Jeremiah said was speaking through him was real, not just some fabrication of Jeremiah’s imagination.

2. The living Lord sustains life.

The Lord is not only alive but King Zedekiah acknowledges that He keeps everyone else alive as well, providing breath.

With this, we see that Zedekiah is actually saying that his words are as true as the Lord is living and as sure as the Lord sustains life, both of which are absolute facts. Thus, Zedekiah is swearing an oath that can’t be denied as false.

He said he would preserve Jeremiah’s life by not killing himself or turn the prophet over to anyone else who would kill him, and that’s exactly what happened. More on that as we continue our study of this book.

So what is the word of God trying to convey to us today regarding how we should relate to one another, especially when making assurances to others?

Well, it really comes down to ensuring that we stay true to our word when we tell someone we are going to do something. Our words need to be as true as the certainty that the Lord lives and makes the way for us to live as well. We can do that by allowing the Lord’s words and promises to be our own, by letting Him dictate the things we say and the pledges we make.

The Lord will never speak falsehood and we can be seen as people of the same kind of integrity when we surrender our will and words to Him.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark
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