Jeremiah 37:10
For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire. For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.
The Chaldean army had for a time lifted the siege of Jerusalem in order to meet the advance of Egypt, yet that pause in military pressure did not change the divine sentence against the city. The withdrawal was only temporary, and it could not turn aside the judgment already determined. Even if Judah had succeeded in striking down the whole hostile force until nothing was left but wounded men, the outcome would have remained the same. Those wounded survivors would have risen up, each from his tent, and burned Jerusalem with fire, making its destruction certain and inescapable by any human victory.
The reason no escape was possible was that the judgment had been decreed because the nation persisted in impenitence. The warning was therefore directed against self-deception, lest the people flatter themselves that the enemy had departed for good and would not return. The temporary absence of the Chaldeans was no sign of deliverance, and to interpret it so was to deceive the soul. The remnant must instead go into captivity, to learn under hardship and exile the lessons it had refused to learn when circumstances were more favorable.