38:7-8 A courtier in the palace, Ebed-melech (lit. "servant of the king"), heard about Jeremiah's plight. He happened to be an Ethiopian or Cushite (from modern-day southern Egypt, northeastern Sudan, and northern Ethiopia).494Often courtiers were eunuchs, but the Hebrew word translated "eunuch"here, saris, often means simply a male court official (cf. 29:2; Gen. 39:1; Dan. 1:7; et al.). Ebed-melech sought out the king, who was then at the Benjamin Gate, to speak to him. Kings went to city gates to hear complaints from their citizens (cf. 2 Sam. 15:2-4), so Ebed-melech went there with his complaint.
". . . only a despised foreigner cared enough for the prophet to risk trouble in saving him (cf. 39:15-18)."495
38:9 Ebed-melech informed the king that Jeremiah's enemies had acted wickedly by putting him in the cistern. The prophet would die if he remained there because there was no more food in Jerusalem and he would be neglected. Zedekiah had previously promised to provide food for Jeremiah as long as there was food available (37:21), so Ebed-melech may have been appealing to this promise.
"God, as is His way so often, used an insignificant person to touch off Jeremiah's rescue."496
38:10 Zedekiah authorized Ebed-melech to use 30 of the eunuch's own men to extract Jeremiah from the cistern.497Evidently Zedekiah expected that Ebed-melech might encounter some opposition and would need a lot of manpower.
38:11 Ebed-melech assembled his men and gathered together old clothes and rags from the palace wardrobe storeroom and let them down by ropes to Jeremiah.
38:12-13 The Ethiopian then told Jeremiah to use the clothes to cushion the ropes that he was to put under his armpits. Jeremiah did this, and the men were able to pull the prophet out of the cistern. However, he remained confined in the court of the guardhouse.
