Jeremiah 34

August 23, 2022

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Reading along with us in Jeremiah? Here’s today’s reading:

Jeremiah 34 (NIV)

Warning to Zedekiah
1 While Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms and peoples in the empire he ruled were fighting against Jerusalem and all its surrounding towns, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Go to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down. 3 You will not escape from his grasp but will surely be captured and given into his hands. You will see the king of Babylon with your own eyes, and he will speak with you face to face. And you will go to Babylon........Continue Reading

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This Post Has 9 Comments

  2. In addition to reading Jeremiah 34 today, I also read through a section of 1 Peter 1. Both chapters in the Bible speak about what it means to have a covenant with God, or made in the presence of God. Here in Jeremiah, we get a picture of the result of breaking a covenant. The people promised to free their Hebrew slaves, something God says was “right in my sight”, but then changed their minds and took their slaves back, breaking their promise to God.

    I think this a good application for us to recognize in what ways to we break our covenants with God. In Jeremiah 31 God says “I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them… This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time… I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

    It really puts into perspective the importance of a relationship with Jesus, having his law in our minds and on our hearts. Think of how often we break promises to God, and the importance of conviction and true repentance, in order to change our hearts and minds to live in the image of God. And how amazing Is it that we have the opportunity to do this any time we falter. God shows an image of what breaking covenants can look like, I am thankful we have the covenant of Jesus that offers constant forgiveness.

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  4. I am touched by God’s thoughts about “giving freedom to your own people”.. It is also important to keep a covenant with God..otherwise, he will give us over to the hands of the enemies..

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  5. God shows mercy on Zedekiah here in the form of a peaceful death. God corrects us but certainly doesn’t give us what we deserve which is the painful death His son endured on our behalf instead and this was a good reminder of that.

    God also gives us covenants and takes them very seriously. Unfortunately, we pick and choose whether we wish to follow through with those covenants. They released the slaves as instructed but then when it seemed better to have them they broke this covenant and took them back. Like a child testing boundaries and seeing what they can get away with but God always knows our heart!

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  6. In a time of human history where a defeated king would often enough be brutalized, promising Zedekiah a peaceful death was certainly a consolation from God, especially the promise that the people would honor him in his death. And a good word from Mrs Wray about the nature and importance of covenants. Slavery in Israel was not as evil a condition as we associate with it, but it was a condition that God did not want an Israelite permanently in. And so for these landowners to finally get it at the brink of their property being destroyed anyway and then go back on their commitment is so wrong. But it is not unlike us making a commitment to turn from a sin and then think differently and go back to it. How important it is to remain resolved in doing right in all aspects of life.

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  8. God tells the men that have broken His covenant to free their slaves that He will give them “freedom”…freedom ‘to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine!” You want freedom? God give them the freedom they deserve.

    Makes me think of the flesh’s promises to us. When we sin, we become slaves to it…but our flesh tells us that we have “freedom” to do this or that. It is a lie.

    Romans 6 –
    “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

    20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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