Ebed-Melech

This man is spoken of with honourable testimony in Scripture, for his service to the prophet Jeremiah. His name shews who he was, Ebed, a servant, Melech, to the king. (See Jer. 38. 7 - 13.)

An Ethiopian servant of king Zedekiah, who was instrumental in saving the prophet Jeremiah from famishing in a filthy dungeon, and was therefore preserved when Jerusalem was taken by Nebuzaradan, Jer 38:7-13 ; 39:15-18. The Lord knoweth them that are his.\par

E’bed-me’lech. (a king’s servant). An Ethiopian eunuch, in the service of King Zedekiah, through whose interference Jeremiah was released from prison. Jer 38:7. ff.; Jer 39:15. ff. (B.C. 1589).

("king’s stare".) (An oriental phrase), an Ethiopian eunuch of king Zedekiah, instrumental in Jeremiah’s deliverance out of Malchiah’s dungeon pit. Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian Gentile slave, did that which none of Jeremiah’s own countrymen attempted in his behalf. Often God raises friends to His people from quarters from whence least they could expect it. Ebedmelech’s courageous interference in Jeremiah’s behalf, at a time when he might naturally fear the wrath of the princes to which even the king had to yield (Jer 38:4-13; Jer 39:16-18), brought deliverance not only to the prophet, but ultimately to himself as his reward from God.

None ever loses by being bold for God (Mat 10:42). He might have spoken privately to the king, as being over the king’s harem (Nubians being chosen for that office to the present day), but Ebed-melech "went forth out of the king’s house to the gate of Benjamin," and there spoke publicly to the king, "these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah whom they have cast into the dungeon, and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is, for there is no more bread in the city."

With 30 men to guard against the princes’ opposition, and by means of torn clothes and worn garments ("cast clouts and rotten rags," for God chooses weak things to confound the mighty, 1Co 1:27-29), he raised Jeremiah up from the pit. So when his enemies should perish God promised Ebedmelech should be saved, "because thou hast put thy trust in Me" (compare 1Ch 5:20; Psa 37:40). Trust in God generates fearlessness of man and brings true safety for eternity, and often even here (Jeremiah 39). So shall they be rewarded who have visited Christ, in the person of His servants, in prison (Mat 25:34 ff).

(Hebrews E’bed-Me’lek, עֶבֶדמֶלֶךְ, servant of the king, i.e., Arabic Abd el-Malek, Sept. Α᾿βδεμέλεχ,Vulgate Abdemelech), an Ethiopian at the court of Zedekiah, king of Judah, who was instrumental in saving the prophet Jeremiah from death by famine (Jer 38:7-13), and who, for his humanity in this circumstance, was promised deliverance when the city should fall into the enemy’s hands (Jer 39:15-18). B.C. 589. SEE JEREMIAH. He is there styled a eunuch ( אַישׁ סָרַיס and he probably had charge of the king’s harem (compare Jer 38:22-23), an office which would give him the privilege of free private access to the king; but his name seems to be an official title = King’s slave, i.e., minister. SEE EUNUCH.

Ebed-melech. (ç’bed-mç’lek), (thing’s servant, an Ethiopian eunuch in the service of King Zedekiah, through whose interference Jeremiah was released from prison. Jer 38:7 ff; Jer 39:15-16.

By: Emil G. Hirsch, Gerson B. Levi, Kaufmann Kohler, Solomon Schechter, M. Seligsohn

—Biblical Data:

A Cushite officer at the court of King Zedekiah, who interceded in behalf of Jeremiah, and was sent by the king with thirty (Ewald and Duhm, "three") men to draw up the prophet from the pit (A. V. "dungeon") into which he had been cast by order of the princes (Jer. xxxviii. 4-13). For this deliverance Ebed-melech was prophetically assured of safety in the general overthrow of Zedekiah (ib. 16-18). The name occurs in the Phenician inscription, "C. I. S." i. 46, 3 (Lidzbarski, in "Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik," p. 334; see also Grey, "Hebrew Proper Names," pp. 117, 147).

E. G. H. G. B. L.—In Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature:

Ebed-melech is the hero of popular legend. According to "The Rest of the Words of Baruch,"published by J. Rendel Harris in Greek under the title Tὰ Παραλείπομενα Ιερεμίου τοὺ Προφητὸυ(Cambridge, 1889), Ebed-melech slept under a tree during the sixty-six years which elapsed between the destruction of the Temple in the month of Ab and the return of the exiles from Babylonia on the 12th of Nisan; during all this time the figs in the basket which Jeremiah had sent him to carry to the sick in Jerusalem remained fresh as when first put there. Ebed-melech is also counted among the nine persons who entered paradise alive ("Masseket Derek Ereẓ," i., ed. Taurogi, p. 8; "Alphabeticum Siracidis," ed. Steinschneider, pp. 27 et seq.; comp. "J. Q. R." v. 409-419).

K.

There is a disagreement among rabbinical writers as to the identification of Ebed-melech. Jonathan b. Uzziel rendered the name "the servant of the king," considering "ha-Kushi" to apply to Zedekiah. This interpretation was adopted by the Talmudists (M. Ḳ. 16b). But the Talmud does not state who the servant of Zedekiah was. In Pirḳe Rabbi Eliezer liii. (see also Pesiḳ. R., ed. Friedmann, 131b), Ebedmelech is identified with Baruch b. Neriah, to whom the epithet "ha-Kushi" is referred. Still, Ebedmelech is generally counted among the nine persons who entered paradise alive, or among the thirteen who never tasted death (Derek Ereẓ Zuṭa ch. i., end; Yalḳ. ii. 367; Yalḳ, Ḥadash, s.v. ). The source of this legend is Jeremiah xxxix. 16, from which is also derived the Ethiopian legend that Ebed-melech, like Ḥoni ha-Ma'gal, slept for seventy years (see R. Basset, "Les Apocryphes Ethiopiens," fascic. x., and Syriac MS. No. 65, fols. 230b-247a in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris).

EBED-MELECH.—An Ethiop. ennuch, by whom Jeremiah was released from the pit-prison (Jer 38:7 ff; Jer 39:15 ff.). It is possible that the name Ebed-melech, which means ‘servant of [the] king.’ may have been an official title.

ē-bed-mē´lek, eb-ed-mē´lek (עבד־מלך, ‛ebhedh-mekekh, “servant of the king” or “of (god) Melek”): An Ethiopian eunuch in the service of King Zedekiah, who interceded with the king for the prophet Jeremiah and rescued him from the dungeon into which he had been cast to die (Jer 38:7-13). For this, the word of Yahweh through Jeremiah promised Ebed-meleeh that his life should be spared in the fall of Jerusalem (Jer 39:15-18).