Bible Commentaries
Jeremiah 38

Verses 1-28

Jeremiah 38:0

Ropes and rags.

I. Help always comes from above. Jeremiah found it so. It was useless to try to climb out of the dungeon, it was only to fall deeper into the mire. "Salvation is of the Lord." Ebedmelech is only a very poor picture of Jesus. The Saviour does more than send down a rope. He comes Himself and lifts us up.

II. Although Ebedmelech may be a very poor type of Jesus Christ, he is a very good picture of the style in which one man may help another. He had sympathy. His kind heart bled as he thought of the suffering prophet. Sympathy is the mother of help.

III. Ebedmelech did not allow difficulty to deter him. He knew that the enemies of the prophet were unscrupulous, and would not hesitate to cut his throat, but he did not give up because of that. If you mean to help others you will have to pull hard against the stream.

IV. Ebedmelech teaches us to spare the feelings of those we help. The rope of deliverance should not cut the flesh of those we save. We may wound men in helping them, and they may like the remedy less than the disease.

V. Among the practical lessons of this story there is the great truth that one man may set others going. Ebedmelech went to the king for help, and he gave him thirty helpers. "So they drew up Jeremiah." The great mass of people are not original; they can imitate, and if you can show them the way they will follow.

VI. Let us learn the value of despised and cast-off things. The prudent chamberlain had seen "under the treasury the old cast clouts and old rotten rags." No one else saw any value in them, but he knew where they lay and put them to a good use. VII. Ebedmelech found out that God pays the best wages.

T. Champness, New Coins from Old God.

References: Jeremiah 39:1 , Jeremiah 39:2 . R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 74.Jeremiah 43:0 P. Thomson, Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 397.