But Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern… They pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern… Jeremiah 38:7-13
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers,
for by doing so some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing
it. Hebrews 13:2
The prophet Jeremiah has become what used to be called a
hot potato. He’s been preaching to the people of Jerusalem that they should
accept the judgment of God upon them, even though they are his own special
people, and yield to the mighty Babylonians and their ferocious king,
Nebuchadnezzar. Poor King Zedekiah, who is destined to become Judah’s last
king, doesn’t know what to do with him: should he accept his message and lead
his people to surrender? or should he listen to those who regard Jeremiah as a
traitor and put him to death?
He tries to find a middle way. He “gave orders for Jeremiah
to be placed in the courtyard of the guard”, but he arranges too for him to be
given “a loaf of bread from the street of the bakers each day until all the
bread in the city is gone” (37:21). In other words, he agrees to silence him,
but not to kill him; he is to see out the siege to the bitter end, though in custody.
But that’s not good enough for Jeremiah’s arch-enemies (they
are named in 38:1): “This man should be put to death”, they insist. Zedekiah responds
with those pathetic words we noticed last time, caving in to their bullying:
“He is in your hands… The king can do nothing to oppose you”. (Rather like
Pontius Pilate washing his hands of responsibility for Jesus’ death, don’t you
think?)
But Jeremiah’s enemies in fact hold back from killing him
(why we aren’t told); they take him instead and dump him in “the cistern of
Malkijah, the king’s son” (38:6), where he “sinks down into the mud”. (It’s
tempting to think that he might just as well be dead.)
But… God has other ideas! Enter Ebed-Melech who is the hero
of the hour, truly an unsung hero of the Bible.
His name means “servant of the king” (apparently quite a
common name), and that is exactly what he was; he is one of Zedekiah’s “officials”.
He learns what has happened to Jeremiah, and he makes it his business to go to
the king to protest. Zedekiah, as usual leaning whichever way the wind is
blowing, authorises him to take a party of other servants and pull Jeremiah out
of the cistern. The process of pulling him out seems not to have been too easy,
and Ebed-Melech seems to have been especially thoughtful to ensure that he
didn’t suffer unnecessarily: he “took some old rags and worn-out clothes… and
let them down to Jeremiah in the cistern”. He told him (presumably shouting
down into the depths, “’Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms
to pad the ropes’”.
And so Jeremiah was rescued: not very dignified, it’s true,
no doubt dirty and smelly, but at least alive.
What do we know about Ebed-Melech? Very little; these two
chapters of Jeremiah’s book (38 and 39) are the only place in the Bible where
he appears. And I don’t suggest he has anything very deep to teach us. But
following Jesus isn’t only a matter of profound truths; sometimes simple, small
and everyday things are what matters. So what can we glean?
First, he was a foreigner in
Israel, an African. The Bible’s “Cush” is generally thought to be roughly what
today we call Ethiopia. How he came to be in Judah we don’t know, and whether
or not he had accepted the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob likewise. How he
came to be part of the royal household, again, we don’t know.
But, second, what matters is that when a crisis
arose he responded to it with courage, integrity and sheer practical know-how.
Whether he had become a personal follower of Jeremiah we are not told, but
obviously he felt it his duty to speak and to act on his behalf. Probably that
involved a real element of risk, for the little quartet mentioned in 38:1 will
not have been happy. Even if his role in the palace was quite a minor one, he
took intelligent advantage of it and wasn’t afraid to confront the king
himself.
He can be a challenge to us in our day to day lives. When
difficulties arise, including tricky moral decisions that have to be made, do
we tend to keep our heads down and just go with the flow, or are we prepared to
stand up and be counted?
Third, Ebed-Melech reminds us that
God has his people in all sorts of unexpected places. Who would have guessed
that a champion for God’s prophet would take the form of a minor official in
the royal entourage who wasn’t even an Israelite? As keen Bible-readers we of
course get pretty familiar with the big personalities of both testaments:
Abraham, Moses, David; Peter, Paul, John. But let’s not overlook the unsung heroes
– for example, the unnamed servant girl of Naaman’s wife who spoke up at just
the right time (2 Kings 5); or Obadiah, King Ahab’s “palace administrator” who
was also “a devout believer in the Lord” and who supported the prophet Elijah
and used his influence to protect other believers (1 Kings 18); or the list of
those we might consider nonentities but who obviously meant a lot to Paul
(Romans 16). All, in their own ways, unsung heroes.
Who knows, in your normal routine today you might find
yourself talking to “an angel without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2)?
One detail of the Ebed-Melech episode that particularly
makes me smile is his concern to ensure that Jeremiah was made as comfortable
as possible during his ordeal in the cistern – that detail about the rags and
old clothes to protect his armpits. People who think about things like that…
you can’t help but warm to them, can you?
Thank you, Father, for the Ebed-Melechs of this
world – those men and women who may strike us as complete non-entities, but who
show the graciousness, the courage and the love of Jesus. Help me to notice and
value them. Help me, indeed, to be one of them. Amen.