Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 38:19

"And Zedekiah the king said unto Jeremiah, I am afraid of the Jews that are fallen away to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their hand, and they mock me." — Jeremiah 38:19 (ASV)

I am afraid of the Jews ... —The special form of fear was characteristic of the weak and vacillating king. It was not enough to know that his life would be safe. Would he also be saved from the insults of his own subjects, who had already deserted to the enemy? These were, in the nature of the case, friends and followers of the prophet, and had acted on his advice (Jeremiah 21:9). The king, who had shrunk from Jeremiah’s taunts (Jeremiah 37:19), could not, for very shame, expose himself to the derision of others. Perhaps he even feared more than mere derision—outrage, death, mutilation, such as Saul feared at the hands of the Philistines (1 Samuel 31:4).

(20–22) Obey, I beseech you... —The king’s misgiving is met in part by an earnest entreaty to obey the voice of the Lord; in part by the assurance that so it shall be well with him (literally, there shall be peace to you); and in part also by bringing before him the mockery that is certain to await him if he persists in his defiance.

The women of the harem, the surviving wives and concubines of former kings, as well as his own, would become the spoil of the Chaldean princes and would take up their taunting proverbs against him: “Your friends” (literally, the men of your peace, as in Jeremiah 20:10; the men who promised peace and safety), “they have incited you, and having dragged you into the mire of shame, have left you there.”

The imagery of this taunt seems drawn from the prophet’s recent experience (Jeremiah 38:6). The king was plunging into a worse “slough of despond” than that into which Jeremiah had sunk in the dungeon of Malchiah.