Lives of Scripture

Irijah, son of Shelemiah and grandson of Hananiah, was a sentry stationed at Jerusalem's Gate of Benjamin during a brief withdrawal of the besieging Babylonian army, prompted by an advancing Egyptian force (Jeremiah 37:5, 11). When the prophet Jeremiah attempted to leave the city to attend to property among his people in the territory of Benjamin, Irijah seized him, declaring, "You are going over to the Chaldeans!" (37:13). Jeremiah denied it -- "A lie! I am not going over to the Chaldeans" -- but Irijah refused to listen and brought him before the city officials instead (37:14). Furious, the officials had Jeremiah beaten and imprisoned in a dungeon, where he remained many days before King Zedekiah secretly summoned him (37:15-17). Irijah's single recorded act -- a wrongful arrest built on suspicion rather than evidence -- set in motion one of the harshest episodes of Jeremiah's long suffering as a prophet, delivering God's unwelcome word to a city unwilling to hear it during its final days before Babylon's conquest.