One whose walk is blameless is Kept Safe. Proverbs 28:18
In Jeremiah chapters 38 and 39, we see God’s safekeeping of a man called Ebed-Melech (servant or works ‘abad’ and Melek ‘God’). This man was a Cushite/foreigner and likely a eunuch, so he could never have been in the congregation of the Lord (Deut 23:1) but he attracted God’s Favour and his story is recorded for us to read today.
The prophet Jeremiah had spoken God’s word to the people who were besieged in Jerusalem, judgement was on them. They didn’t want to listen and so they put Jeremiah in a dried up cistern, out of sight, in the ground. The Word gives a vivid, shocking description of Jeremiah’s plight;
… it (cistern) had no water in it, only mud and Jeremiah sank down into the mud. Jeremiah 38:6
Maybe there have been times in our lives when we felt forgotten, out of sight and sinking into the mud. God’s Word spells it out, this was his situation. The men who had put him there wanted no more of Jeremiah or his words. ‘But God’; God overruled those who put him there; God lifted Jeremiah out. The foreigner, Ebed- Melech, who may have been known by his title, ‘servant of the king’ and not by a name went to ask for his release.
8 Ebed-Melech went out of the palace and said to him, 9 ‘My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern, where he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread in the city.’
God overruled the fate decreed by men for His prophet, the king told his official to rescue Jeremiah.
10 Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Cushite, ‘Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.’
Ebed-Melech didn’t just go and pull him out of the pit, he brought rags to pad under his arms, to protect him while he being lifted out. He acted with kindness to the prophet.
Then we read God’s Word to Ebed-Melech;
16 ‘Go and tell Ebed-Melech the Cushite, “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfil my words against this city – words concerning disaster, not prosperity. At that time they will be fulfilled before your eyes. 17 But I will rescue you on that day, declares the Lord; YOU WILL NOT BE GIVEN INTO THE HANDS OF THOSE YOU FEAR. 18 I WILL SAVE YOU; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the Lord.”’ Jeremiah 39
Only God could guarantee to save one individual’s life in a city about to fall in battle. Once again, GOD CHOSE (His ways are not man’s ways Isaiah 55) someone who would have been looked upon as inferior, like Rahab in Jericho and the woman at the well of Sycar.
Ebed-Melech Rescued Jeremiah and God Remembered him at the fall of a city. We never know how and when God will repay what is done for others and not for self.
God bless and remember your help to His people today.