The Pit And the Promise (Parts 1 and 2)

[Timl1980]

Note: I’m not a scholar or a teacher...just one of your brothers who loves stories and believes they can carry truth straight into our hearts. Over the next few days, I want to share a ten‑part retelling of Jeremiah’s pit, the princes’ schemes, and the courage of an Ethiopian servant.

 

 

 

My hope isn’t to lecture or to weigh anyone down, but to encourage anyone who chooses to read it. These are stories of fear and faith, of weakness and courage, of choices that mattered then...and still matter now. If even one part of this helps you in some small way, then the effort was worth it.

 

 

 

Part I — The princes’ plot

 

Research Note: Jeremiah’s message of surrender enraged the princes of Judah. They accused him of weakening the soldiers and demanded his death. Zedekiah, too weak to resist, handed him over. (Jeremiah 38:1–6)

 

Question for meditation: Why would God’s prophet tell his own people to surrender...and what does that reveal about obedience when his will cuts against our instincts?

 

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The first lie of siege is that courage always looks like resistance. In Jerusalem, courage looked like surrender.

 

The courtyard of the guard was restless, heavy with the smell of sweat and dust, as if the city itself were holding its breath before collapse. Soldiers leaned against the walls, armor dulled by hunger. Women carried empty jars, their eyes lowered, unwilling to meet the gaze of men who had already lost too much.

 

Jeremiah stood in the open, his cloak stained, his face gaunt but unflinching. His voice carried, not because it was loud, but because it was steady.

 

“Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, by famine, or by pestilence. But whoever goes out to the Chaldeans will live. He shall have his life as a prize of war, and live.”

 

The words fell like stones into a dry cistern. They did not echo. They sank.

 

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Some turned away, shaking their heads. Others clenched their fists. A soldier spat into the dirt. The princes, standing in the shadows of the gate, stiffened.

 

Pashhur’s jaw tightened. “He weakens the hands of the men of war,” he hissed. “Every word he speaks is poison.”

 

Gedaliah leaned closer, his voice sharp. “He does not seek the welfare of this people, but their ruin. If he remains, the city will collapse from within before Babylon even breaches the walls.”

 

Shephatiah’s eyes narrowed. “Then let us silence him. Not tomorrow. Now.”

 

They did not argue with his prophecy. They argued with his presence. Truth was not the problem. Exposure was.

 

Together they went to the king.

 

Zedekiah sat on his throne, though the throne did not sit on him. His shoulders slumped, his eyes darted, his fingers fidgeted with the hem of his robe. He was a man carried by fear, not conviction.

 

The princes bowed, but their words were commands. “Let this man be put to death,” Pashhur said. “He discourages the soldiers who remain. He weakens the people. He is not a prophet...he is a traitor.”

 

Zedekiah’s lips trembled. He looked from one face to another, searching for a dissenting voice, but found none. His reply was as thin as parchment. “Behold, he is in your hands. The king can do nothing against you.”

 

The princes did not thank him. They did not need to. They had already won.

 

Jeremiah was seized. His wrists were bound with rope, his body dragged across the courtyard. He did not resist. His silence was not surrender...it was testimony.

 

They led him to the cistern of Malchiah, a pit carved into the stone, once used to hold water but now filled only with mud. The stench rose before they reached it. The ropes were tied beneath his arms, and without ceremony, they lowered him down.

 

The walls of the cistern were slick, the air damp.

 

Jeremiah’s sandals slipped as he descended. The mud clung to his legs, thick and cold, pulling him deeper with every breath. He sank slowly, his garments heavy, his body trembling. The darkness closed around him. The voices above faded.

 

He tasted iron and soil. He felt the weight of a city’s refusal pressing him downward. He thought of the word that had driven him here...not a strategy, not a slogan, but a command.

 

Surrender. Live. Resist. Die. It was not popular. It was not patriotic. It was the truth.

 

Above, the princes spoke in low tones. “Let him starve,” one said. “There is no bread left in the city.” The rope creaked and then rose away from him, leaving him with the mud and the silence.

 

Jeremiah closed his eyes and prayed...not for rescue, but for obedience. “Jehovah,” he whispered, “let Your word be stronger than my breath. Let Your will be done, even if it leaves me in the dark.”

 

The mud climbed to his waist. The cold stole the strength from his calves. He leaned his shoulders against the stone and tried to keep his chest above the sludge. 

 

Each movement drained him. Each breath took thought.

 

Then...footsteps.

 

Not the shuffle of soldiers leaving. Not the measured tread of princes satisfied. 

