Yirmeyah 38:5

5 Then Tzidkiyah HaMelech said, Hinei, he is in your yad (hand, power); for HaMelech is not he that can do anything against you.

Yirmeyah 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.

Yirmeyah 38:5 In-Context

3 Thus saith Hashem, This city shall surely be given into the yad of the army of Melech Bavel, which shall capture it.

4 Therefore the sarim said unto HaMelech, Let now this ish be put to death; for thus he weakeneth the hands of the anshei hamilchamah that are left in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such devarim unto them; for this ish seeketh not the shalom of this people, but the hurt.

5 Then Tzidkiyah HaMelech said, Hinei, he is in your yad (hand, power); for HaMelech is not he that can do anything against you.

6 Then took they Yirmeyah, and cast him into the bor (pit, dungeon, cistern) of Malkiyah Ben Hammelech, that was in the Khatzer (courtyard) of the Guard; and they lowered Yirmeyah with ropes. And in the bor (pit) there was no mayim, but mud; so Yirmeyah sank in the mud.

7 Now when Eved-melech HaKushi (the Ethiopian), an ish saris (official) in the Bais HaMelech, heard that they had put Yirmeyah in the bor; HaMelech was then sitting in the Sha’ar Binyamin;