Who was the Ethiopian eunuch?

"And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet" (vers. 27, 28).

Some people would tell me he was not her Chancellor of the Exchequer. Well, I am not very careful about the label put upon him, but here I read, he "had the charge of all her treasure." He was a man thoroughly trusted, with an immense amount of money going through his hands. He had evidently a high place in the confidence of his royal mistress; but, notwithstanding all that, there was a want in his heart. This man, we find, had gone up to Jerusalem to worship. No doubt he was a Jewish proselyte. That is to say, he had heard of Judaism, had heard of the law, and that the land of Israel was the spot where God was to be worshipped. Seeking after God, he had taken this thousand-mile journey from beyond the southernmost confines of Egypt — how long he took the scripture does not tell us — but he reached Jerusalem. There was where he expected to find light, and to find God. What did he find? What many people find in Christendom today — ritualism, formalism, sacramentalism, but not the light of God. No, he did not get that. I do not doubt he found the temple full, and the priests sacrificing. But what had taken place? Why, the One who was Himself the antitype of every sacrifice had been there, but had been rejected! The temple was turned into a den of thieves, and the very house of the Lord had become a house of merchandise. The Lord Himself had been rejected; and I think I can see that Ethiopian looking for the manifestation of the presence of God, but seeing nothing but plenty of form, and plenty of ceremony. Of life — life according to God — he saw nothing. There was moral and spiritual death everywhere.

But this was not enough for God. A man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the queen of the Ethiopians, was returning after having gone up to Jerusalem to worship. He was going back without the blessing that his earnest heart yearned after. He had gone up to the great city of solemnities, but the blessing was no longer to be found there. Jehovah's house had been left doubly desolate; Jerusalem had this added to her other sins that, when the blessing had come down from heaven, she would not have it. She despised the Holy Ghost as she had despised the Messiah; and no wonder therefore that he who had gone up to Jerusalem to worship was returning with the yearnings of his heart still unsatisfied. And not the angel but the Spirit guides now. The angel had to do with providential circumstances, but the Spirit with that which directly deals with spiritual need and blessing. So says the Spirit to Philip, "Go near and join thyself to this chariot." Philip acts at once, with alacrity hears the eunuch read the prophet Isaiah, and puts the question whether he understood what was read. The answer is, "How can I, except some man should guide me?" Thereon Philip is invited to come up and sit with him, Isaiah 53 being, as we know, the portion in question; and the eunuch asks of whom the prophet spoke these words — "of himself or some other man?" so gross was his darkness even as to the general point of the chapter. "Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the very same scripture, and preached to him Jesus." It was enough. That one name, through faith in it, what could it not accomplish? The facts were notorious; but of this we may be sure, that never had they been put together before the mind of the Ethiopian as then, never connected with the living Word and His grace. They were now put in contact with his wants, and all was instantly light in his soul. Oh, what a blessing it is to have and know such a Saviour! What a joy to be warranted to proclaim Him to others without stint, even to a soul as dark as the Ethiopian, who was then and there baptized!

The gospel now finds its way, in the person of the queen's treasurer, to the centre of Abyssinia. The eunuch believes, is baptized, and goes on his way rejoicing. What he sought for in vain in Jerusalem, and had taken a long journey to seek there, he finds in the desert. Beautiful instance of the grace of the gospel! The lost sheep is found in the wilderness, and living waters spring up in the desert. He is also a beautiful instance of an anxious soul. When alone and unemployed, he reads the prophet Isaiah. He muses on the prophecy of the suffering, unresisting, Lamb of God. But the moment of light and deliverance had come. Philip explains the prophet: the eunuch is taught of God — he believes: immediately desires baptism, and returns to his home, filled with the new joys of salvation. Would he be silent there as to what he had found? Certainly not; a man of such character and influence would have many opportunities of spreading the truth. But as both scripture and history are silent, as to the results of his mission, we venture not further.

The conversion of the Eunuch is full of blessed lessons. Philip was obedient to the call of the Lord and the Eunuch, the prominent Ethiopian, Queen Candace's treasurer, who had returned from Jerusalem, an unsatisfied seeker, believed on the Lord Jesus and went on his way rejoicing. Verse 37 is an interpolation and should be omitted. Philip was caught away and was found some twenty miles north of Gaza, at Azotus. From there he started out anew preaching the Gospel. In many cities his voice was heard. These coast cities were inhabited by many Gentiles and included larger places like Jamnia, Lydda, Joppa and Antipatris. The day of Christ will make known the labors and also the reward of this great Evangelist. Then he came to Caesarea. But did he stop with that? We do not know. Twenty years later we find him there and Paul was then his guest.

You remember how Philip the evangelist was sent off by the Lord from Samaria to go down south to the desert near Gaza, where Samson carried away the gates, posts and all, one night. There Philip intercepted a caravan on the way from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. A highly-placed official in the court of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, her chief treasurer, was reading the Hebrew prophets as he journeyed, without understanding what he was reading.

Philip was sent to preach Jesus to him, as the One of Whose sufferings and death Isaiah had prophesied. The eunuch had recognised the scriptures as the voice of God. There was a case of the young she of springing upwards. Then the gospel was brought to him by Philip the evangelist, and next we read that when they came to "a certain water" the eunuch commanded the chariot to stand still, and they both went down into the water, and he was baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. The blade then became visible to all his retinue. "And he went on his way rejoicing" (see Acts 8).