 

These were different: deliberate, approaching, stopping at the rim above his head.

 

Jeremiah lifted his chin toward the faint circle of light. He could not see the face. Only the silence.

 

And silence, in Jerusalem, was never empty.

 

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Part II — The Ethiopian’s courage

 

Research Note: Ebed‑Melech, an Ethiopian eunuch in the king’s house, heard Jeremiah had been cast into the cistern. Unlike the princes, he saw not a threat but a man of God sinking in silence. He risked everything to intervene. (Jeremiah 38:7–13)

 

Question for meditation: Why would God choose an outsider...a foreigner, a eunuch...to be the one who saves His prophet, and what does that say about who He uses today?

 

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When the powerful stayed silent, it was a foreigner with no voice who dared to speak.

 

The palace was buzzing with whispers, but most chose silence. Jeremiah was in the pit, and the princes were satisfied. To speak against them was to invite ruin. To defend the prophet was to stand alone.

 

But Ebed‑Melech could not stay silent.

 

He was a foreigner, an Ethiopian, a eunuch. His voice was not supposed to matter. He had no lineage to boast of, no sons to carry his name, no seat among the princes. Yet when he heard what had been done, his chest burned with indignation. He left the safety of the inner court and walked straight to the king’s gate. His steps were steady, his face unflinching.

 

The guards shifted uneasily as he passed. Servants paused, their eyes widening. A eunuch did not confront the king. Not here. Not like this.

 

But Ebed‑Melech did not wait for permission. He did not soften his words.

 

“My lord the king,” he said, his voice carrying across the chamber, “these men have done evil in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have cast him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”

 

The words cut through the air. Not loud. Not long. But undeniable.

 

Zedekiah shifted uneasily on his throne. His eyes darted toward the shadows where the princes often lingered. He had yielded to them once. Now he yielded again, but in another direction.

 

“Take thirty men with you,” he said, “and lift Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies.”

 

It was not courage. It was concession. But it was enough.

 

Ebed‑Melech bowed, but his bow was not submission. It was resolve. He turned, already gathering men, already preparing ropes, already searching for rags to soften the prophet’s wounds. He did not wait for applause. He did not wait for safety.

 

The men he summoned looked at him with uncertainty. “Why risk this?” one asked. “The princes will not forget.”

 

“Because Jehovah will not forget,” Ebed‑Melech replied. “And His prophet must not die in silence.”

 

They followed him, some reluctantly, others with conviction. Together they moved through the palace storerooms, rummaging through piles of discarded cloth. Ebed‑Melech’s hands found old rags, worn tunics, torn garments. He bundled them together.

 

“Take these,” he said. “The ropes will cut into his flesh. These will protect him.”

 

The men exchanged glances. Who thinks of rags when a man is drowning in mud? But Ebed‑Melech thought of them. Mercy was in the details.

 

They carried the ropes and rags through the courtyard. The princes watched from the shadows, their silence heavy with contempt. They had not stopped the king’s command, but their eyes promised vengeance.

 

At the cistern’s edge, the stench rose. The darkness below was thick. Jeremiah’s voice did not rise from it. Only silence.

 

Ebed‑Melech leaned over the rim, his voice steady but urgent. “Jeremiah! Take courage. We are here to lift you out.”

 

For a moment, nothing. Then, faintly, a reply: “I hear you.”

 

The ropes were lowered, the rags tied to them. “Put these under your arms, beneath the ropes,” Ebed‑Melech called down, “so the cords do not cut your flesh.”

 

The men pulled. Slowly. Carefully. Together. Heels braced, hands burning, shoulders tight. The mud held like an argument that refuses to lose. Inch by inch, it yielded.

 

A shoulder appeared. Then the crown of a head. Then a face...pale, ringed with exhaustion, eyes lit by something that had survived the dark. The men pulled again, and Jeremiah slid over the rim, collapsed onto warm stone, and lay there breathing like a man who had been given time back.

 

Ebed‑Melech crouched beside him, pressed a rag into his hands, wiped mud from his brow. He made dignity the first order of the moment.

 

Jeremiah’s voice was raw but clear. “Jehovah remembered.”

 

Ebed‑Melech’s reply was simple. “He always does.”

 

And from the archway, a messenger moved...quiet, deliberate...carrying the next turn in a city’s story.

 

*Jeremiah has been lowered into the pit, and lifted out again by the courage of one servant. But the danger isn’t over. Tomorrow, the king himself will summon Jeremiah in secret...and the fate of the city will hang on what happens at the gate.