Jeremiah in the well

“So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkjah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.” (Jeremiah 38: 6, New International Version). Allies of King Zedekiah accused Jeremiah of being a traitor and trying to defect and the king gave them permission to imprison him. Initially, he was under house arrest, but the allies of the king were worried that he was discouraging the soldiers and people of Jerusalem and encouraging them to surrender to the Babylonians who had laid siege to the city for about 30 months. Therefore, they moved him to the cistern to keep him quiet and most likely to die.

If you know your Bible, then you know that ancient Israel split into two kingdoms after Solomon’s death. Assyria had destroyed the northern kingdom called Israel, but the southern kingdom called Judah continued, but had fallen on hard times by the 580s BC. Poor leadership from a series of weak kings, and being a pawn in between the struggle between Babylon and Egypt had weakened Judah. After Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, revolted against Babylon, the Babylonians attacked Judah and eventually laid siege to Jerusalem. Jeremiah had the unfortunate task of advising Zedekiah. Zedekiah wanted the advice, but was slow to accept it. In addition, when he did not like the advice, he would imprison Jeremiah.

What was Jeremiah’s advice? Jeremiah advised Judah to surrender to Babylon. In reality, it was the only feasible course of action. Surrender would prevent the total destruction of the city including the temple. Surrender might result in the continuance of the kingdom of Judah, though with less autonomy. Why was Jeremiah so insistent on recommending surrender? Well Babylon was the strongest power in the region. Moreover, God had told Jeremiah that Babylon was going to win (Jeremiah after all was a prophet). King Zedekiah was tempted to listen but his other advisors discouraged him from surrendering and when Egypt attacked in support of Israel, Zedekiah held to a false hope that they might survive the war with Babylon. Nevertheless, Jeremiah still advised surrender and predicted an impending and catastrophic defeat.

In the end, Jeremiah was right. Jerusalem fell. Babylon captured and blinded the king and took most of the productive members of the kingdom of Judah in captivity to Babylon. The temple was destroyed. Jeremiah had offered good advice. A surrender would have resulted in a less catastrophic defeat, but Zedekiah failed to listen and even punished Jeremiah for his good advice.

So what is the lesson? Often as leaders, we advise other leaders. Sometimes we have to offer advice that contradicts the majority opinion and angers others. What do we do? Do we tell the truth? Do we change our advice in the face of criticism? Do we act like Jeremiah and continue to provide true advice even though it may cost us our reputation or more? Jeremiah’s true advice landed him in jail multiple times, made him the target of persecution by the king’s other advisors, and as we saw from the opening paragraph almost resulted in his death. Jeremiah’s life was endangered because he told the truth.

Finally, Jeremiah’s message was generally a negative one: surrender to avoid a worse catastrophe. Often when we are tasked with the unfortunate job of providing negative advice we neglect to look further out and offer hope of a better or improved future. One thing that leaders can learn from Jeremiah is to provide hope. Some of the most comforting passages in the Bible come from Jeremiah. As he was predicting destruction, he was also holding out future hope. As leaders, we have an obligation to do the same. Even in tough times, when our message about the present is negative (think what we hear daily about COVID and its impact on our economy and society); we have an obligation to look beyond the current crisis and offer hope and encouragement.

A leader should offer truth even when it is tough and people do not want to hear it. However, a leader should also offer a vision of the future and Jeremiah did that (see Jeremiah chapter 33). So, in conclusion, tell the truth. Offer true advice even when others do not want to hear it, but then look out and provide a positive vision for the future. Offer hope of recovery and renewal, because that is what leaders do.

Next, we will move to Norse mythology and see Odin at the end.