The pro-Egyptian party in Zedekiah’s government was significant. They believed that Judah’s hope and future lay with an Egyptian alliance and the two main points of Jeremiah’s message summarized in Jeremiah 38:2–3 would have been deeply disturbing to them. They viewed Jeremiah as an agent of Babylon and a traitor to Judah1. These officials therefore demand from the king that Jeremiah be put to death. They believe that Jeremiah’s message is weakening the morale of the fighting men and the people of the city as they resist the Babylonians. They believe that Jeremiah is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.
They see him as a great threat that must be neutralized.
In these verses the open conflict between human politics and the Lord’s word is clearly on display. These officials claim to be standing up for the people of Judah even as they present the Lord’s prophet, and therefore the Lord himself, as the greatest enemy. To continue in the face of the divine message is not heroism but blind obstinacy. When the two courses of action move forwards to the culminating crisis, an irreconcilable gulf of hostility opens out between them.
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2 Ainsi parle l'Eternel: Celui qui restera dans cette ville mourra par l'épée, par la famine ou par la peste; mais celui qui sortira pour se rendre aux Chaldéens, aura la vie sauve, sa vie sera son butin, et il vivra.