And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon -- now the king was sitting in the gate of Benjamin,
Jeremiah's enemies have thrown him into a muddy cistern to die, and the king is too weak to save him. Help comes from a foreign servant in the palace — not from a priest, a prince, or a fellow Israelite.
The prophet is sinking in mud with no one in Jerusalem willing to speak for him. One commentator sees God at work behind the rescue.
The eyes of the Lord, however, did not watch in vain. His ears were not indifferent to the cry of His suffering witness. He knows how to draw out help from the least expected quarter; and so it was on this occasion.
The men with power over Jeremiah's body were not the men with the final say over his life.
But the servant of the Lord was not in the hands of the princes, but in the hands of his Master. God chooses for the deliverer a slave, an Ethiopian, Ebed-melech (servant of the king). The heart of this Ethiopian eunuch was touched with pity. He goes to the king, who seems to have known nothing about what had been done to Jeremiah, and tells him that Jeremiah is likely to starve to death in the filthy hole where they had put him.
Two words describe him: Ethiopian and eunuch. The first marks him as a foreigner. The second names a class of palace official who stood close to the king.
Scripture speaks of men who were made eunuchs by other men. They often became men of influence in the eastern courts, and they had care of the harems. Where there were several, one of them was called their 'prince.' … Ebed-melech, who befriended Jeremiah, was a eunuch in the house of Zedekiah.
His name fits what he did, and God answered the deed with a promise.
Ebed-melech ("Servant of the King") delivers Jeremiah from a dreadful dungeon. So he served the true King. God promises to deliver him from what he feared, for the word says, "You have put your trust in Me, declares the LORD."
Speaking up cost him something. The court was against Jeremiah, and the king was no reliable ally.
He loved the prophet of God. The court was hostile and insulting, and the king's timid policy held him back, yet he pleaded for Jeremiah and served him with gracious personal service. But he was not a witness as the prophet was. He was afraid of the Chaldean, the sword of the Lord's anger, and that was not the condition of the Lord's witness. But his weakness was not despised in the rich grace of God. What he gave came back to him in its own measure. In the day of the Lord's judgment Ebed-melech escaped with his life, while Jeremiah was held in honour. He was saved then, but that was all; the prophet was rewarded.
The story does not stop at the rescue. Later God sends Jeremiah back with a personal message for the man who pulled him out.
While Jeremiah was shut up in prison, the Lord gave him a message for the man who had spoken up for him when he was thrown into the dungeon and was about to die of hunger in the mire where he had sunk. God does not forget mercy for the righteous who showed mercy… Trust in the Lord is never in vain. Ebed-melech's trust was small, and no one but God Himself could see it. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. He has all power and might against the enemy, and His grace toward us knows no bounds.
That principle runs wider than one man. Jerusalem was about to fall, yet the falling city did not sweep away the few who feared God in it.
In the middle of all this misery and wickedness we find some rare examples of righteous men. However terrible His judgment may be, God remembers them. His judgment is terrible because He is righteous. Ebed-melech, who delivered Jeremiah, is spared.
- Heard. Jeremiah sank in the mud with no human advocate, and God drew out help from the least expected quarter.
- Chosen. The deliverer was not a prince of Judah but a foreign servant in the palace, whose heart was touched with pity.
- Named. "Ebed-melech" means servant of the king — and in rescuing the prophet, he served the true King.
- Brave. He pleaded for Jeremiah in the face of a hostile court and a king too timid to help, and his weakness was not despised.
- Remembered. Trust in the Lord is never in vain; when the city fell, God remembered the righteous man inside it.
-- and Ebed-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spoke to the king, saying,
Jeremiah's enemies have dropped him into a muddy pit to sink, and the timid king gave way to them. Verse 8 is the moment when one man walks out of the palace and tells the king, in front of everyone, that this is wrong.
Jeremiah's cry from the mud was not lost. God heard His servant, and the answer came from a man nobody would have picked.
The eyes of the Lord, however, did not watch in vain, nor were His ears indifferent to the cry of His suffering witness. He knows how to draw out help from the least expected quarter; and so it was on this occasion.
The princes seemed to hold Jeremiah's life in their hands. The man who speaks up in this verse held no rank at all.
