NOTES for Jer 37:1-21
In King Zedekiah's behavior toward Jeremiah one senses a divided heart: it is hard for him to make a final choice between trusting the prophet and yielding to pressure from the court circle. At first Zedekiah does not want to listen to him, but soon the king has to become convinced that Jeremiah's bitter prophecies are coming true, and not the words of the false prophets who inspired hope. Before us is a sorrowful situation in which the person who speaks the truth is first silenced and then secretly summoned for consultation.
The tragedy of the situation is intensified by the prophet's arrest. It is entirely understandable that many of those who heard Jeremiah's words saw him as a defeatist and a traitor, since his warnings about the futility of armed resistance, the invincibility of Nebuchadnezzar's army, and the unreliability of Egyptian help seemed like treasonous agitation.
But across the centuries we see that there was far more concern for his people in Jeremiah's prophetic ministry than in the pseudo-patriotic bustle of its rulers, who in reality provoked the military defeat of their state.