We are carried over a period of six years from the prophecy of Jeremiah 28:1 to B.C. 589, when the treacherous and intriguing policy of Zedekiah had provoked Nebuchadnezzar to besiege Jerusalem in the ninth year of the king of Judah's reign.It would appear from Jeremiah 37:15; Jeremiah 38:26, both of an earlier date than this chapter, that he had previously been confined in the house of Jonathan the scribe as a private prison, and that the king had removed him thence with a view to consulting him on the probable issue of the siege.