But the servant of the Lord was not in the hands of the princes, but in the hands of his Master. God chooses for the deliverer a slave, an Ethiopian, Ebed-melech (servant of the king). The heart of this Ethiopian eunuch was touched with pity. He goes to the king, who seems to have known nothing of what they had done to Jeremiah. He tells him that Jeremiah is likely to starve to death in the filthy hole where they had put him.
The verse tells us where the king was sitting. In that world, the city gate was no back room: judges heard cases there, and rulers gave audience there.
To "sit in the gate" was a place of honour. It should have been the place of true judgement and justice, but was not always so. It was, at least at times, the king's chief place of audience.
So Ebed-melech pleads in the open, at the very spot where justice should have ruled and did not.
His name carries its own message, and his act matched it. The true King answered him in kind.
Ebed-melech ("Servant of the King") delivers Jeremiah from a dreadful dungeon. In this way he served the true King. God promised him deliverance from the very thing he feared, because, as it says, "you have put your trust in me, declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 39:17-18).
He came to the gate with an argument, not a rescue party. He had to win the king's consent first, at a time when Israel's leaders had lost their sense of right and wrong.
One named Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian, still had some sense of right and wrong, when it seemed to have left Israel altogether. He took it upon himself to bring about the prophet's rescue from the muddy pit. He reasoned with the king about the evil done to Jeremiah. Once he had the king's consent, he gently drew Jeremiah out with the help of thirty men.
Speaking up cost him something. The court was hostile and the king was no help. Yet he was no fearless hero — he later dreaded the invading army.
He loved the prophet of God. In the face of a harmful and insulting court, and held back by the timid policy of the king, he pleaded for Jeremiah and served him with gracious personal service. But he was not a witness as the prophet was. He was afraid of the Chaldean (Jeremiah 39:17)... But his weakness was not despised in the rich grace of God.
The kindness begun in this verse comes back to him later. When Jerusalem fell, God sent a personal message to the man who had spoken up at the gate.
God does not forget mercy for the righteous who showed mercy... Trust in the Lord is never in vain, though none but Himself could see Ebed-melech's, for it was so small in measure. It is better, then, to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
- Servant sent. God's witness sank in the mud, and God drew out help from the least expected quarter — the palace staff, not the princes.
- Servant unlikely. God chose a slave and a foreigner as deliverer; pity touched his heart while Israel's leaders felt nothing.
- Servant speaking. He came to the gate, the king's place of audience, and reasoned with him about the evil done to the prophet.
- Servant of the true King. His name means "servant of the king"; by rescuing Jeremiah he served the King above the throne he worked for.
- Servant remembered. Fear mixed with his courage, yet grace did not despise his weakness. God's promise named the reason He spared him: he had put his trust in the Lord.
My lord, O king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to the prophet Jeremiah, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he will die by reason of the famine in the place where he is; for there is no more bread in the city.
A prophet is sinking in the mud of a cistern, and the king is too weak to protect him. The one voice raised for him belongs to a foreigner on the palace staff, and this verse is what he says: a blunt verdict on the officials, and a warning of what comes next.
The officials had silenced the prophet by dropping him into a cistern. One writer reads what happened next as God's own reply.
The eyes of the Lord, however, did not watch in vain, nor were His ears indifferent to the cry of His suffering witness. He knows how to draw out help from the least expected quarter; and so it was on this occasion.
Jeremiah's own record of those hours is a prayer from the bottom of the pit, and another writer links the rescue directly to it.
In answer to the earnest pleading of His servant, the Lord directs Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch in the king's house, to draw Jeremiah out of his trouble. This man takes it upon himself to go to Zedekiah to plead for the prophet, and gets permission to deliver him.
The officials seemed to have the prophet in their power. One writer names who really held him, and who God chose as his rescuer.
But the servant of the Lord was not in the hands of the princes, but in the hands of his Master. God chooses for the deliverer a slave, an Ethiopian, Ebed-melech (servant of the king). Pity touched the heart of this Ethiopian eunuch. He goes to the king, who seems to have known nothing of what they had done to Jeremiah. He tells him that Jeremiah is likely to starve to death in the filthy hole where they had put him.
