Chapter 34
This chapter, and on through 45.5 are called "Calamity on Judah" in the MSB outline. The first subpoint, 34.1-38.28, is called "Before Judah's fall".
Starts with a timestamp, though this one is a little bit blurry. Seems to still be during the time Jerusalem was under siege.
God sends Jeremiah to Zedekiah, tells him that he will be captured, that he and Neb will be eye to eye at some point, Zedekiah will be taken to Babylon and die there in peace, not by the sword. So perhaps though this is God's wrath against Manasseh and all the evil he did, God is protecting Zedekiah through it. The wrath is not really directed at Zedekiah. Maybe...
Then we turn to a section on slavery. Zedekiah makes a proclamation that all in the city, in all that remained of Judah, should set free any Hebrew slaves they still had. As I read it in 2020, Zedekiah did this on his own. Previously, I thought Jeremiah had told Zedekiah to do it. Judah was not observing the year of jubilee and setting slaves free every six years. So they all agreed to do so, as was right in God's eyes. But then they went back on their covenant. They took their slaves back. This verse:
17 "Therefore, thus says the LORD: You have not obeyed me by proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and to his neighbor; behold, I proclaim to you liberty to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine, declares the LORD. I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. [Jer 34:17 ESV]
They just made things worse for themselves yet again. You cannot turn from sin, and then go back to that same sin, and expect no consequences. Five minutes of being good does not give you a credit for being bad again tomorrow! Perhaps keeping this one last "request" to obey God would have spared them some of what is coming. But by breaking it, they all, those alive, who are not Manasseh but his descendants, become willing, deserving, knowing participants in Manasseh's sin, and showing God's justice in this national punishment on them. A maybe for FB. Would be pretty long though...Oh my...God does NOT approve slavery, but makes this "re-enslavement of Israel by its own people against its people the last straw in the destruction of Jerusalem. They "profaned" His name when they took back their slaves, who were required to be freed.
Passing between the two parts of the calf...one ritual, much symbolism. Shows just what kind of "breach of covenant" the slave things was.
2023 - Also, we see here that God did not sanction forever slavery. It was six years and then freedom. This was different for conquered peoples taken as slaves. They were conquered and so always slaves.
2023 - Also, note that we again have sword, famine and pestilence, but NOT wild animals.
The remainder of the chapter, vs 18-22, reinforce that they have now earned for themselves what is coming, and are not the innocent victims of God's wrath toward Manasseh. This is a good thing to see. I have not done a big study, but I bet if we look for it, we will see that against nations, this is how God always works. Just as in Adam's sin, all are condemned, yet each of us also sins of himself and individually earns his own sentence of death. This is amazing. I must put this either for FB or on the website. This needs to be "published".
2022 - I also see here a Biblical objection to the kind of slavery we had in this country prior to the civil war. What they were doing was taking on indentured servants, and then refusing to free them. They were making them slaves for life rather than temporarily and voluntarily and the Bible is saying that this is wrong. You cannot treat your fellow man in this way. This is never ok with God. Tag slavery.
The last few verses, 21, 22, seem to imply that Babylon had actually withdrawn from the siege of Jerusalem, perhaps to "mop up" the cities of Lachish and Azekah mentioned in vs 7 of this chapter, which were the last two fortified cities that Judah had. Perhaps, even at this late stage, some kind of leniency was to be shown by God. But when they went back on the freeing of the slaves of their own people, God says Babylon is coming back. Here are the verses:
21 And Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives, into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon which has withdrawn from you. 22 Behold, I will command, declares the LORD, and will bring them back to this city. And they will fight against it and take it and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant." [Jer 34:21-22 ESV]