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‘They drew up Jeremiah with cords.’
Jer_38:13
(1) Jeremiah, because he spoke the unpopular truth, though he knew it must give offence, was thrown into a dungeon. It was a deep hole in the ground into which the prisoner was lowered with ropes; the floor of it was mire, and with that simplicity which in the Bible so often embraces a world of misery or horror, it is said that Jeremiah ‘sank in the mire.’ The French had a name for such dungeons which is vivid and significant. They called them ‘oubliettes,’ which means places where people are forgotten. The idea of the oppressor was to put those who offended or gave trouble both out of sight and out of mind, and sometimes, if they did not starve, they lingered on until it was forgotten who they were or why they had been imprisoned. Such things are instances not only of ‘man’s inhumanity to man,’ but also of human folly, for to put the truth-speaker out of sight is not to kill the truth, and the truth cannot be forgotten or quenched in darkness. It abides in the mind of God, and if it is not accepted as a guiding light it will come as a consuming fire.
(2) If the light of the future had been cast upon the darkness of the dungeon, Jeremiah might have seen the innumerable company of noble spirits in all ages who were committed to a like darkness for the same cause. Among them are John the Baptist, the Apostles James and John and Peter, St. Paul, of the first Christian era, the countless martyrs of the Roman persecutions, such as Bruno and Galileo, for the truth of science, John Bunyan, and even in the nineteenth century, such as Joseph Mazzini. It is evident that if men had been successful in the attempt to put out these God-given luminaries of the dark centuries, they would have put every star of hope or guidance out of their sky, and condemned themselves to a miry dungeon of barbarism and despair. But God is merciful, and frustrates blind human violence; and when the world puts forth all its force against one of His servants, the voice of Jesus is heard through its clamour and calming its storm, ‘Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’
II. The rescue.
(1) It is a pleasant thing to find that the first to pity Jeremiah’s state was Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch, a man of a race and a condition which the Jews despised. It is pleasant because it shows that at heart and at their best there is no absolute difference or impassable gulf between the races of mankind. All are capable of pity, love, and kindly service. Race-pride makes one branch of humanity think itself superior to every other, and sceptical of the power even of the Gospel to raise the lowest to the level of the highest; and yet there are countless instances of lowest inhumanity in the superior races and most heroic humanity in those counted inferior. The Chinaman makes a brave martyr for the truth of Christ, the negro servants of Livingstone show an incredible heroism of affection, the women of the South Seas are capable of an angelic pity. One of the earliest Gentile converts was an Ethiopian eunuch (Act_8:27). There is an admirable thoughtfulness, one may add, in Ebed-melech’s pity; for the method of lifting the prophet out of the dungeon is designed to save him pain as much as possible (Act_8:11-12).
(2) The king, having released Jeremiah, is eager for a favourable prophecy. Here was a temptation to a man just out of a horrible pit to say the smooth and pleasing word which would gain him favour. But Jeremiah was prepared to undergo the same horrors rather than prophesy falsely, ‘choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.’ He made reasonable conditions, however, for there was no need to throw away his liberty; and, having secured the king’s promise of safety, proceeded inflexibly to repeat the alternative of submission to the Chaldeans at once, or resistance, and a more abject submission later after the hardships and calamity of a siege. Zedekiah was so weak that he could not protect Jeremiah from his nobles except by keeping the more important part of the interview a secret. The prophet remained in a milder imprisonment until the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.