Lives of Scripture

Jucal son of Shelemiah was one of four officials in Jerusalem's royal court -- alongside Shephatiah, Gedaliah, and Pashhur -- who heard Jeremiah proclaiming God's word to the people during the Babylonian siege: that whoever stayed in the city would die by sword, famine, or plague, but whoever surrendered to the Chaldeans would live (Jeremiah 38:1-2). Convinced that Jeremiah's message was demoralizing the soldiers and undermining the city's defense, Jucal and the others went to King Zedekiah and demanded that Jeremiah be put to death, calling him a threat to the people's welfare (38:4). Zedekiah, weak and unwilling to oppose his own officials, handed Jeremiah over to them, and they lowered him by ropes into Malchijah's cistern, where he sank into the mud at the bottom (38:5-6). Jeremiah would have died there had Ebed-melech the Cushite not intervened and persuaded the king to let him be pulled out (38:7-13). Jucal's role in this episode places him among those in Judah's final years who treated a genuine word from the LORD as sedition rather than warning -- a pattern the book of Jeremiah repeatedly identifies as part of why Jerusalem's fall could not be averted.