What he brought to the king was not prophecy but plain moral judgment — and at that moment nobody else in the city was offering it.
One man named Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian, still had some sense of right and wrong, when it seemed to have left Israel altogether. He took it on himself to get the prophet released from the muddy pit. He reasoned with the king about the evil done to Jeremiah. Once he had the king's consent, he drew Jeremiah out gently with the help of thirty men.
One writer weighs both his courage and its limit.
He loved the prophet of God. The court was hostile and insulting, and the king's timid policy held him back. Still he pleaded for Jeremiah and served him with kind personal care. But he was not a witness as the prophet was.
The plea does not say Jeremiah will drown. It says he will die of hunger — because the food had already run out for everyone. Earlier the king had arranged a daily ration for him.
Zedekiah, however, does not send him back to the vaults, in answer to Jeremiah's plea. Instead he has him committed to the court of the guard: "and a loaf of bread was given him daily, until all the bread of the city was gone."
Once the bread was gone, a forgotten man in a cistern had no chance at all.
The rescue was not the end of it. A message came back for the man who had risked his place for a prisoner, while judgment still stood over the city and its king.
God does not forget mercy toward the righteous who showed mercy. His judgments must still fall on the proud city, where the evil advisers lived who pushed the weak and faulty son of David to his ruin. … Trust in the Lord is never in vain, though no one but He Himself could see Ebed-melech's trust, small as its measure was. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. He has all power and might against the enemy, and His grace toward us knows no bounds.
One writer sets out what the Lord promised him, and the rule behind it.
The Ethiopian will be delivered on the day the city is taken. He will not be given into the hands of the men he fears. He will have his life as a prize, "because you have put your trust in me, declares the LORD." God does not forget to reward the instruments that He uses on behalf of those He sends (Matt. 25:34-45).
- Cry. God heard the cry of His suffering witness, and the rescue was His answer.
- Choice. Help came from the least expected quarter — a foreign slave in the palace, whose name meant "servant of the king."
- Courage. He faced a hostile court and a timid king, and still called the officials' act evil to the king's face.
- Case. His plea rested on the famine, not the mud: the city's bread was gone, so a man left in a cistern would starve.
- Compensation. This man's trust was so small that only God could see it, yet God gave him his life on the day the city fell.
And the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die.
Jeremiah is sinking in the mud of an empty water pit, left to starve by men who wanted him silenced. The king who handed him over now orders him lifted out — but how did God's help reach him down there?
Before any man moved, God had already heard the prophet's cry.
The eyes of the Lord did not watch in vain, and His ears were not indifferent to the cry of His suffering witness. He knows how to draw out help from the least expected place; and so it was on this occasion.
Jeremiah wrote down the prayer he made while trapped. One writer reads this rescue as its answer.
In Lamentations the prophet remembers how distressed he was in this terrible situation... Feeling that he is dying, he cries to God: "I called on Your name, O Lord, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice. You drew near on the day I called on You, and said, 'Do not fear!'"... The Lord answers His servant's earnest prayer. He directs Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch in the king's house, to lift Jeremiah out of his trouble. This man goes to Zedekiah himself to plead for the prophet, and he gets permission to free him. The king provides thirty men to help him.
The man who moved the king was not one of Judah's princes. Ebed-melech was a foreigner and a slave in the palace, a eunuch serving as an officer in the royal household.
But the servant of the Lord was not in the hands of the princes, but in the hands of his Master. God chooses for the deliverer a slave, an Ethiopian, Ebed-melech (servant of the king). Pity touched the heart of this Ethiopian eunuch. He goes to the king, who seems not to have known what they had done to Jeremiah. He tells him that Jeremiah is likely to starve to death in the filthy hole where they had put him. The king commands the eunuch to act at once with thirty men to deliver Jeremiah.
Even his name fits what he did.
Ebed-melech ("Servant of the King") frees Jeremiah from a dreadful dungeon. So he served the true King. God promises to rescue him from the very thing he feared, because he had put his trust in the Lord (Jer. 39:17-18).
Zedekiah's order shows a real conscience — and also its limits.
