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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 38:1 - 38:1
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In this chapter two events are mentioned which took place in the last period of the siege of Jerusalem, shortly before the capture of the city by the Chaldeans. According to Jer 38:4, the number of fighting men had now very much decreased; and according to Jer 38:19, the number of deserters to the Chaldeans had become large. Moreover, according to Jer 38:9, famine had already begun to prevail; this hastened the fall of the city.
Jer 38:1-4
Jeremiah is cast into a miry pit, but drawn out again by Ebedmelech the Cushite. Jer 38:1-6. Being confined in the court of the guard attached to the royal palace, Jeremiah had opportunities of conversing with the soldiers stationed there and the people of Judah who came thither (cf. Jer 38:1 with Jer 32:8, Jer 32:12), and of declaring, in opposition to them, his conviction (which he had indeed expressed from the beginning of the siege) that all resistance to the Chaldeans would be fruitless, and only bring destruction (cf. Jer 21:9.). On this account, the princes who were of a hostile disposition towards him were so embittered, that they resolved on his death, and obtain from the king permission to cast him into a deep pit with mire at the bottom. In v. 1 four of these princes are named, two of whom, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashur the son of Malchiah, are known, from Jer 37:3 and Jer 21:1, as confidants of the king; the other two, Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, are not mentioned elsewhere. Gedaliah was probably a son of the Pashur who had once put Jeremiah in the stocks (Jer 20:1-2). The words of the prophet, Jer 38:2, Jer 38:3, are substantially the same as he had already uttered at the beginning of the siege, Jer 21:9 (יחיה as in Jer 21:9). Jer 38:4. The princes said to the king, "Let this man, we beseech thee, be put to death for the construction, see on Jer 35:14; for therefore i.e., because no one puts him out of existence - עַל־כֵּן as in Jer 29:28 he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking words like these to them; for this man does not seek the welfare of this people, but their ill." מְרַפֵּא for מְרַפֶּא, to cause the hands of any one to be relaxed, i.e., to make him dispirited; cf. Ezr 4:4; Isa 35:3. דָּרַשׁ with לְ htiw , as Job 10:6; Deu 12:30; 1Ch 22:19, etc., elsewhere with the accusatival אֵת; cf. Jer 29:7 et passim. On this point cf. Jer 29:7. The allegation which the princes made against Jeremiah was possibly correct. The constancy with which Jeremiah declared that resistance was useless, since, in accordance with the divine decree, Jerusalem was to be taken and burnt by the Chaldeans, could not but make the soldiers and the people unwilling any longer to sacrifice their lives in defending the city. Nevertheless the complaint was unjust, because Jeremiah was not expressing his own personal opinion, but was declaring the word of the Lord, and that, too, not from any want of patriotism or through personal cowardice, but in the conviction, derived from the divine revelation, that it was only by voluntary submission that the fate of the besieged could be mitigated; hence he acted from a deep feeling of love to the people, and in order to avert complete destruction from them. The courage of the people which he sought to weaken was not a heroic courage founded on genuine trust in God, but carnal obstinacy, which could not but lead to ruin.
Jer 38:5
The king said, "Behold, he is in your hand, for the king can do nothing alongside of you." This reply indicates not merely the weakness and powerlessness of the king against his princes, but also his inward aversion to the testimony of the man of God. "That he would like to save him, just as he afterwards does (Jer 38:10)," is not implied in what he says, with which he delivers up the prophet to the spite of his enemies. Though the princes had at once put Jeremiah to death, the king would not even have been able to reproach them. The want of courage vigorously to oppose the demand of the princes did not spring from any kindly feeling towards the prophet, but partly from moral weakness of character, partly from inward repugnance to the word of God proclaimed by Jeremiah. On the construction אֵין וּיכַל instead of the participle from יָכֹול, which does not occur, cf. Ewald, §321, a. אֶתֶכֶם is certainly in form an accusative; but it cannot be such, since דָּבָר follows as the accusative: it is therefore either to be pointed אִתְּכֶם or to be considered as standing for it, just as אֹותְךָ often occurs for אִתְּךָ, "with," i.e., "along with you."
Jer 38:6
The princes (שָׂרִים) now cast Jeremiah into the pit of the king's son (בֶּן־מֶלֶךְ, see on Jer 36:26) Malchiah, which was in the court of the prison, letting him down with ropes into the pit, in which there was no water, but mud; into this Jeremiah sank. The act is first mentioned in a general way in the words, "they cast him into the pit;" then the mode of proceeding is particularized in the words, "and they let him down," etc. On the expression הַבֹּור מַלְכִּיָּהוּ, "the pit of Malchiah," cf. Ewald, §290, d: the article stands here before the nomen regens, because the nomen rectum, from being a proper name, cannot take it; and yet the pit must be pointed out as one well known and definite. That it was very deep, and that Jeremiah must have perished in it if he were not soon taken out again, is evident from the very fact that they were obliged to use ropes in letting him down, and still more so from the trouble caused in pulling him out (Jer 38:10-12). That the princes did not at once put the prophet to death with the sword was not owing to any feeling of respect for the king, because the latter had not pronounced sentence of death on him, but because they sought to put the prophet to a final death, and yet at the same time wished to silence the voice of conscience with the excuse that they had not shed his blood.
