Jeremiah 39:18

For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee: because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

MacLaren's Expositions

Jeremiah

EBEDMELECH THE ETHIOPIAN

Jeremiah 39:18.

Ebedmelech is a singular anticipation of that other Ethiopian eunuch whom Philip met on the desert road to Gaza. It is prophetic that on the eve of the fall of the nation, a heathen man should be entering into union with God. It is a picture in little of the rejection of Israel and the ingathering of the Gentiles.

I. The identity in all ages of the bond that unites men to God.

It is a common notion that faith is peculiar to the New Testament. But the Old Testament ‘trust’ is identical with the New Testament ‘faith,’ and it is a great pity that the variation in translation has obscured that identity. The fact of the prominence given to law in the Old Testament does not affect this. For every effort to keep the law must have led to consciousness of imperfection, and that consciousness must have driven to the exercise of penitent trust. The difference of degrees of revelation does not affect it, for faith is the same, however various the contents of the creed.

Note further the personal object of Faith-’in ME.’ The object of Faith is not a proposition but a Person. That Person is the same in the Old Testament and in the New. The Jehovah of the one is the God in Christ of the other. Consequently faith must be more than intellectual assent, it must be voluntary and emotional, the act of the whole man, ‘the synthesis of the reason and the will.’

II. The contrast of a formal and real union with God.

The king, prophets, priests, the whole nation, had an outward connection with Him, but it meant nothing. And this foreigner, a slave, perhaps not even a proselyte, a eunuch, had what the children of the covenant had not, a true union with God through Faith.

Judaism was not an exclusive system, but was intended to bring in the nations to share in its blessings. Outward descent gave outward place within the covenant, but the distinction of real and formal place there was established from the beginning. What else than this is the meaning of all the threatenings of Deuteronomy? What else did Isaiah mean when he called the rulers in Jerusalem ‘Rulers of Sodom’? Here the fates of Ebedmelech and of Zedekiah illustrate both sides of the truth. The danger of trusting in outward possession and of thinking that God’s mercy is our property besets all Churches. Organisations of Christianity are necessary, but it is impossible to tell the harm that formal connection with them has done. There is only one bond that unites men to God-personal trust in Him as ‘in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.’

III. The possibility of exercising uniting faith even in most unfavourable circumstances.

This Ebedmelech had everything against him. The contemptuous exclusion of him from any share in the covenant might well have discouraged him. The poorest Jew treated him as a heathen dog, who had no right even to crumbs from the table spread for the children only. He was plunged into a sea of godlessness, and saw examples enough of utter carelessness as to Jehovah in His professed servants to drive him away from a religion which had so little hold on its professed adherents. The times were gloomy, and the Jehovah whom Judah professed to worship seemed to have small power to help His worshippers. It would have been no wonder if the conduct of the people of Jerusalem had caused the name of Jehovah to be blasphemed by this Gentile, nor if he had revolted from a religion that was alleged to be the special property of one race, and that such a race! But he listened to the cry of his own heart, and to the words of God’s prophet, and his faith pierced through all obstacles-like the roots of some tree feeling for the water. He found the vitalising fountain that he sought, and His name stands to all ages as a witness that no seeking heart, that longs for God, is ever balked in its search, and that a faith, very imperfect as to its knowledge, may be so strong as to its substance that it unites him who exercises it with God, while the possessors of ecclesiastical privileges and of untarnished and full-orbed orthodox knowledge have no fellowship with Him.

IV. The safety given by such uniting faith.

To Ebedmelech, escape from death by the besiegers’ swords was promised. To us a more blessed safety and exemption from a worse destruction are assured. ‘The life which is life indeed’ may be ours, and shall assuredly be ours, if our trust knits us to Him who is the Life, and who has said ‘He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.’

