“1 Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malkijah heard what Jeremiah was telling all the people when he said, 2 “This is what the Lord says: ‘Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live. He will escape with his life; he will live.’ 3 And this is what the Lord says: ‘This city will certainly be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it.’”
4 Then the officials said to the king, “This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.”
5 “He is in your hands,” King Zedekiah answered. “The king can do nothing to oppose you.”
6 So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.
7 But Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate, 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.”
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.”
11 So Ebed-Melech took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. 12 Ebed-Melech the Cushite said to Jeremiah, “Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah did so, 13 and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.
14 Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the Lord. “I am going to ask you something,” the king said to Jeremiah. “Do not hide anything from me.” 15 Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.”
16 But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah: “As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who are seeking your life.”
17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live. 18 But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians and they will burn it down; you yourself will not escape from their hands.’ ”
19 King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.”
20 “They will not hand you over,” Jeremiah replied. “Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you. Then it will go well with you, and your life will be spared. 21 But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me: 22 All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you: “‘They misled you and overcame you— those trusted friends of yours. Your feet are sunk in the mud; your friends have deserted you.’ 23 “All your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon; and this city will a be burned down.”
24 Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know about this conversation, or you may die. 25 If the officials hear that I talked with you, and they come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; do not hide it from us or we will kill you,’ 26 then tell them, ‘I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house to die there.’ ”
27 All the officials did come to Jeremiah and question him, and he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him, for no one had heard his conversation with the king. 28 And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured.”
Sin brings trouble. “The way of the transgressor is hard,” as Proverbs puts it. I know that from experience. You know that from experience. Sin brings trouble.
Obedience can bring trouble too. The Bible regularly shows people getting into trouble because of sin and people getting into trouble because of obedience. Lying got Jacob into a lot of trouble as seen in the book of Genesis. Telling the truth got Jesus into a lot of trouble as seen in the gospels. Sin brings trouble. Obedience can bring trouble too.
The difference is that God is for the people who are in trouble because of obedience and warns the people who are in trouble because of sin. That’s Proverbs 28:18 on display—the man whose walk is blameless is kept safe, but he whose ways are perverse will fall into the pit. That verse is the claim of this sermon: the man whose walk is blameless is kept safe, but he whose ways are perverse will fall into the pit.
We will study this in two points. First: Jeremiah’s pit. Second: Zedekiah’s pit. We see Jeremiah’s pit in verses 1-13. We see Zedekiah’s pit in verses 14-23.
First: Jeremiah’s pit. The opening of this chapter finds Jeremiah just out of prison. He was arrested because the leadership considered him a flight risk. He had, after all, been telling the people that they needed to surrender to Babylon; “I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death. Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague. But whoever goes out and surrenders to the Babylonians who are besieging you will live; they will escape with their lives,” as we studied in chapter 21.
The king released Jeremiah from prison but placed him in the courtyard of the guard. Jeremiah’s response was to continue preaching the same message; you can see that in verses 2-3, ‘This is what the Lord says: “Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live. He will escape with his life; he will live.” And this is what the Lord says: “This city will certainly be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it.”’
Even though he was already in trouble, Jeremiah continued preaching the same message that got him in trouble. Paul did the same. They did it because they considered their message to be needful. They both thought their message was a matter of life and death. In Jeremiah’s message, surrender to Babylon brought life and resistance to Babylon brought death. In Paul’s message, faith in Christ brought life and remaining in sin brought death. It’s worth considering whether we believe this message we preach is a matter of life and death.
Jeremiah’s message of life or death was not welcome. The powerbrokers listed in verse 1—Shephatiah, Gedaliah, Jehucal, and Pashhur—considered it treasonous; verse 4, “This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.”
This argument made complete sense. It also made no sense at all. It made complete sense from the perspective of these men. They were concerned about the morale of the soldiers. It made no sense at all from the perspective of anyone who took this word from God seriously, “whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live.” Those soldiers didn’t need a morale boost. They needed to surrender. Only the word of God could have told those powerbrokers that what seemed smart to them was actually foolish and that what seemed foolish to them was actually smart. They didn’t listen.