From that time the gospel went out, not to the Jew only, but to all men, and the Spirit of God in moving Luke to write the Acts chose three cases of this work of God's grace: the Ethiopian Eunuch (chap. 8); Saul of Tarsus (chap. 9); Cornelius, the centurion (chap. 10). The Ethiopian was a son of Ham; Saul, the Jew, a son of Shem; Cornelius, the Roman, a son of Japheth; one of each of the three families into which mankind was formed after the flood, clearly showing the universal reach of the gospel of the grace of God and its power. We should have put the centurion first and the man of colour last; but God's ways are not as our ways; He knows how to rebuke our pride, and with Him the last shall be first.

The sandy desert near Gaza becomes the channel of the grace of Jesus. A child of the cursed race of Ham, the father of Canaan: an Ethiopian Chamberlain of Queen Candace, is sitting in his Chariot reading the Prophet Isaiah. He had come from the heart of Africa to worship at Jerusalem, and with an unsatisfied heart, was returning. The day of Jerusalem's visitation was past. The words of the weeping Jesus might re-echo once more when He exclaimed, "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things (which belong) to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." (Luke 19:42.) But he who is a "rewarder of them that diligently seek Him" follows this "dry tree," and after a few short words from Philip, evangelizing Jesus to him, he receives the message from the God and Father of Jesus, and the Ethiopian "went on his way rejoicing" — carrying this knowledge of Jesus into the abodes of the race of Cush.

The Ethiopian Eunuch

Left behind very possibly by the Apostles in that city, the converts of which must have become endeared to him, Philip, whilst they were pursuing their evangelistic service in the province of Samaria , received a call to go to another place. An angel of the Lord spake unto him, and directed him to go on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza , "which [or, the same] is desert." He at once obeyed, and went. But why he was taken from the fruitful field of his labours was as yet a secret unknown to him. In the path of obedience he got light cast on his way. Desert though the place he reached was called, he found himself not alone in that locality. A eunuch - a man of great authority under Queen Candace, [28] and who was over all her treasure - a man therefore in whom the Queen reposed confidence, but more, either a Jew or a proselyte to the Jewish faith - was returning from Jerusalem, whither he had gone to worship. Evidently the Temple service, and intercourse there with professed Jews, had not provided all that he was ready to receive. He had got from none of the doctors there the light which would open up the prophetic teaching of the Book of Isaiah. Yet he valued that portion of Divine revelation, and was studying it whilst on his homeward journey. Was he to return to his country as uninformed on that book as he had left it? Circumstances seemed to point to that; for Jerusalem was behind, and he in a desert. Without a teacher, without a helper, he was quietly reading the book, when Philip, directed by the Spirit of God, accosted him with the question, "Understandest thou what thou readest?"

A stranger to that eunuch thus made bold to address him. Naturally he might have repulsed such an one. Why should that simple man, without retinue or even one attendant to mark rank, presume to intrude on such a high official as he was? He was not travelling alone. Doubtless he had a goodly number with him. But when the Spirit prepares hearts, they are ready to welcome assistance; and the outward appearance of the individual, or the strangeness of such a meeting, raises no objection in the mind of the true inquirer. So the eunuch replied to the question put to him, "How can I, except some man [rather, one] should guide me?" He needed help. He confessed it. And believing Philip could give it, he besought him to come up and sit with him. The servant of Candace and the servant of the Lord were thus together; and the former, who probably was accustomed to be listened to with respect, now sat as a pupil at the feet of the evangelist.

A man of Ethiopia has been to Jerusalem to worship, and is returning by that desert road. We may be confident that Jerusalem had not much at that time to reward a pilgrimage. The road might well be to him a dreary one. With a heart for God, such as he surely had, the contact with priests and rulers of the stamp of Caiaphas and his Sadducean company must have thrown a shadow upon his soul. He was besides an outcast religiously, spite of a high position and his heart for God. As a eunuch, (if we are to take that literally, as I doubt not,) he could not come into the congregation of the Lord (Deut. 23:1); whatever precious assurances there might be for him of future blessing (Isa. 56:3-5). Sitting in his chariot, on his return from the city of hollow forms and barren solemnities, he turns naturally to the pages of the prophets, and of Isaiah most of all, to find consolation; but here too he was met by sorrow, and of a kind also that he could not penetrate, — the sorrows of One from whom Israel, it seemed, had turned, of One led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb dumb before its shearers, His judgment taken away, His life from the earth. He is reading this aloud as he overtakes Philip upon the road, as if he would impress himself with something which should have significance for him, but has not; the cloud is over it hopelessly, as it seems to him, without some guide; and he has none. How could he think of finding an interpreter upon that desert way, his back upon Jerusalem, and after his useless visit there?

How the voice of the evangelist, cheery with its message ready, the Voice of the Spirit astir in him to deliver it, must have made his heart leap in response to the question which penetrated already with a ray of light the gloom of his perplexity, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" "How should I?" he answers simply; "except some one should guide me?" And immediately there springs up in his soul the eager hope that in this unknown stranger, God may have sent him help. He asks Philip, therefore, to sit with him in his chariot, and soon is an enwrapt hearer of the gospel of Christ.

The eunuch was a great man under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians; but he had long since, I may say, proved that the vanities of the Ethiopians would not do for him. He appears before us as one who had already cast the idols of that land to the moles and to the bats, and taken up the confession of the name of the God of Israel. In the obedience of this faith he had just gone, where first we see him, to Jerusalem, the city of solemnities, where the worship of the God of Israel was conducted, and he had gone there as a worshipper. But he had left Jerusalem dissatisfied; he was on his way home to the south country with a craving, aching heart; he was still an enquirer, as surely so as the queen of Sheba had been in her day, when she left her native country for the same city - Jerusalem - and the contrast here is vivid. Jerusalem had satisfied the spirit of the queen, but it had left the soul of the eunuch a barren and thirsty place.