Jeremiah 38:5

5 So King Zedekiah said, "Behold, he is in your hands; for the king 1can do nothing * against you."

Jeremiah 38:5 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 38:5

Then Zedekiah the king said, behold, he [is] in your hand
In your power, to do with him as you please. This is either a grant of the king, allowing them to do as they thought fit; or a declaration of their power, supposing them to be the princes of the sanhedrim, as Grotius thinks, to judge of a false prophet, and condemn him; but that they were such does not appear; nor does their charge of the prophet, or their procedure against him, confirm it. The former sense seems best: for the king [is] not [he that] can do [any] thing against you;
which is said either in a flattering way, that such was their interest in him, and so great his regard for them, that he could not deny them any thing. So it is in the old translations, "for the king may deny you nothing"; and, "the king can deny you nothing": or else in a complaining way, suggesting that, he was a king, and no king; that he had no power to oppose them; they would do as they pleased; and therefore it signified nothing applying to him; he should not say any thing against it; he would have no concern in it; they might do as they pleased, since he knew they would.

Jeremiah 38:5 In-Context

3 "Thus says the LORD , 'This city will certainly be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and he will capture it.' "
4 Then the officials said to the king, "Now let this man be put to death, inasmuch as he is discouraging the men of war who are left in this city and all the people, by speaking such words to them; for this man is not seeking the well-being of this people but rather their harm."
5 So King Zedekiah said, "Behold, he is in your hands; for the king can do nothing against you."
6 Then they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchijah the king's son, which was in the court of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. Now in the cistern there was no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud.
7 But Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, while he was in the king's palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. Now the king was sitting in the Gate of Benjamin;

Cross References 1

Footnotes 1

New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, California.  All rights reserved.