These powerbrokers wanted Jeremiah executed for treason. The king’s response tells you a good deal about his position; verse 5, ‘“He is in your hands,” King Zedekiah answered. “The king can do nothing to oppose you.”’ Zedekiah didn’t want Jeremiah to die, but neither was he willing to do anything to save him. He washed his hands of the matter just like Pilate did with Jesus. He was politically weak and personally weak.
The powerbrokers who wanted Jeremiah dead didn’t want to get their hands dirty and so they threw them in a cistern, a kind of well, to die of exposure or dehydration or starvation; verse 6, “they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.”
It was Jeremiah’s obedience that put him down there unable to escape waiting to die. These powerbrokers didn’t think Jeremiah was a traitor because he was selling weapons to the Babylonians. They thought he was a traitor because he was saying what God told him to say. Jeremiah was in trouble because he way obeying the Lord. Obeying the Lord gets people in trouble with sinners.
The Lord rescued Jeremiah; “the man whose walk is blameless is kept safe,” as Proverbs 28:18 puts it. The Lord rescued him through Ebed-Melek; verse 7, “But Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern.”
The Lord rescued Jeremiah through a Gentile because, based on everything we’ve seen in the book of Jeremiah, the Jews certainly weren’t receptive to doing what was right. The fact that The Lord used a Cushite to save His prophet underlines just how utterly unresponsive He considered His own people to be. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” as Jesus said, “you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”
God’s people are often totally unresponsive to God and so He will use an outsider. God rejects His people when they refuse to live as His people and simply bring new people into His story. That what He did with Ebed-Melech. That’s what He does with the Gentiles in the New Testament. “Out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”
Ebed-Melek rescued Jeremiah by going to the king; verse 7, ‘While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate, Ebed-Melech went out of the palace and said to him, “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.”’
We are told that the king was at the city gate because that’s where the king had his office hours. That’s probably where Solomon was when those two prostitutes came to him with their quarrel about the dead baby.
The city gate was a very public place and Ebed-Melech used its public nature to save Jeremiah. Notice that he placed all the fault for Jeremiah’s predicament on the four men from verse 1 and none of it on the king, “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…” Ebed-Melech underlined the gravity of Jeremiah’s situation, “he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread in the city.” Ebed-Melech gave the king a chance to look like a hero for rescuing the Lord’s prophet.
That was wisdom on Ebed-Melech’s part. Wisdom isn’t simply knowing what’s right. Wisdom is knowing how to make it happen. Ebed-Melech made it happen; verse 10, ‘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.”’ It wouldn’t take thirty men to lift Jeremiah out of that pit. It would, however, take thirty men to keep those powerbrokers who wanted Jeremiah dead from standing in the way.
The Lord rescued His prophet through Ebed-Melech. “The man whose walk is blameless is kept safe.” Jeremiah was kept safe. Look at the meticulous care shown to Jeremiah in verse 11, ‘He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. Ebed-Melech the Cushite said to Jeremiah, “Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah did so.’ We have two whole verses on padding to show us that the Lord takes care of His man. This is exactly what the Lord had promised Jeremiah that He would do back at his call in chapter 1. The Lord said, “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” This is a story of God doing what He promised. His prophet was in trouble for obedience and so God rescued Him. “The man whose walk is blameless is kept safe,” as Proverbs 28:18 puts it. Next week we will see how God kept Ebed-Melch safe. So, “The man whose walk is blameless is kept safe.” Now let’s think about the fact that, “the one whose ways are perverse will fall into the pit” as the rest of the Proverb puts it. That’s our second point: Zedekiah’s pit.
The author wants us to see the connection between the first half of chapter 38 and the second half. We will see that with the taunt of the women in verse 22. We also see that in the fact that this same word for “send” in verse 14’s “King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah,” was used to describe the men lowering Jeremiah into the pit and Ebed-Melech pulling him out of the pit. Jeremiah was sent down and sent up in the first half of this passage and the second half begins with the king sending for him; verse 14, “Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the Lord.”
This entrance was a place where the king and the prophet could meet in private. The king was afraid of the powerbrokers from verse 1. He had defied them by rescuing Jeremiah, and now he was going to Jeremiah for advice; verse 14, ‘“I am going to ask you something,” the king said to Jeremiah. “Do not hide anything from me.” Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.”’
