Jeremiah 38:5

5 And king Zedekiah said, Lo! he is in your hands, for it is not leaveful that the king deny anything to you. (And King Zedekiah said, Lo! he is in your hands, for it is not lawful for the king to deny anything to 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 The Lord saith these things, This city to be betaken shall be betaken into the hand of the host of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. (The Lord saith these things, This city shall be delivered into the hands, or into the power, of the army of the king of Babylon, and they shall capture it.)

4 And the princes said to the king, We pray, that this man be slain; for of before-casting he discomforteth the hands of (the) men warriors, that dwelled in this city, and the hands of all the people, and speaketh to them by all these words. For why this man seeketh not peace to this people, but evil. (And the officers said to the king, We pray, that this man be killed; because by such forecasting he weakeneth the hands, or the resolve, of the warriors, and the hands of all the people, who still remain in this city, yea, by speaking to them by all these words. For this man seeketh not peace for this people, but evil.)

5 And king Zedekiah said, Lo! he is in your hands, for it is not leaveful that the king deny anything to you. (And King Zedekiah said, Lo! he is in your hands, for it is not lawful for the king to deny anything to you.)

6 Therefore they took Jeremy, and casted him down into the pit of Malchiah, the son of Hammelech, which was in the porch of the prison; and they sent down Jeremy by cords into the pit, wherein was no water, but fen; therefore Jeremy went down into the filth. (And so they took Jeremiah, and threw him down into the pit of Malchiah, the son of Hammelech, which was in the courtyard of the prison; yea, they sent Jeremiah down by cords into the pit, where there was no water, but only dirt, or mire; and so Jeremiah went down into the filth.)

7 Forsooth Ebedmelech (the) Ethiopian, a chaste man and honest, heard, that was in the king's house, that they had sent Jeremy into the pit; soothly the king (then) sat in the gate of Benjamin. (But Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, an honest and chaste servant, that is, a eunuch, who was in the king's house, or the palace, heard that they had sent Jeremiah into the pit; and the king then sat at the Benjamin Gate.)