Jeremiah 38:7
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Now Ebed-melech the Cushite, a court official in the royal palace, heard that Jeremiah had been put into the cistern. While the king was sitting at the Gate of Benjamin,
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
In this chapter, just as in the former, we have Jeremiah greatly debased under the frowns of the princes, and yet greatly honoured by the favour of the king. They used him as a criminal; he used him as a privy-counsellor. Here, I. Jeremiah for his faithfulness is put into the dungeon by the princes (Jer 38:1-6). II. At the intercession of Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, by special order from the king, he is taken up out of the dungeon and confined only to the court of the prison (Jer 38:7-13). III. He has a private conference with the king upon the present conjuncture of affairs (Jer 38:14-22). IV. Care is taken to keep that conference private (Jer 38:24-28).
Open source ↗38:7-8 the Ethiopian (cp. Luke 17:18; Acts 28:28): Jeremiah’s rescuer was not from Judah; he was a foreigner who dared to defy the other officials. He ran to the Benjamin Gate, where Jeremiah was first arrested (Jer 37:11-13), and rushed into the king’s presence without ceremony.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate and despise him who speaks with integrity.
But when he reached the Gate of Benjamin, the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, seized him and said, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans!”
his father and mother are to lay hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown,
(This was after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the court officials, the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metalsmiths had been exiled from Jerusalem.)
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Neither are you able to do good— you who are accustomed to doing evil.
So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Envoys will arrive from Egypt; Cush will stretch out her hands to God.
The officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the pieces of the calf,