{"id":71838,"date":"2020-03-16T18:50:14","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T16:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=71838"},"modified":"2020-03-16T18:50:14","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T16:50:14","slug":"ebed-melech-to-the-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/ebed-melech-to-the-rescue\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebed-Melech to the Rescue"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"71838","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"438","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Who are you, O Cushite?\r\n\r\n","content":"

Jeremiah was rescued from prison due to the intervention of an unlikely savior: \u201cEbed-melech the Cushite, a eunuch who was in the king\u2019s palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the pit. The king was then sitting at the Benjamin Gate\u201d (7). He approached the king on behalf of Jeremiah and secured his permission to free the prophet from his captivity lest he die there of starvation (10). He collected \u201cworn cloths and rags,\u201d fashioned a rope, and pulled him up from the pit (11) and returned him to the place of his earlier confinement (13) where, presumably, he was better fed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who was Ebed-melech?<\/span><\/p>\n

Literally, Ebed-melech means a servant of a king, a term that could be applied to any royal subject. Rashi identified him with Baruch ben Neriyah, Jeremiah\u2019s scribe, an identification that was already made in the tannaitic Midrash Sifrei. Rashi also alluded to a different rabbinic interpretation that identified \u201cthe Cushite\u201d as Zedekiah himself; that would make <\/span>ebed Melech<\/span><\/i> haCushi<\/span><\/i> an anonymous royal servant of Zedekiah the Cushite\u2014an opinion shared by Radak. In Numbers 12:1, Moses\u2019s wife is called a Cushite, which some regarded as a euphemism for exceptional. Zedekiah, Rashi claimed, exhibited exceptional righteousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shadal,* however, took Ebed-melech as a proper noun, similar to the better-known name Abi-melech, since if it were a common noun it would have had to be Ebed Ha-melech. He also appears to have taken Cushite literally as someone from Ethiopia, since he added an observation that \u201cto this very day, Ethiopian eunuchs are highly regarded and serve in the palaces of oriental kings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On the king\u2019s \u201csitting at the Benjamin Gate,\u201d Shadal noted simply that \u201che was not at home [in the palace], but at one of the city gates.\u201d My personal assumption is that the Benjamin Gate stood at the northern end of the city\u2014since that is where the territory of Benjamin began\u2014which would also make it the closest access point to the oncoming Babylonians. The king, perhaps recalling Jeremiah\u2019s prophecy of 1:14, \u201cthe catastrophe will commence from the north,\u201d may have gone there to assess the city\u2019s military situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*For an explanation of our objectives in studying Shadal\u2019s commentary, <\/span>see our introduction<\/span><\/a> in Jeremiah chapter 1.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":71839,"id":71839,"title":"jer38-ebed-melech-jeremiah","filename":"jer38-ebed-melech-jeremiah.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/jer38-ebed-melech-jeremiah.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/ebed-melech-to-the-rescue\/jer38-ebed-melech-jeremiah\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer38-ebed-melech-jeremiah","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":71838,"date":"2020-03-16 16:49:57","modified":"2020-03-16 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