When, at the beginning of the
reign of Jehoiakim, the priests and prophets at the Temple sought Jeremiah’s
death for daring to prophesy against Jerusalem, a few elders rose to say (Jer
26:18-19),
Micah the Morashite, who
prophesied in the time of King Hezekiah of Judah once told everyone in Judah,
The Lord of Hosts says,
Zion will be plowed as a field,
Jerusalem will become ruins,
The Temple Mount, brushwood heights.
Did King Hezekiah of Judah and the
whole nation put [Micah] to death? Rather, did [Hezekiah] not fear the Lord,
and did he not implore the Lord so that the Lord renounced the punishment that the
planned for them? We may be doing ourselves a great harm [in punishing Jeremiah].
The elders who cite Micah’s words
(3:12) are very likely recalling Sennacherib’s threat against Jerusalem. Second
Kings 19 tells us that Hezekiah’s penitential acts and extraordinary entreaties
within the Holy of Holies effectively led to the retreat of the Assyrians. The
Chronicler makes even more of Hezekiah’s reforms, his many penitential acts,
and their calming effect on God (2 Chronicles 29-30). For the present purpose,
it is worth noticing how one leader’s penance wards of a divinely directed
threat against a whole nation. Variations on this theme are known from
elsewhere in Scripture: for example, Moses repeatedly deflects God’s anger
against the whole of Israel by punishing only the guilty parties (Exodus 32;
Exodus 34:6-7; Num 11:1-3; 14:10-28; 16; 21:4-9, details differ in each
episode); Samuel intercedes with God when the Philistines march against Israel
(1 Samuel 7); and Ezra grieves in order to deflect God’s anger (Ezra 10). That
the contrition of one leader may only postpone destruction to a dynasty and the
people it rules, is also known from experiences credited to Ahab (1 Kings 21), Hezekiah
(2 Kgs 20:12-19) and Josiah (2 Kings 22-23). In turn, these successful
entreaties may be contrasted with the activities of Jehoiakim who, in addition
to his personal depravity (2 Kgs 24:4), remains deaf to Jeremiah’s appeal and
thereby forfeits a chance to save Israel from Nebuchadnezzar’s clutches. (Jack
M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation With Introduction, Commentary, and
Interpretation [The Anchor Yale Bible 24B; New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1990], 241-42)