Jeremiah in the Mud

Darkness. Cold. Mud up to his knees, and still sinking. Far above, a small circle of daylight. Jeremiah has been let down on ropes into an old cistern, and left there.

Jerusalem is surrounded by the army of Babylon. Food is running out. Jeremiah is being held in the courtyard of the guard, but he keeps saying what God has told him to say. The city will be handed over to Babylon. Those who stay will die by the sword, by famine and by disease. But those who go out and surrender to the Babylonians will live. To the king’s officials, it sounds like treason.

Four of them, Shephatiah, Gedaliah, Jucal and Pashhur, go to King Zedekiah. “This man should be put to death,” they say. “He is discouraging the soldiers left in the city, and all the people too. He is not looking for their good, but their harm.” And the king, weak and afraid, simply gives in. “He is in your hands. The king can do nothing against you.” So they take Jeremiah and lower him on ropes into a cistern in the courtyard of the guard. There is no water in it. Only mud. And Jeremiah sinks down into the mud.

But someone hears what has happened. His name is Ebed-melech. He is an Ethiopian, a eunuch serving in the king’s palace, a foreigner in Jerusalem. The king is sitting at the Benjamin Gate. Ebed-melech goes straight out of the palace to find him, and he speaks up.

“My lord the king, these men have done evil in everything they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into the cistern, and he will die of hunger there, for there is no more bread in the city.”

This time the king listens. “Take thirty men from here,” he says, “and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.” Ebed-melech goes to a storeroom in the palace and finds a pile of old rags and worn-out clothes. He lets them down to Jeremiah on the ropes. “Put these old rags under your arms, to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah does. And they pull him up, out of the mud. It is a small detail, but a beautiful one. Ebed-melech did not only save Jeremiah’s life. He thought about how much the ropes would hurt.

Soon afterwards, King Zedekiah sends for Jeremiah in secret, at an entrance to the temple. “I am going to ask you something. Don’t hide anything from me.” Jeremiah answers honestly. “If I tell you, won’t you kill me? And if I give you advice, you won’t listen.” The king swears an oath in private that he will not harm him. So Jeremiah tells him the truth. Surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, and you will live, and this city will not be burned. But Zedekiah is afraid of what people will do to him. Jeremiah pleads with him. “Obey, I beg you, the voice of the Lord in what I am telling you. Then it will go well with you, and your life will be spared.” The king cannot bring himself to do it. And Jeremiah stays in the courtyard of the guard, right up to the day Jerusalem is taken.

A cistern was a pit dug down into the rock, often shaped like a bottle, narrow at the top and wide below, with its walls plastered so it could store rainwater through the long dry summer. Houses and public buildings in Jerusalem relied on them. During a long siege, with no rain to refill it, a cistern could run dry, leaving only a thick layer of mud at the bottom. With a narrow opening and steep walls, there was no way to climb out.

This story is told in Jeremiah chapter thirty-eight. In the next chapter, God sends Ebed-melech a promise of his own: he will be kept safe when the city falls, because he trusted in the Lord. The king had all the power and did nothing. A foreign servant had almost none, and he spoke up. So here is something to think about. Who around you is stuck, or treated unfairly, and needs someone brave enough to speak up for them?