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

39:15-18 Here is a message to assure Ebed-melech of a recompence for his great kindness to Jeremiah. Because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord. God recompenses men's services according to their principles. Those who trust God in the way of duty, as this good man did, will find that their hope shall not fail in times of the greatest danger.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A prey unto thee - An unexpected and unlooked-for gain. He had given proof of faith in courageously delivering God's prophet.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. life … for a prey—(See on [955]Jer 21:9; [956]Jer 38:2; [957]Jer 45:5).

put … trust in me—(Jer 38:7-9). Trust in God was the root of his fearlessness of the wrath of men, in his humanity to the prophet (1Ch 5:20; Ps 37:40). The "life" he thus risked was to be his reward, being spared beyond all hope, when the lives of his enemies should be forfeited ("for a prey").

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For God would deliver him, so as he should not die by the sword; but how little else soever he saved, he should save his life, because he had put his trust in God, not fearing the wrath of men in the doing of what was his duty. We read no more in holy writ of this man, and so cannot tell how otherwise God dealt with him; only may be assured that he was not slain by the Chaldeans. And from this we may observe,

1. How kind God hath always declared himself to those who have showed the least kindness to those that have been his true and faithful ministers.

2. That the root of such good works as God rewardeth must be faith, a trusting in the Lord.

3. That those who do good works out of a principle of faith may yet be encumbered with slavish fears.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For I will surely deliver thee,.... Or, in "delivering will deliver thee" (p); this is a repetition and confirmation of what is promised in Jeremiah 39:17, and more fully explains it:

and thou shall not fall by the sword: by the sword of the Chaldeans, when the city should be taken, as he feared he should:

but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee: shall be safe; be like a prey taken out of the hand of the mighty, and be enjoyed beyond expectation, having been given up for lost; and therefore matter of the greater joy, such as is expressed at the taking of spoils:

because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord. The Targum is, "in my word"; what he had done in serving the prophet, and other good actions, sprung from a principle of faith and confidence in the Lord; and this the Lord had a respect unto; without which works are not right; and without which it is impossible to please God with them; and which faith may be, and be true, where fears are.

(p) "eripiendo eripiam te", Schmidt; "eruendo eruam te", Pagninus, Montanus.

Geneva Study Bible

For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prize to thee: because thou {g} hast put thy trust in me, saith the LORD.

(g) Thus God recompensed his zeal and favour which he showed to his prophet in his troubles.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. thy life shall be for a prey unto thee] See on Jeremiah 21:9.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - For a prey unto thee. The same remarkable phrase in Jeremiah 21:9 38:2.



Jeremiah 39:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Jeremiah's message of comfort to Ebedmelech. - Jeremiah 39:15. "Now to Jeremiah there had come the word of the Lord, while he remained shut up in the court of the prison, as follows: Jeremiah 39:16. Go and speak to Ebedmelech the Cushite, saying, Thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring my words against this city for evil and not for good, and they shall take place before thee on that day. Jeremiah 39:17. But I will deliver thee on that day, saith Jahveh; neither shalt thou be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. Jeremiah 39:18. For I will surely save thee, neither shalt thou fall by the sword, and thine own life shall be thy spoil, because thou hast trusted me, saith Jahveh." - This word of God for Ebedmelech came to the prophet, no doubt, very soon after his deliverance from the miry pit by this pious Ethiopian; but it is not given till now, and this by way of supplement, lest its introduction previously should break the chain of events which occurred at the time of that deliverance, Jeremiah 38:14-39:13. Hence היה, Jeremiah 39:15, is to be translated as a pluperfect. "Go and say," etc., is not inconsistent with the fact that Jeremiah, from being in confinement, could not leave the court of the prison. For Ebedmelech could come into the prison, and then Jeremiah could go to him and declare the word of God. "Behold, I will bring my words against this city," i.e., I shall cause the evil with which I have threatened Jerusalem and its inhabitants to come, or, to be accomplished (מבי with א dropped, as in Jeremiah 19:15, and אל־ for על). והיוּ לפּניך, "and these words are to take place before thy face," i.e., thou shalt with thine own eyes behold their fulfilment, בּיום ההוּא, i.e., at the time of their occurrence. But thou shalt be saved, not fall into the hands of the enemy and be killed, but carry away thy body out of it all as booty; cf. Jeremiah 21:9; Jeremiah 38:2. "Because thou hast trusted me;" i.e., through the aid afforded to my prophet thou hast continued thy faith in me.