Relationships between Jeremiah and the king and his officials had soured. Jeremiah persisted in prophesying that Israel needed to repent or otherwise the Babylonians would defeat them.
The king and his soldiers did not want to listen. The soldiers threw Jeremiah into a cistern (a deep hole in the ground lined with clay for water storage.) It was damp, dark, cold and muddy and Jeremiah would not have lasted long there - he was not a young man anymore.
Enter Ebed-Melech. He was a Cushite (probably an Egyptian eunuch.) His name means "servant of the King." He reported Jeremiah's predicament to the king who relented and gave orders for Jeremiah to be rescued and restored to imprisonment in the courtyard of the guards.
What is striking about Ebed-Melech is the simple act of kindness revealed in our text verses. Jeremiah would have been too weak to pull himself out. So he needed to be pulled up with ropes. Ebed-Melech gets old clothes to pad Jeremiah where the ropes would have chafed him. It is an act of compassionate kindness.
Sometimes God sends angels and sometimes he sends people. We don't know all of Ebed-Melech's story (was he a convert to Judaism? What was he doing in Jerusalem as chaos was erupting? What influence did he have with the King? How did he get a Jewish name?) We do know that he was in the right place at the right time with the right influence to make a difference.
But more than that - he sweated the small stuff - apart from rescuing Jeremiah from certain death - he added a simple act of kindness to the elderly prophet: Soft padding under his arms.
Let's learn from Ebed-Melech's example and use the opportunities God gives us with fearless compassionate thoughtfulness.
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Theo Groeneveld theo@gracepresby.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