Jer 38:7-9
The deliverance of Jeremiah. Ebedmelech the Cushite, a eunuch, heard of what had happened to Jeremiah. אִישׁ סָרִיס .haimer signifies a eunuch: the אִישׁ shows that סָרִיס is here to be taken in its proper meaning, not in the metaphorical sense of an officer of the court. Since the king had many wives (Jer 38:22.), the presence of a eunuch at the court, as overseer of the harem, cannot seem strange. The law of Moses, indeed, prohibited castration (Deu 23:2); but the man was a foreigner, and had been taken by the king into his service as one castrated. עֶבֶד מֶלֶךְ is a proper name (otherwise it must have been written הַמֶּלֶךְ); the name is a genuine Hebrew one, and probably may have been assumed when the man entered the service of Zedekiah. - On hearing of what had occurred, the Ethiopian went to the king, who was sitting in the gate of Benjamin, on the north wall of the city, which was probably the point most threatened by the besiegers, and said to him, Jer 38:9, "My lord, O king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the pit; and he is dying of hunger on the spot, for there is no more bread in the city." הֵרֵעוּ אֶת־אֲ, lit.,: "they have done wickedly what they have done." וַיָּמָת cannot be translated, "and he died on the spot," for Ebedmelech wishes to save him before he dies of hunger. But neither does it stand for וְיָמֹת, "so that he must die." The imperfect with Vav consecutive expresses the consequence of a preceding act, and usually stands in the narrative as a historic tense; but it may also declare what necessarily follows or will follow from what precedes; cf. Ewald, §342, a. Thus וַיָּמָת stands here in the sense, "and so he is dying," i.e., "he must die of hunger." תַּחְתָּיו, "on his spot," i.e., on the place where he is; cf. 2Sa 2:23. The reason, "for there is no longer any bread (הַלֶחֶם with the article, the necessary bread) in the city," is not to be taken in the exact sense of the words, but merely expresses the greatest deficiency in provisions. As long as Jeremiah was in the court of the prison, he received, like the officers of the court, at the king's order, his ration of bread every day (Jer 37:21). But after he had been cast into the pit, that royal ordinance no longer applied to him, so that he was given over to the tender mercies of others, from whom, in the prevailing scarcity of bread, he had not much to hope for.
Jer 38:10
Then the king commanded the Ethiopian, "Take hence thirty men in thine hand, and bring up Jeremiah out of the pit before he dies." בְיָֽדְךָ, "in thine hand," i.e., under your direction; cf. Num 31:49. The number thirty has been found too great; and Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf would read שְׁלשָׁה, because the syntax requires the singular אִישׁ after שְׁלשִׁים, and because at that time, when the fighting men had already decreased in number (Jer 38:4), thirty men could not be sent away from a post in danger without difficulty. These two arguments are quite invalid. The syntax does not demand אִישׁ; for with the tens (20-90) the noun frequently follows in the plural as well as in the singular, if the number precede; cf. 2Sa 3:20; 2Ki 2:16, etc.; see also Gesenius' Grammar, §120, 2. The other argument is based on arbitrary hypotheses; for the passage neither speaks of fighting men, nor states that they would be taken from a post in danger. Ebedmelech was to take thirty men, not because they would all be required for drawing out the prophet, but for making surer work in effecting the deliverance of the prophet, against all possible attempts on the part of the princes or of the populace to prevent them.
Jer 38:11-13
Ebedmelech took the men at his hand, went into the king's house under the treasury, and took thence rags of torn and of worn-out garments, and let them down on ropes to Jeremiah into the pit, and said to him, "Put, I pray thee, the rages of the torn and cast-off clothes under thine arm-pits under the ropes." Jeremiah did so, and then they drew him out of the pit by the ropes. תַּחַת is a room under the treasury. בְּלֹוֵי, in Jer 38:12 בְּלֹואִים, from בָּלָה, to be worn away (of clothes), are rags. סְחָבֹות (from סָחַב, to drag, drag about, tear to pieces) are torn pieces of clothing. מְלָחִים, worn-out garments, from מָלַח, in Niphal, Isa 51:6, to vanish, dissolve away. The article at הַסְּחָבֹות is expunged from the Qeri for sake of uniformity, because it is not found with מְלָחִים; but it may as well be allowed to stand as be removed. אַצִּילֹות יָדַיִם, properly the roots of the hands, are not the knuckles of the hand, but the shoulders of the arms. מִתַּחַת לַחֲבָלִים, under the ropes; i.e., the rags were to serve as pads to the ropes which were to be placed under the arm-pits, to prevent the ropes from cutting the flesh. When Jeremiah had been drawn out in this way from the deep pit of mire, he remained in the court of the prison.