The Pit And the Promise (Parts 3 and 4)

[Timl1980]

Part III — The gate and the oath

 

Research Note: After Jeremiah was lifted from the cistern, Zedekiah summoned him secretly at the gate. The king swore not to kill him and demanded the word of Jehovah. Jeremiah told him plainly: surrender and live; refuse and the city burns. (Jeremiah 38:14–16)

 

Question for meditation: What happens when a leader wants truth without cost...and how do we hold to Jehovah’s word when permission isn’t protection?

 

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Permission had opened the cistern; it had not opened the king’s heart.

 

A messenger’s voice cut the courtyard thin. “The king summons Jeremiah...at the gate. Alone.” The rope that had saved him lay coiled on the ground, still damp with mud. The princes did not speak. They didn’t have to.

 

Ebed‑Melech steadied Jeremiah’s arm. “Go,” he said, “but go with your eyes open.”

 

The gate was shadow and stone. Kings had stood there to announce decrees, and to hide decisions. Zedekiah waited in the archway, robe pulled tight, eyes restless. He motioned Jeremiah forward and lowered his voice.

 

“I will ask you a thing,” he said. “Hide nothing from me.”

 

Jeremiah’s reply was steady. “If I declare it to you, will you not put me to death? And if I give you counsel, you will not listen.”

 

Zedekiah raised his hand as if to swear away his own weakness. “As Jehovah lives, who made us this soul, I will not put you to death, nor deliver you into the hand of these men who seek your life.”

 

The oath hung in the archway like a lantern with too little oil.

 

Jeremiah drew a breath. “Thus says Jehovah, the God of armies: if you will surrender to the princes of Babylon, then your life shall live, and this city shall not be burned. But if you will not surrender, this city will be given into their hand, and they will burn it with fire, and you will not escape.”

 

Stone does not flinch. Men do. Zedekiah did.

 

“I am afraid,” he whispered. “Afraid of the Judeans who have defected. If I surrender, they will hand me over.”

 

Jeremiah stepped closer. “They will not deliver you. Please obey the voice of Jehovah. It shall be well with you, and your life shall live.”

 

But the king’s eyes slid away. His oath was strong enough to protect Jeremiah, but not strong enough to save a city.

 

From the courtyard beyond, a jar clicked onto stone. A sandal scuffed. Ordinary sounds of a city waiting to see whether one man would listen.

 

Zedekiah’s lips trembled. “Go,” he said. Not with command. With delay.

 

Jeremiah bowed...respect for the office, not the hesitation...and turned back toward the court of the guard.

 

Ebed‑Melech met him halfway. “He asked for truth,” the eunuch said quietly.

 

“And truth asked for courage,” Jeremiah answered.

 

The rope still lay coiled by the cistern. And the gate behind them still waited for a decision that had not been made.

 

The king had heard the word. The city had heard the silence. And silence, in Jerusalem, was never safe for long.

 

Part IV — The counsel and the corridor

 

Research Note: Zedekiah instructed Jeremiah to conceal the true counsel if the princes pressed him. Jeremiah was returned to the court of the guard, given bread “as there was,” and the siege tightened. (Jeremiah 38:17–28)

 

Question for meditation: What do we do when truth is clear but courage is scarce...and how do we keep obeying Jehovah when leaders hedge?

 

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The oath had been spoken; the counsel had been given; the fear remained.

 

Zedekiah leaned close, his voice quick. “If the princes ask, say you pleaded not to be sent back to Jonathan’s house lest you die there. I will send you again to the court of the guard. There you will eat bread as there is.”

 

Bread as there is...thin mercy in a hungry city.

 

Jeremiah did not argue. He had already argued for obedience. He let the king’s words fall where they belonged: in the corridor of delay.

 

And the corridor produced what corridors always do: listeners.

 

Pashhur arrived first, his smile too careful. Gedaliah came with ledger’s eyes. Shephatiah’s silence filled the spaces between. “You spoke with the king,” Pashhur said lightly.

 

Jeremiah answered as instructed. “I pleaded with the king not to return me to Jonathan’s house lest I die there.”

 

It was true enough to live in daylight. It was not all the truth. It ended questions without ending plans.

 

The princes did not rage. Rage is loud, and they preferred quiet rooms. They watched him step away, counted the steps, and carried their sums back to their counsel.

 

Zedekiah kept his word in the small way he had promised. Jeremiah was led back to the court of the guard...stone steps, warm wall, the smell of damp straw. A guard brought bread, set it down, and hesitated. “As there is,” he said, and left.

 

Days under siege measure themselves in sounds more than hours: a jar moved, a child’s cry thinning at dusk, a gate groaning like a tired back. Jeremiah sat where he could see sky and prayed the name of Jehovah without ornament.

 

Ebed‑Melech passed by with errands that looked ordinary but were fidelities in disguise. “Bread?” he asked once, eyeing the thin piece on the stone.

 

“As there is,” Jeremiah said, half‑smiling. Hunger was real, but Jehovah’s word had not shrunk.

 

The siege tightened. Ration lines grew longer. A mother’s voice went hoarse bargaining with absence. The market shrank into corners. You could feel the city lean, as if trying to draw breath past a hand at its throat.

 

Late one morning, a murmur rose from the northern quarter. A runner stumbled into the court, dust on his face telling what his mouth struggled to say. “They’ve moved,” he gasped. “Battering rams at the Middle Gate. Fires set along the east wall.”

 

The guard looked toward the palace. The palace looked toward the princes. The princes looked toward the king.

 

And Zedekiah looked at the ground.

 

The city held its breath. And the gate began to shake.

 

The king has heard Jehovah’s word, but fear still rules his heart. As the siege tightens, the walls themselves will soon speak...and Zedekiah will make his choice.