The Text
Introduction: Zedekiah and the Final Days of Judah
In our study of the kings of Judah we have completed almost the full A to Z of these monarchs, from the time of the civil war which saw the partition of Israel from Judah right up to Zedekiah — who will be the last ever monarch of Judah. But as yet he does not realise or accept this, despite all the evidence given to the contrary.
We saw last time how his reign parallels that of his predecessor but one, Jehoiakim. Like Jehoiakim, Zedekiah was granted an eleven-year reign. Like Jehoiakim, he reigned by the allowance or permission of the Babylonians. And like Jehoiakim, he foolishly imagined that he could somehow deliver himself and the people out of the hand of the Babylonians — that he could mount some kind of revolt and defy all the warnings of God by his prophets. We find here a grievous repetition of the errors of past history, with nothing learned and no truth derived either from past example or from the word of God preached amongst them.
In those days there were any number of false prophets who said only what was popular and what got them a hearing — countless who even claimed to be prophets of the Lord, who supported Zedekiah’s delusions and the popular opinions of the day, saying that of course they would be saved, of course the Babylonians would be thwarted. Against all this it fell to Jeremiah, as one of the sole remaining faithful prophets, to state the contrary: as they continued to persist in doing evil in the sight of the Lord, the judgment must surely fall.
We drew stark parallels between these dying days of Judah and our own day, where there is a complete refusal by nominal professors of Christian religion to realise that the judgments of God are abroad. And we saw how the godly example of Jeremiah stands for us still: even in the face of unpopularity and hostility, it is our responsibility to continue declaring the unpleasant and difficult truth of God’s word.
The Egyptian Alliance: A Reed for a Staff
This morning we have moved on a little while in the reign of Zedekiah. At this particular moment — perhaps about halfway through his reign — it began to appear as though the vain hopes of the people were actually going to be realised, because Pharaoh Hophra, the new Pharaoh of the 26th dynasty, began to manoeuvre in his part of the Middle East. Zedekiah thought he had found an ally. And once it was heard that Pharaoh’s army was upon the scene, the Babylonian detachment in Judah was obliged to withdraw. We can well imagine the acclaim with which this was greeted — all Jeremiah’s pessimism could be marked to scorn, they were going to succeed.
Ezekiel, himself a captive away in Babylon, was given a prophecy concerning these very events: “He rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people: shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? or shall he break the covenant and be delivered?” (Ezek. 17:15). God declared openly and publicly what Zedekiah was attempting to do by cloak and dagger in Judah — and also declared that it was doomed to fail.
And yet here in Jeremiah 37 verse 9, God plainly warns: “Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us; for they shall not depart.” For though the whole army of the Chaldeans had been smitten, yet should they rise up every man in his tent and burn the city with fire.
Ezekiel’s metaphor is powerful. Egypt is depicted as a staff of reed — and if you have any experience of bulrushes, you will know that whilst they have many uses, to attempt to lean one’s weight upon one is futile. Any force put upon a bulrush and it will snap in half, leaving sharp edges exposed that pierce the hand and rend the shoulder. That is exactly what God says: Israel in calling up Egyptian help is taking a reed for a staff. They have leaned their weight upon it; it will break, and only hurt them.
This is precisely what happened in Zedekiah’s day, as it had happened in Ahaz’s day, as it perhaps happened even in Hezekiah’s day — the imagined support and aid of worldly powers proving futile and only injurious.
What Hast Thou to Do in the Way of Egypt?
The irony of this cannot be overstated. Egypt had ever been a type and illustration of that state of wickedness and sin in which the nation was originally bound. God in his mercies had delivered them from it and ransomed them out of it and brought them via the wilderness to Canaan — and yet here they are, these many centuries later, courting the assistance of Egypt and imagining that Egypt of all places might come to their aid.
Jeremiah himself speaks by divine inspiration of these things in chapter 2: “Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt…” (v. 6). And then God asks, “And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor?” (v. 18). He also warns in the chapter’s closing verses: “Thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria… for the Lord hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them” (v. 36–37). The image is of a line of captives being marched away into exile — hands upon their heads — for their futile attempts at worldly alliance.
And that question — What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt? — is a solemn and salutary question for any true child of God, any professing Christian, to consider. For this turning to the world, this turning to carnal means for imagined support and aid in our troubles, is a folly which continues to plague the Lord’s people to the present time.