On the whole, Zedekiah himself shows more conscience than some of the other last kings of Judah. Perhaps that is why he received those few words of favour and mercy in Jeremiah 34:5. But he was too weak to let his conscience lead him in the path of obedience... Still, in the middle of all this misery and wrongdoing we find some rare examples of righteous men. However terrible His judgment may be, God remembers them. His judgment is terrible because He is righteous.
The order said "before he dies." God did not forget the man who carried it out.
God does not forget to show mercy to the righteous who showed mercy. His judgments must still fall on the proud city where the evil advisers lived. Those advisers pushed the feeble, faulty son of David to his ruin... Trust in the Lord is never in vain, though none but Himself could see Ebed-melech's trust, small as it was.
- Pit — Jeremiah sank in the mire of a waterless cistern, condemned by the princes and left there to die of hunger.
- Cry — He prayed from the lowest pit, and Lamentations records it. The king's order is God's answer.
- Helper — God drew help from the least expected place: not Judah's leaders, but a foreign slave in the palace whom pity moved.
- Order — Zedekiah's conscience was real enough to say "before he dies," but too weak to obey God elsewhere. God used the weak order anyway.
- Reward — God did not forget the mercy Ebed-melech showed. He promised him his own life, because he had trusted the Lord.
And Ebed-melech took the men under his order, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence old shreds and worn-out clothes, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah is stuck at the bottom of a filthy cistern, and a palace servant has just won the king's permission to pull him out. This verse shows how the rescue began: a storeroom, old rags, and ropes let down into the dark.
Jeremiah had no friend among the princes who put him there. Yet help arrived, and one commentator traces it back to God's own eye and ear.
The eyes of the Lord, however, did not watch in vain, nor were His ears indifferent to the cry of His suffering witness. He knows how to draw out help from the least expected quarter; and so it was on this occasion.
The rescuer is not one of the princes. One writer follows how a foreign slave came to act for Jeremiah, and how gently he did it.
God chooses for the deliverer a slave, an Ethiopian, Ebed-melech (servant of the king). The heart of this Ethiopian eunuch was touched with pity. He goes to the king, who seems not to have known what they had done to Jeremiah. He tells the king that Jeremiah is likely to starve to death in the filthy hole where they put him. The king commands the eunuch to act at once with thirty men to deliver Jeremiah. With what tenderness, to spare the man of God all needless pain, Ebed-melech carried out the king's wish!
The verse lingers on small things: a palace storeroom, a pile of worn-out rags, ropes. One writer reads the whole errand as God's answer to a cry from the pit.
In Lamentations the prophet looks back on his distress in that terrible place... Feeling that he is dying, he cries to God: "I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea... You came near when I called on you; you said, 'Do not fear!'" In answer to the earnest prayer of His servant, the Lord directs Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch in the king's house, to draw Jeremiah out of his predicament... Ebed-melech, with much regard for the prisoner, takes old shreds and rags and asks Jeremiah to put them under his armpits beneath the ropes.
The king who let the princes have their way now supplies thirty men to haul Jeremiah up. One writer explains what really drove him.
The princes persecute the prophet and seek to put him to death, on the excuse that he is discouraging the people. Zedekiah fears the princes... Ebed-melech the Ethiopian speaks to the king in his favour and pulls him up out of the pit. On the day the city is taken, God saves this man, just as the prophet said... In reality the king did not hate Jeremiah. But the fear of men pressed him, instead of the fear of the Lord ruling him — and that Lord he had despised and dishonoured.
The story does not end at the mouth of the pit. One commentator notes how small the trust was that God honoured, and where trust is best placed.
Trust in the Lord is never wasted, though Ebed-melech's was so small that only He could see it. It is better, then, to trust in the Lord than to trust in man; it is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in princes. He holds all power and might against the enemy, and His grace toward us knows no bounds.
Commentators differ over this man. Some praise his trust; another sets him beside the prophet he saved and finds him the weaker of the two.
He loved the prophet of God. In the face of a harmful and insulting court, and held back by the king's timid policy, he pleaded for Jeremiah and served him with kind personal service. But he was not a witness as the prophet was. He was afraid of the Babylonian army... And the rich grace of God did not despise his weakness.
- Watched. God's eyes were on His servant in the mud, and His ears open to the cry from the pit — the rescue began there, not in the palace.
