Bible Strands
Jeremiah 32:3
For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying: “Why are you prophesying like this? You claim that the LORD says, ‘Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Zedekiah king of Judah addresses Jeremiah while the prophet is confined in the courtyard of the guard during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.
The words — The Hebrew כְּלָאֳ (ke.la'/O) specifies the act of shutting up or imprisoning, and מַדּוּעַ (ma.du.a') functions as a direct inquiry into the reason for Jeremiah’s proclamation.
The thread — This confrontation aligns with the crowd’s seizure of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 26:8, the siege context of Jeremiah 21:4, and the later divine instruction to Zedekiah in Jeremiah 34:2.
Why it lands — The passage records a ruler’s challenge to a prophet’s message of national collapse, requiring the reader to confront the tension between earthly political authority and declared divine judgment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 34:2 The LORD, the God of Israel, told Jeremiah to go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him that this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down.
- Jeremiah 21:4 this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will turn against you the weapons of war in your hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will assemble their forces in the center of this city.
- Jeremiah 26:8 and as soon as he had finished telling all the people everything the LORD had commanded him to say, the priests and prophets and all the people seized him, shouting, “You must surely die!
- Jeremiah 32:28 Therefore this is what the LORD says: Behold, I am about to deliver this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who will capture it.
- Exodus 5:4 But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you draw the people away from their work? Get back to your labor!”
- 2 Kings 6:31 He announced, “May God punish me, and ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders through this day!”
- 2 Chronicles 28:22 In the time of his distress, King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD.
- Jeremiah 2:30 “I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.”
- Jeremiah 5:3 O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.
- Jeremiah 27:8 As for the nation or kingdom that does not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and does not place its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation by sword and famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I have destroyed it by his hand.