both
passages are but differently telling the same story.(569) Nor have any
grounds been offered for identifying the occasion of either passage with
that of XXXIV. 1-7. Thus we have three separate deliverances from Jeremiah
to the king, each with its own vivid phrases and distinctive edge.

The first, XXI 1-10, was given as the Chaldeans closed upon Jerusalem but
the Jews were not yet driven within the walls.(570) Sedekiah sent Pashhur
and Sephaniah to inquire if by a miracle the Lord would raise the siege.
The grim answer came that the Lord Himself would fight the besieged, till
they died of pestilence and the survivors were slaughtered by
Nebuchadrezzar--_I_(_571_)_ shall not spare nor pity them_--which is proof
that this Oracle was uttered before the end of the siege, when the
survivors were not slain but deported. The people are advised to desert to
the enemy--counsel which we shall consider later.

The second, XXXIV. 1-7, records a pronouncement unsought by the king but
evoked from Jeremiah by the progress of the Chaldean arms, which had
overrun all Judah save the fortresses of Jerusalem, Lachish and Azekah.
Its vivid genuineness is further certified by its unfulfilled promise of a
peaceful death for Sedekiah. The following is mainly after the Greek.

XXXIV. 2_b_. Thus saith the Lord: This city shall certainly be
given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it
and burn it with fire. 3. And thou shalt not escape but surely be
taken and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall look into
his eyes, and his mouth speak with thy mouth,(572) and to Babylon
shalt thou come. 4. Yet hear the Lord's Word, O Sedekiah, king of
Judah! 5. Thus saith the Lord,(573) In peace shalt thou die, and
as the burnings(574) for thy fathers who reigned before thee so
shall they burn for thee, and with "Ah lord!" lament thee. I have
spoken the Word--Rede of the Lord.

The miserable king, how much worse was in store for him than even Jeremiah
was given to foresee! Duhm (to our surprise, as Cornill remarks) agrees
that the passage is from Baruch; but only in order to support the
precarious thesis that Baruch knew nothing of Sedekiah's being afterwards
blinded and that the reports of this(575) sprang from unfounded rumour.

The third pronouncement to Sedekiah, XXXVII. 3-10,(576) was made when the
king sent Jehucal and Sephaniah to seek the Prophet's prayers, after the
Chaldean