1And Shephatiah son of Mattan and Gedaliah son of Pashshur and Jucal son of Shelemiah and Pashhur son of Malkiah heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking to the people, saying, 2“Thus said the LORD: He who dwells in this city shall die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, and he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be booty but he shall live. 3Thus said the LORD: This city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylonia’s force and he shall capture it.” 4And the nobles said to the king: “Let this man be put to death, for he is surely weakening the hands of the men of war remaining in this city and the hands of the people to speak to them words of this sort, for this man does not seek the welfare of this people but rather harm.” 5And King Zedekiah said, “Here he is in your hand, for the king can do nothing with you.” 6And they took Jeremiah and flung him into the pit of Malchiah the king’s son, which is in the court of the guard, and they lowered Jeremiah with ropes. And in the pit there was no water, only muck, and Jeremiah sank into the muck. 7And Ebed-Melech the Cushite, a eunuch, heard, and he was in the king’s house, that they had put Jeremiah in the pit, and the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate. 8And Ebed-Melech came out from the king’s house and spoke to the king, saying, 9“My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, in that they have flung him into the pit, and he could die on the spot of hunger, for there is no more bread in the city.” 10And the king charged Ebed-Melech the Cushite, saying, “Take in your charge from here thirty men and raise up Jeremiah the prophet from the pit before he dies.” 11And Ebed-Melech took the men in his charge and came into the king’s house beneath the treasury, and he took from there worn rags and worn clothes and sent them to Jeremiah in the pit with ropes. 12And Ebed-Melech the Cushite said to Jeremiah, “Pray, put the worn rags and clothes under your armpits beneath the ropes,” and so did Jeremiah do. 13And they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and brought him up out of the pit, and Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard. 14And King Zedekiah sent and took Jeremiah the prophet to him by the third entrance which is in the house of the LORD, and the king said to Jeremiah, “I am asking something of you. Do not hide the thing from me.” 15And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Should I tell you, would you not surely put me to death? And should I counsel you, you would not heed me.” 16And King Zedekiah secretly swore to Jeremiah, “As the LORD lives, Who made this life of ours, I will not put you to death and I will not give you into the hand of the men who seek your life.” 17And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus said the LORD God of Armies, God of Israel: If you indeed go out to the commanders of the king of Babylonia, you shall live and this city shall not be burned, and you and your household shall live. 18And if you do not go out to the commanders of the king of Babylonia, the city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it in fire, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand.” 19And King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am worried about the Judahites who have gone over to the Chaldeans, lest they give me into their hands and they abuse me.” 20And Jeremiah said, “They will not give you over. Heed, pray, the voice of the LORD that I speak to you, that it be well with you, and you live. 21But should you refuse to go out, this is the word that the LORD has shown me. 22Look, all the women who have remained in the house of the king of Judah are to be brought out to the commanders of the king of Babylonia, and, look, they say:
‘They deceived you and prevailed over you,
the men who were your intimates.
They have fallen back.’
23And all your wives and your children are to be brought out to the Chaldeans, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand, for in the hand of the king of Babylonia you shall be caught, and this city shall be burned in fire.” 24And Zedekiah said to Jeremiah “Let no man know these things, and you shall not die. 25And should the nobles hear that I have spoken with you and come to you and say to you, ‘Tell us, pray, what you spoke to the king. Do not conceal it from us, and we will not put you to death, what the king spoke to you.’ 26You shall say to them, ‘I was laying my supplication before the king not to send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’” 27And all the nobles came to Jeremiah and asked him, and he told them according to these words that the king had charged him, and they ceased speaking with him, for the thing had not been heard. 28And Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard till the day Jerusalem was captured. And it happened, when the city was captured. . . .
CHAPTER 38 NOTES
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4. Let this man be put to death, for he is surely weakening the hands of the men of war. This response of the nobles—who are probably high royal officials—is hardly surprising. Jerusalem is engaged in a bitter fight for its survival, and this prophet repeatedly and vehemently announces that all is lost, a kind of speech that could easily be regarded as treasonous.
the men of war remaining in this city. The phrasing may suggest that a substantial number of the warriors have deserted to the enemy, which is basically what Jeremiah has been urging. Compare verse 19.
5. for the king can do nothing with you. These words reflect a real power struggle in the court during the siege. The king is disinclined to harm Jeremiah because he regards him as an authentic prophet, but he feels that he is unable to resist the angry resolution of his nobles, who, after all, see dangerous sedition in Jeremiah’s prophecies.
6. they lowered Jeremiah with ropes. This report qualifies “flung” in the previous clause. The pit must have been quite deep—perhaps twenty feet or more—to necessitate the lowering with ropes. The nobles do not want to kill Jeremiah outright, but rather to leave him to perish at the bottom of the dank pit.
there was no water, only muck. During the winter months, such a pit would serve as a reservoir for rainwater, but it is now midsummer, so only a residue of muck at the bottom remains.
7. Ebed-Melech the Cushite. A Cushite is a Nubian. One assumes that this is an accurate historical identification, but it is ironic that a foreigner should take the initiative to save the prophet.
9. he could die on the spot of hunger. This is new information: the nobles intended to let Jeremiah die by not providing him any food from the scarce resources.
10. thirty men. Obviously, just two or three would have sufficed to haul Jeremiah up out of the pit. In all likelihood, this reflects a countermove by the king to the nobles’ assertion of power. Thirty men would ensure that no one could easily interfere with the rescue, and it is even possible that these men are armed.
11. the treasury. This may be a storeroom because it contains rags.
12. put the worn rags and clothes under your armpits beneath the ropes. The rags are to serve as padding so that Jeremiah will not be cut or abraded by the ropes under his arms as he is pulled up.
13. Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard. This is his previous place of confinement, where he enjoyed relative freedom of movement.
14. And King Zedekiah sent and took Jeremiah the prophet to him. The king’s motive in accepting Ebed-Melech’s advice and defying the nobles to save Jeremiah becomes clear: he continues to regard the prophet as a crucial channel of God’s intentions, and in this moment of national crisis, he wants to know what those may be.
17. If you indeed go out to the commanders of the king of Babylonia. Jeremiah counsels surrender, a piece of advice that may well have followed from his unblinking assessment of the military situation rather than from a directive by God.
19. the Judahites who have gone over to the Chaldeans. These deserters, opposed to Zedekiah’s policy of armed resistance to the Babylonians, would have seen him as their enemy.
22. They deceived you and prevailed over you. To drive home his point, Jeremiah attributes two lines of poetry to the women of the royal house being led out to the Babylonians, presumably to become their sex slaves.
Your feet have sunk in mud. Although this clause approximates the metaphorical representation of dire distress in Psalms, it also obviously resonates with Jeremiah’s plight in the muck at the bottom of the pit.
24. Let no man know these things. Zedekiah does not want to compound his own political difficulties vis-à-vis members of his court by having it known that, beyond the act of saving Jeremiah, he has been the willing audience to the prophet’s grim pronouncements that the nobles would regard as seditious.
27. and he told them according to these words that the king had charged him. Here we have an instance of a prophet lying, though one must say that it is a lie intended to save the king from a gravely compromising predicament in this complicated play of political forces.
28. And it happened, when the city was captured. . . . The Hebrew cannot mean “And he was there when the city was captured,” as some have claimed. Rather, this is a clause that breaks off. S. D. Luzatto, the eighteenth-century Italian Hebrew exegete, proposes that the actual place of this clause is at the beginning of 39:11. This does make syntactic and semantic sense as follows: “And it happened, when the city was captured, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia charged concerning Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain, saying.”