Zedekiah had a history of ignoring God’s word through Jeremiah. He had just turned Jeremiah over to death in that pit for speaking God’s word. That’s what lies behind, “If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.” This, however, was one of those rare situations in which Zedekiah was willing to listen; ‘But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah: “As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who are seeking your life.”’
Jeremiah’s response to the king was unexpected. It was unexpected because Jeremiah spoke this message without the king ever asking his question. The king started the conversation by saying, “I am going to ask you something.” The Lord didn’t wait for the question. The Lord knows what people actually need to hear far better than any of us know what we actually want to ask.
The Lord told Zedekiah what He had already told him. If you look at this message in verses 17-18 and then at the message back in verses 2-3, it is pretty much the same message—“if you surrender to Babylon, it will go well with you. If you don’t surrender, you will suffer.” Zedekiah needed to be told that the word of the Lord applied to him too. That’s often what we need to hear. You often need to hear that what God has said applies to you just like everybody else.
Zedekiah was afraid to obey the word; verse 19, ‘King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.”’ It wasn’t uncommon for people to tyrannize their former king once he was brought down to their level.
Jeremiah promised that this would not happen; verse 20, ‘“They will not hand you over,” Jeremiah replied. “Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you. Then it will go well with you, and your life will be spared.”’
It’s normal to be afraid. Find me someone who wouldn’t be afraid in Zedekiah’s circumstances. Zedekiah could either continue in his fear or he could put his faith in what God had just told him through Jeremiah. Listen to Calvin, “At first the faithful fear as well as the unbelieving; they are anxious, they vacillate, and make known their perplexities: the unbelieving at the same time indulge themselves and become hardened in their perverse purposes; but the faithful fight with themselves and subject their thoughts to the will of God, and thus overcome fear by faith.”
Jeremiah told the king what would happen if he trusted the promise and what would happen if he didn’t trust the promise; verse 21, ‘But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me: All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you: “‘They misled you and overcame you— those trusted friends of yours. Your feet are sunk in the mud; your friends have deserted you.”’
The women in question here were most likely the royal harem. They were probably the concubines of the previous king. They, like many in Jerusalem, had no real loyalty to Zedekiah. They were waiting for Jehoiachin to return. The message to Zedekiah was that if he would trust the Lord and obey, he would live and no one would tyrannize him, but if he didn’t trust the Lord and obey even the harem would tyrannize him, and then the king would be as helpless as Jeremiah was in that cistern, but with no one to rescue him; that’s verse 22, “Your feet are sunk in the mud; your friends have deserted you.”’ Jeremiah wanted Zedekiah to recognize that only the Lord can rescue and that to refuse the rescue of the Lord is to spend eternity in the pit. That was the situation.
Zedekiah could save his own skin by surrendering. He could also save others. Up in verse 17, the Lord had said that if Zedekiah surrendered his family would live. The Lord told Zedekiah that if he surrendered, “this city will not be burned down.” As king and father, Zedekiah had a sacred duty to do good to those under his care. He could now only save them by surrendering himself. Despite all these promises from God, Zedekiah didn’t obey. J.A. Thompson gets it right, “Zedekiah returned to the palace to suffer the anguish of knowing what was right to do but lacking the courage to do it.”
Compare King Zedekiah with King Jesus. Both kings were told they could save their people by surrendering themselves. Zedekiah needed to surrender to the Babylonians, and they would treat him well. Jesus needed to surrender to the Sanhedrin and Rome, and they would kill him. Jesus had it much harder. Zedekiah sacrificed his people because he was afraid. Jesus was afraid and sacrificed himself for the people. Jesus is the Bible’s next Davidic king after Zedekiah. You are meant to see the difference. Which king would you like making decisions for you?
From Jeremiah to Jesus trusting God and doing what He says is shown to be the way of safety. Distrust and disobedience will leave you where it left Zedekiah who died because he was too afraid to trust. It will leave you with trouble. It will leave you in a pit with no one to rescue you. Choose wisely. This is your life—just like it was Jeremiah’s life and Zedekiah’s life. This passage isn’t just about how life went for those two men. It’s about how life goes. “The man whose walk is blameless is kept safe, but he whose ways are perverse will fall into the pit.” Amen.