THEOSISJerome of Stridon
You are to communicate to this people, ‘Thus says the Lord, behold, I present before you the path of life and the path of death. Those who remain in this city will perish by the sword, famine, and pestilence. Yet, whoever departs and seeks refuge with the Chaldeans, who surround you, shall live, and his soul shall be preserved. For I have turned my face from this city for calamity, and not for prosperity, says the Lord. It shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will consume it with fire. To the royal envoys who sought the prophet to inquire of the Lord about their plight, he relayed the aforementioned message, which they were to convey to King Zedekiah.
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He counsels the messengers to instruct the people to flee to the Chaldeans, in defiance of the king's wishes, a decision that certainly posed a risk to the prophet, leading him to wish for death as he lamented, Cursed is the day in which I was born (Jeremiah 20:14), and, For what came I out of the womb to see toil and tribulation (Jeremiah 20:18)? His reasoning is not that it is simple to urge those who are not yet captives to voluntarily enter captivity, akin to advising shipwrecked sailors to grasp the oars and planks and cast themselves into the sea ahead of the ship’s ruin, but rather because it is more bearable for them and for the captives to remain alive than to face destruction by sword, famine, and pestilence. Some interpret this text metaphorically, suggesting that it is preferable to engage in secular studies, particularly philosophy, than to remain within a church that suffers famine of the Word of God (Am. 8:11), where the congregation perishes from the sword of heretics, the scarcity of sound doctrine, and the spread of heretical beliefs.