Jeremiah 38:7

AN ETHIOPIAN RESCUES JEREMIAH

"Now when Ebel-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, who was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon (the king then sitting in the gate of Benjamin). Ebel-melech went forth out of the king's house, and spake to the king, saying, My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon; and he is like to die in the place where he is, because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city. Then the king commanded Ebel-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Take from hence thirty men with thee, and take up Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon, before he die. So Ebel-melech took the men with him, and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took thence rags and worn-out garments, and let them down by cords into the dungeon to Jeremiah. And Ebel-melech the Ethiopian said unto Jeremiah, Put these rags and worn-out garments under thine armholes under the cords. And Jeremiah did so. So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard."

"Ebel-melech the Ethiopian ..." (Jeremiah 38:7,10,12). Three times here the fact of Ebel-melech's being an Ethiopian is expressly mentioned. Why? It indicates that in all the land of Judah only a despised foreigner found the grace to intercede for Jeremiah!

"A eunuch ..." (Jeremiah 38:7). There is no need for men to define this as merely "a prominent official in the government." "The Hebrew text shows that the word (eunuch) is to be taken in its proper meaning, and not in the metaphorical sense of an officer of the court."[7] There is nothing strange about a eunuch's being in the court of Zedekiah. "Since the king had many wives, a eunuch was the overseer of the harem; and as the Mosaic law forbade the castration of a Hebrew (Deuteronomy 23:2), Zedekiah's eunuch was an Ethiopian."[8]

"Take thirty men ... and take up Jeremiah ..." (Jeremiah 38:10). The radical critics suppose that was too many men to take, and "Against the authority of all the versions of the Hebrew text, and solely upon the appearance in the Septuagint (LXX) and a single manuscript of the number three in this place have changed the number."[9] The king, knowing what was needed, both for the task itself, and for protection of the rescue group, sent thirty men; and there is no need whatever to allow fallible, unbelieving men, to change the sacred text upon any whim they might have. Why were so many needed? At least four men would have been needed to pull Jeremiah up from a mud-bath reaching up to his neck. One or two men would have been needed to go get the ropes; two more would have been necessary to get the rags and worn-out garments; and one, Ebel-melech the Ethiopian would have commanded the operation. The others, fully armed, would have protected the rescue mission from all interference by the princes. We are still waiting for some radical critic to explain how all of this could have been done with three men!

The providence of God in this rescue of Jeremiah is very evident. "On that day when the greatest of the Benjaminites (Jeremiah) was in his greatest need, the king was already in the Gate of Benjamin, as if waiting to hear his case."[10]

Speaking of the specious arguments vainly proposed in favor of changing the number in this mission from thirty to three, Keil stated that. "The arguments are quite invalid";[11] and Feinberg declared that, "Such slight evidence is insufficient to overrule the MT, and only this kind of hypercriticism would call in question Biblical numbers on such grounds."[12]