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…

All real power was in their hands, and as they affirmed that Jeremiah’s death was a matter of necessity, the king did not dare refuse it to them.

Here, 1. Jeremiah persists in his plain preaching; what he had many a time said, he still says (Jer 38:3): This city shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon; though it hold out long, it…

the king is not he, etc.] The LXX, perhaps rightly, make this clause a comment of the narrator ("For the king was not able … against them").