Jeremiah 38:7-13 – God qualifies our calling

Jeremiah was thrown into a muddy cistern, a dry unused well, and left to die. But God delivered him. For at the onset of his call, God in Jeremiah 1:8 had promised him saying,  “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you declares the Lord.” So while he left to die in a mud-filled cistern, God sent a man to initiate a move to secure his release. God will never fail in His promise.  His deliverance can come in the most unusual way and from people whom we often least expect. Jeremiah 38:7-13  narrate how Jeremiah was unusually rescued.

The man God used to initiate Jeremiah’s deliverance was a certain Ebed-melech. Verse 7 said that he was an Ethiopian, and a Gentile eunuch serving in Zedekiah’s court. His name “Ebed-melech” simply means “servant of the king.” What sort of name is that? In the Jewish context, his existence would count for nothing. He has no identity of his own and was only defined by his relationship with the king. But we have an indication  from verse 9 that he was a compassionate man. He could have ignored when he overheard what the officials had done to Jeremiah, but he didn’t. He made it his business to do something for the prophet.

Verse 8-9 said that he went out to the king who was seated at the Gate of Benjamin. There he openly told the king, “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet whom they have cast into the cistern; and he will die right where he is because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city.” In a sense, he forced the hand of Zedekiah to do something. So he ordered him to take thirty men with him to rescue Jeremiah from the cistern.

Verses 11-13 described how Jeremiah was rescued. “Ebed-melech took the men under his authority and went into the king’s palace to a place beneath the storeroom and took from there worn-out clothes and worn-out rags and let them down by ropes into the cistern to Jeremiah.” He then to Jeremiah, “Now put these worn-out clothes and rags under your armpits under the ropes”; and Jeremiah did so. “ So they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern, and Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guardhouse.

The lesson God will always come to the rescue of His true servant. He could use instruments we least expect. God does not need a person of significance. All it requires of us to be used by God is a willing and compassionate heart, one who dares to take the initiative. In God’s service, He qualifies the call.