- Sent. Help came "from the least expected quarter" — a foreign slave whose name means servant of the king.
- Tender. Old rags under the ropes spared the man of God all needless pain.
- Weak links. A king too frightened of his princes to protect Jeremiah still gave thirty men to lift him out. God used a conscience that could not stand on its own.
- Rewarded. The trust behind the rags was so small that only God could see it — and He remembered it on the day the city fell.
And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, Put, I pray, [these] old shreds and rags under thine armholes under the cords. And Jeremiah did so.
Jeremiah's enemies had dropped him into a muddy pit to die, and the man who came to lift him out was a foreigner in the king's palace. Verse 12 catches him padding the ropes so they will not cut the prophet's arms.
The men who should have defended Jeremiah had left him in the pit. One writer points to who was watching:
The eyes of the Lord did not watch in vain, and His ears were not indifferent to the cry of His suffering witness. He knows how to draw out help from the least expected quarter, and so it was on this occasion.
Ebed-melech was a slave from Ethiopia who served in the palace. He had no rank among the princes, but he could reach the king:
But the servant of the Lord was not in the hands of the princes; he was in the hands of his Master. God chooses a slave for the deliverer, an Ethiopian, Ebed-melech (servant of the king). The heart of this Ethiopian eunuch was touched with pity. He goes to the king, who seems to have known nothing of what had been done to Jeremiah. He tells the king that Jeremiah is likely to starve to death in the filthy hole where they had put him. With what tenderness, to spare the man of God all needless pain, Ebed-melech carried out the king's wish (verse 12)!
The padding is not decoration. Bare ropes would have torn at a starving man as they dragged him out of the mud. A commentator connects the rescue to the prayer Jeremiah prayed at the bottom of that pit:
In Lamentations the prophet recalls the distress of his soul in this terrible situation... Feeling that he is perishing, he cries to God: "I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea... You came near when I called on you; you said, 'Do not fear!' You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life" (Lam. 3:55-58). In answer to the earnest pleading of His servant, the Lord directs Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch in the king's house, to draw Jeremiah out of his trouble... Ebed-melech, with much regard for the prisoner, takes old shreds and rags and asks Jeremiah to put them under his armpits beneath the ropes.
The answer to that prayer came as a man thinking about someone else's arms.
On paper Ebed-melech belonged to Zedekiah, a king too weak to protect the prophet.
A beautiful and cheering contrast to this is given to us in chapters 38 and 39. Ebed-melech ("Servant of the King") delivers Jeremiah from a dreadful dungeon. So he served the true King. God promises to deliver him from what he feared. The reason He gives is this: "you have put your trust in me, declares the LORD" (Jer. 39:17-18).
Verse 12 is a gentle act in a brutal chapter. Another writer sets it against the state of the nation:
Certain men falsely accused Jeremiah again and wanted his death (vv. 1-4). Zedekiah was too weak to stand against them, and they let Jeremiah down into a muddy dungeon (Jer. 38:6). One named Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian, still had some sense of right and wrong when it seemed to have left Israel altogether. He took it on himself to bring about the prophet's deliverance from the muddy pit.
Ebed-melech was no hero of faith. One writer weighs him honestly:
He loved the prophet of God. The court was insulting and injurious, and the timid policy of the king held him back. Even so, he pleaded for Jeremiah and served him with gracious personal service. But he was not a witness as the prophet was. He was afraid of the Chaldean (Jer. 39:17)... But his weakness was not despised in the rich grace of God. His own measure came back to him again. In the day of the Lord's judgment Ebed-melech got his life as a prize, while Jeremiah was held in honour.
- Pit — Jeremiah sank in the mud while the men who should have defended him stayed silent. Help came from "the least expected quarter."
- Cry — the rescue was God's answer to the prayer he prayed from the bottom of that hole.
- Servant — God chose a foreign slave to deliver him. His name meant "Servant of the King," and in freeing the prophet he served the true King.
- Rags — the padding under the arms shows tender service. It spared the man of God all needless pain.
- Reward — God did not despise his small, fearful faith. Ebed-melech kept his life when the city fell, because he had put his trust in the LORD.