Глава 34

Having thus concluded this prophecy, the Prophet moves on to another. And when the city was surrounded by enemies, he received an order to tell King Zedekiah: the city will be taken and burned, and having taken you, they will take you to the king of Babylon, but you will escape death, but having been taken into captivity, you will live in a foreign land, you will experience the end of your life in peace, and you will be rewarded with legalized crying from your relatives. This, says the Prophet, I told the king when the enemies were besieging not only Jerusalem, but (Jer. 34:7) the remaining “cities of Judah.” To this prophecy is added another, the meaning of which is as follows. Zedekiah, according to the law of God, commanded the release of the Hebrew slaves; for the law clearly ordered them to be in slavery for six years, and in the seventh year to receive freedom. Everyone, at first obeying the king and giving freedom to the slaves, then again, repenting of their good deed, dragged them into their former slavery. Therefore, God of all, being angry with this, as he recalls slavery in Egypt, and the former liberation, and the law given after this, also reproaches them for the fact that, although they loved the preservation of the law, they nevertheless repented of it and trampled on the law. For he says: Jer.34:15. Turn ye this day to do what is right in My sight, to give every man the forgiveness of his neighbor: and ye shall make a covenant before Me in the house where My name is called in it. In the house dedicated to Me, in My presence, having made the covenants of remission, you soon broke them. So, since you did not want to give absolution; Jer.34:17. The Lord said: Behold, I give you remission for the sword, and for death, and for famine, and I will give you to be scattered over all the kingdoms of the earth. Convicts of violating the oath. Jer.34:18. And I will give to the man who has transgressed My covenant, and has not kept the words of My covenant, to him I have deigned to do before Me: cutting the calf into two parts, and walking between the divided parts thereof, (Jer.34:19). “The princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, and the nobles, and the priests, and all the people of the earth who walked between the divided calf.” This is how they usually swore according to ancient custom. So the God of all things creates a covenant with Abraham, commanding “a ram of three years” and the same years of a bull and a goat to be divided “into sexes”, putting “I am opposite one to the other”, and made “a smoking furnace and candles of fire come between these cuttings” (Gen. 15:9-17). So God made a covenant with Abraham according to the then prevailing custom. The Jews also did the same, promising to free the slaves of the Jews, confirming their liberation with an oath; but they soon broke this oath. For this reason, God threatens to hand them over to their enemies, to give their bodies to be eaten by wild beasts, and to impose the yoke of slavery on the king and princes.