The Error at the Level of the Church
Consider it first at the level of the church. How many times have the gathered people of God in their various denominations, in the face of trouble or opposition, imagined that the world might come to their aid — thought that they could recruit the assistance of carnal powers to achieve their ends? Doubtless Zedekiah was surrounded by people who said, “Well, is not Judah God’s chosen land? Should we not take any and every available means for our preservation? If the Egyptians are willing to come to our aid, why not have them?”
And even so throughout the history of the church there have been those Christians who said, “If the world is willing to support us, if the secular authorities will help us to enforce our rules, if the sword of the secular government can be brought to bear to enforce Christian doctrine — surely that must be right.” But oh, what disaster, what tragedy, what error, what bloodshed has followed in the wake of those things. To attempt to recruit the sword of man in support of the church is to take the broken reed of Egypt and lean one’s weight upon it.
And it goes on to the modern day in less overt ways. How many churches, seeing numbers decline and support ebbing away, turn to the world to see how by the world’s means they might deliver themselves? Instead of seeing the world as the great spiritual Egypt — the great enemy of the church — they say: what does the world have to offer? Let us have the world’s music, the world’s communication techniques, the world’s philosophies, the world’s attitudes. This will attract the masses. Surely if Jerusalem is spared by using the Egyptians, the end justifies the means. Alas, what tragedy, what dilution, what compromise follows in the wake of these things.
The Error at the Individual Level
But we must bring it down to a more individual and personal level. In the lives and experiences of individual Christians the same manner of thinking can prevail. Perhaps we face challenges, opposition, existential threats — and we know from scripture that our faith should be preeminently and exclusively in God. But surrounded by so many threats and fears, the world’s aid, the friendship of the world, the support of worldly men and women and worldly institutions, seems so desirable, so practical, so reasonable a solution. What errors are committed, what compromises are made, when individual Christians think upon these lines.
And not only in practical matters, but in spiritual ones. We know the truth that scripture declares of salvation by grace through faith — and yet how tempting it can be to imagine that our heavenward progress needs to be supplemented or aided by other things, by other props and supports. The apostle’s doctrine as originally preached knew nothing of salvation by works, nothing of penances and confessionals, nothing of physical means whereby one could secure one’s way to heaven or win the favour of God. But look at the various denominations of Christendom — the works, rituals, and labours they impose upon their adherents.
This had already begun while the apostles were still preaching, and so much of the Epistle to the Galatians is Paul contending with these errors: “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3). Oh, the works of our hands achieving our own salvation has an appeal to the flesh. We want something to be proud of in ourselves. We want to be able to say, “If God chose me, it is because he saw that I was good enough, or that I would decide right, or that I would be worthy of him.” We dare not trust in man — especially, especially if that man is ourself. For here is only weakness, here is only a broken reed, here is only vain and futile help.
Paul himself was taught this lesson so profoundly. He originally thought he could trust in the flesh — in circumcision, in the stock of Israel, in the tribe of Benjamin, in his Pharisaic zeal, in his blamelessness according to the law. “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord… not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:7–9). And he writes of his trouble in Asia: “we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9). Having begun in complete dependence upon the deliverance that God granted spiritually unto him, he relies upon that deliverance in the present and for the future.
The Contrast: Cursed and Blessed
Let us give the last word to the Prophet Jeremiah himself. Here in chapter 17 he sums it up so beautifully by divine inspiration:
Those two things go together — making flesh one’s arm and the heart departing from the Lord. You cannot have both. In the measure that we trust in man and make flesh our arm, in that same degree our heart departs from the Lord. We cease to depend upon God, cease to rely entirely upon him, cease to honour him and his way of salvation in Christ alone. There can be no growth, no flourishing, no fruitfulness to them who live like this.
We need resources outside of ourselves. We need an unerring, infallible, and constant supply. We need, for such parched plants as we are in this desert and wilderness scene, a miraculous stream, a never-failing fountainhead. We need the Lord, we need his grace, we need his constant supply — and this, and this alone, shall cause us to prosper and flourish and bear fruit.
Let us ask ourselves as a church, let us ask ourselves as individuals: What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt? Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. God grant it. Amen.