Daily Reading - 8/14/25
Jeremiah 39:15-18
Above: Seals of the prophets Jehucal and Gedaliah. These opponents of Jeremiah appear in Jeremiah 37-38.
Today’s Reading Plan:
And the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah when he was bound in the court of the guard, saying, “Go and say to Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel, Behold I will fulfill my words about this city, for evil and not for good, and they will be [accomplished] before you on that day. But I will save you on that day, declares Yahweh, and I will not give you into the hand of the men whom you fear. For I will surely save you, and you will not fall by the sword but shall keep your life as a prize of war, because you trusted in me, declares Yahweh.’”
Jeremiah 39:15-18
At this point in the book of Jeremiah the Southern kingdom of Judah has already begun to unravel. The Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC has already begun. We learn today that Jeremiah was kept safe during that time because he was at the bottom of a well. He was thrown into the well at the beginning of today’s readings, by a rival prophet in Judah named Shephatiah. Jeremiah had been advising the Judeans—even the king himself—to abandon the war effort and surrender to the Babylonians. Jeremiah went as far as to advise individual defections to Babylon, saying, “He who stays in this city will die by the sword, famine, and plague, but he who goes out to the Babylonians will live. He will have his life like a prize of war, and live” (38:2). Jeremiah is advising treason! No surprise, then, that the ruling elite of Judah put Jeremiah in a well, intending to kill him (38:4-6).
Though the courtiers around king Zedekiah tried to have him killed, a slave in the royal household recognized the injustice being done and sought to fix it. His name was “Ebed-melech,” which literally means, “Slave of the king.” Jeremiah 38:7 tells us two more interesting details about Ebed-melech: He was an Ethiopian and a eunuch. The term translated “Ethiopian” here is kushi. Unfortunately for us, ancient people did not have very good geographical knowledge. In an ancient text, therefore, “Ethiopian” can mean an inhabitant of East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, or even the “Hindu Kush” of Central Asia. Here as elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible it probably refers to the people of East Africa and Southwest Yemen, which were connected culturally and often politically. Jeremiah 38:7 also tells us that Ebed-melech was a “eunuch” (saris). Though the term could sometimes metaphorically mean something like “political elite,” in the way that “minister” is a high office in England today, that is not the case here. Ebed-melech was a slave-eunuch. That is, he had had his ability to produce children surgically removed. This was a common practice in the ancient world, especially when a slave was needed for serving the needs of the women of the court. The method in western Asia was more humane than the contemporaneous Chinese method. In western Asia and into Europe one only removed the ability to produce children. In China, until the end of the imperial period, the entire apparatus was removed.
Ebed-melech was a foreigner, a slave, and a eunuch. From these details alone we know that life had been extraordinarily harsh for him. But Ebed-melech is a sign of God’s grace for us. Jeremiah tells Ebed-melech that because he “trusted” in God, God would rescue him from the coming catastrophe. This is a reminder that even when God shapes the destinies of entire nations, fulfilling some grand purpose, God still cares for individual people. Even though God was bringing judgement on the Israelites as a collective, he was gracious to individual Israelites—and even foreigners living in Israel—who trusted him. God has not changed. Though God has begun to shake up the international order around us, and though the future seems frightening and violent, God will not overlook a single one of us.