Catholic Commentary
Zedekiah's Delegation Seeks a Word from God
1The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, saying,2“Please inquire of Yahweh for us; for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us. Perhaps Yahweh will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may withdraw from us.”
Jeremiah 21:1–2 records King Zedekiah's desperate request to the prophet during Babylon's siege of Jerusalem, asking Jeremiah to inquire whether God will miraculously deliver the city as He did in past victories. The delegation reveals the royal court's misplaced confidence in divine protection without genuine repentance or covenant obedience.
Zedekiah asks God to perform miracles, but not to change—a prayer God answers by refusing to answer.
The phrase "wondrous works" (nifle'otav) is a direct echo of Exodus theology — the mighty signs and wonders by which God delivered Israel from Egypt (Ex 3:20; 15:11; Ps 78:11). The allusion is precise: Zedekiah's court hopes for a new Exodus, a miraculous military reprieve. There is even a possible specific precedent in mind: the sudden destruction of Sennacherib's Assyrian army before Jerusalem in 701 BC (2 Kgs 19:35–36; Is 37:36), a deliverance so dramatic it had calcified into a dangerous theology of Jerusalem's inviolability. The people expected God to protect the city unconditionally, regardless of their fidelity to the covenant.
The word "perhaps" ('ulay) is theologically candid — even the petitioners seem to sense that they are asking for the undeserved. But candor about one's weakness is not the same as repentance. Typologically, this moment mirrors the pattern of Israel crying out in Egypt not from conversion of heart but from distress. God does hear cries of distress — but his response here will be radically different, because the prior condition of covenant fidelity is wholly absent.
The phrase "withdraw from us" — literally, "go up from us" — is a military idiom for an army lifting a siege. The request is entirely pragmatic: make the threat go away. There is no mention of sin, no acknowledgment of covenant rupture, no vow of reform. It is prayer as crisis management, not as encounter with the living God.
Catholic tradition has long read this passage in the light of the theology of authentic prayer and conversion. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God" (CCC §2559), but it also insists that true prayer requires humility: "The first movement of the prayer of petition is asking forgiveness" (CCC §2631). Zedekiah's delegation conspicuously omits exactly this first movement. They ask for deliverance without asking for pardon — a pattern the Church consistently identifies as spiritually deficient.
St. John Chrysostom, commenting on similar Old Testament petitions, observes that God does not respond to the voice of necessity alone but to the disposition of the heart: "He listens not to the sound of the lips but to the cry of the conscience." (Hom. on the Psalms). The Catechism similarly warns against treating God as "a cosmic bellhop" (to use a modern idiom the tradition approaches from a different angle), noting that petitionary prayer must be rooted in trust and conformity to God's will (CCC §2737).
Pope Benedict XVI, in Verbum Domini (2010), emphasized that authentic encounter with God's word always demands a metanoia — a turning of the whole person. The delegation in Jeremiah 21 seeks the word of God without the conversion to God that makes hearing it fruitful.
Catholic typology also sees in Zedekiah's doomed appeal a foreshadowing of those who seek the benefits of Christ's redemption without genuine discipleship. The Council of Trent (Session VI, Ch. 6) taught that justification requires not merely a fear of punishment but a movement of faith, hope, and love — a turning from sin, not merely a wish for its consequences to be removed.
Finally, the Church Fathers — especially Origen (Homilies on Jeremiah, Hom. XII) — read Jeremiah himself as a type of Christ, the prophet who bears the word of judgment to an unrepentant people and who suffers for it. This frames the delegation's approach as an ironic inversion: they come to the suffering prophet not to hear his witness, but to instrumentalize his prophetic gift.
Contemporary Catholics face a constant temptation to treat prayer as a mechanism for crisis resolution rather than as an ongoing relationship with a personal God. When illness strikes, when finances collapse, when relationships fracture, the instinct can be to approach God as Zedekiah did: "Perhaps You will do something miraculous and make this go away." There is nothing wrong with petitionary prayer in crisis — the Psalms are full of it, and the Church encourages it. But Jeremiah 21:1–2 exposes the insufficiency of crisis-prayer detached from ongoing conversion.
A practical examination: Do I seek God regularly, or only when Nebuchadnezzar is at the gates? When I bring a pressing need to prayer, am I also asking what God may be asking of me through this situation? The delegation asks nothing about repentance, reform, or responsibility. A mature Catholic prayer life, formed by the Liturgy of the Hours and the Examen of St. Ignatius, cultivates the habit of seeking God's face even — especially — before crises arrive, so that when they do, the relationship is already deep enough to hear a hard answer.
Commentary
Jeremiah 21:1 — The Setting and the Messengers
The formula "the word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh" is the standard prophetic reception formula (cf. Jer 1:2; 14:1; 47:1), but its placement here is significant. The oracle is not prompted by Jeremiah's initiative; it comes in direct response to the royal crisis, underscoring that God is sovereign over the timing and content of revelation. The historical context is crucial: this scene occurs during the final siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (c. 588–586 BC), making it among the latest datable events in the book of Jeremiah, even though it appears early in the second half of the book. The editorial placement is thematic, not strictly chronological.
Zedekiah (reigned c. 597–586 BC) is the last king of Judah, a figure of tragic indecision throughout the Jeremianic narrative. He consistently oscillates between personal sympathy for Jeremiah and political capitulation to his anti-Babylonian advisors (cf. Jer 37–38). His sending of emissaries rather than going himself to the prophet is itself telling — he maintains kingly distance even while desperate for a divine word. This delegation will appear again in Jeremiah 29:25 (Zephaniah) and 38:1 (Pashhur the son of Malchijah), anchoring them in the historical record.
Pashhur the son of Malchijah must be carefully distinguished from Pashhur the son of Immer (Jer 20:1–6), the priest who struck Jeremiah and placed him in stocks — a figure Jeremiah denounced by name. This Pashhur is a royal official, possibly the same man mentioned in Jeremiah 38:1–6 who later has Jeremiah thrown into the cistern. His presence on a supposed errand of piety does not bode well. Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, is also a complex figure: he appears in Jeremiah 29:24–32 as a priest who had received a letter urging him to silence Jeremiah, yet who instead showed the letter to the prophet. He is neither a simple villain nor a hero — he embodies the moral ambiguity of the Jerusalem establishment.
Jeremiah 21:2 — The Request: "Perhaps Yahweh Will…"
The verb translated "inquire" (darash) is the standard term for seeking an oracle, most commonly from a prophet or priest (cf. 1 Sam 9:9; 2 Kgs 22:13). The very act implies at least a formal acknowledgment that Yahweh is the one to consult — yet the framing of the request reveals its theological shallowness. The delegates do not say "ask God what we must do" or "ask God how we should repent." They say: perhaps Yahweh will deal with us according to all his wondrous works.