Jeremiah 39:3
Then all the officials of the king of Babylon entered and sat in the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-sarsekim the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.
Sermons
Siege and SavageryD. Young Jeremiah 39:1-8
The Retribution of GodS. Conway Jeremiah 39:1-8
Non-Acceptance of ChastisementP. B. Power, M. A.Jeremiah 39:1-10
The Downfall of JudahG. F. Pentecost, D. D.Jeremiah 39:1-10














What an accumulation of woe do the eight verses with which this chapter opens present! Let thought dwell on the several statements made here, and let imagination seek to realize what they must have meant to those upon whom the calamities they speak of came; and it will be seen, in vivid lurid light, that the retribution of God upon sin and sinners has been in the past no mere empty threat, and it will lead to the salutary suggestion, so questioned now, that his like threatened retribution in the future is no empty threat either. How unreasonable, in the face of historic facts such as those told of here, and in the face of actual facts of today in which dread suffering and awful calamity are seen overtaking wicked doers, to doubt that God will do the like again should necessity arise! But yet many do doubt and deny the teachings of God's Word on this matter. Note, therefore -

I. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS TRUTH IS QUESTIONED. They are such as these:

1. Death ends all. But who can prove this? Why is it less possible that we should live in another condition than that we should have been born into the one in which we now are? Resurrection is not antecedently more incredible than creation.

2. God too merciful. But is he? Does he not do or suffer to be done fearful things now?

3. Retribution comes in this world. In part it does to some, but to others sin seems one long success.

4. Christ's death atones for all. Yes, but in what sense? Certainly not in the sense of saving from suffering now. Why, then, if the conditions of salvation be not fulfilled, should the atonement avail hereafter more than now?

II. THE PROBABLE MOTIVES OF THIS DENIAL. Not irresistible conviction or any satisfactory knowledge of the falsity of what is denied, but such as these:

1. The desire that the doctrine denied should not be true. How often in questions like these the wish is father to the thought! Our opinions follow the line of our interest.

2. The belief that the doctrine renders impossible men's love and trust in God. Without question there are and have been settings forth of this doctrine which to all thoughtful minds must have this effect. The conception that God has created - of course, knowingly - myriads of human souls to sin and suffer forever is one that must darken the face of God to the thoughtful soul. Why, it will almost passionately be asked - "Why, if it were so much better that they should never have been born, were they born?" It is "he, the Lord, that hath made us, and not we ourselves." But we are not shut up to such conception. God "will have all men to be saved;" still through what fiery disciplines may he not have to compel the perverse and unruly wills of sinful men to pass ere they shall come to themselves and say, "I will arise," etc.?

3. Atheistic, agnostic, or materialistic. They who come under such names alike will dislike such doctrine as this. They will not simply disbelieve, but protest against them.

III. THE SUCCESS, SUCH AS IT IS, THAT THESE DENIALS HAVE HAD.

1. They have dulled and sometimes deadened the fear of the Lord in many souls. But:

2. They have never been able to convince any that there is no judgment to come. The dread of it haunts them still, the evidence for it being too strong and clear. Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be or not to be, that is the question," etc., still expresses men's fear of death. "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come!"

3. It is difficult to see aught of good that has been done - nothing but more or less ill. Therefore note -

IV. THE WARNING THAT COMES TO US FROM THESE DENIALS. Cherish a deep and holy fear of God. Judge each one ourselves, that we be not judged of the Lord. - C.

I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fan by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee.
It is strange that, amongst all the tracts and biographies and scriptural stories which the press sends forth, one never meets the name of Ebed-melech the Ethiopian. It shows that Scripture history is either little read or little understood. It makes one doubt whether those whom either the world or the Church is admiring be those whom He that looketh not on the outward appearance, and seeth not as man seeth, will delight to honour in the day when He maketh up His jewels. Although, for aught we know, he never was a member of any church upon earth, being a poor heathen, brought from a land that the light of God's revelation had never reached, he is held up in the Book of God to our admiration and imitation, in contrast with the whole Church and nation that was in covenant with God in ancient times; and even under the New Testament, if we honoured saints at all, his name should hold a conspicuous place in our calendar of worthies and illustrious confessors of the faith, for he was, like ourselves, a Gentile man, and it was by faith he obtained a good report from God Himself. Jerusalem was to fall, but Ebed-melech the Ethiopian would stand in the evil day. As he had delivered the prophet from his dungeon, and from the cruelty of the princes his persecutors, and the danger of a horrible death, he himself would be delivered in the day of danger, and the men of whom he was afraid would not have it in their power to take his life, or injure a hair of his head. God would be his saviour, and shows him beforehand the certainty of his salvation.

I. WHAT A BLESSED PROVIDENCE IS THAT OF GOD, OVER THE LEAST AS WELL AS THE GREATEST MEN AND THINGS, ESPECIALLY OVER THE GOOD WITHOUT RESPECT OF PERSONS.

1. No one is forgotten before God, and nothing that concerns the least left out of the regard of the Father of all. The one who was the object of special care to the God of Israel, the Lord of hosts, in the day of Israel's final overthrow, was one of these who were least regarded by men upon earth, a slave, a eunuch, an Ethiopian, an uncircumcised heathen, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, a stranger to the covenant of promise. Who then is forgotten by the God of Israel?

2. God is far from confounding the righteous with the wicked in His judgments.

3. So far from confounding the righteous with the wicked, God contrasts them with one another. What brighter display of Divine righteousness can there be than the salvation of the least of saints in the midst of the destruction of a whole nation, or church of sinners, like the Jews here, or like Christendom, to whose doom we are to look forward?

II. WHAT ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE LOWLIEST TO WORK OUT THEIR SALVATION WITH CHEERFULNESS AND PATIENCE, AS WELL AS WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING, AFTER THE EXAMPLE OF EBED-MELECH THE ETHIOPIAN!

1. Why are such actions as this of Ebed-melech those which in the sight of God are of great account? Because they are acts of self-denying love and self-sacrifice; because they are thus, God Himself in the text expressly says, the fruits of a living faith in God.

2. It is not his circumstances that prevent any man from becoming great before God, great as Ebed-melech, for it is not his circumstances that prevent any from becoming good, from having the same character, and manifesting in his place the same heroic and holy spirit.

3. Woe to us if we are not like Ebed-melech in unselfishness, or in self-denying love, the fruit of faith! Church membership, Church privileges, Church knowledge and advantages of whatever kind, what will they prove but the condemnation of those who are not like Ebed-melech in character?

III. WHAT BLESSED HOPE FOR THE FUTURE DOES EBED-MELECH BRING TO MANY OF WHOM THE WORLD IS NOT WORTHY, AND WHO ARE BY THE WORLD AND BY THE CHURCH UNKNOWN!

1. Kindness to those whom the world despises, or the worldly and ungodly church reprobates or persecutes, is not the least part of the duty of Christians, or those who would be saved in the day of wrath, like Ebed-melech.

2. How different is public opinion in a corrupt church or age from the judgment or truth of God!

(R. Paisley.).

People
Ahikam, Ebedmelech, Gedaliah, Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadrezzar, Nebushasban, Nebuzaradan, Nergalsharezer, Rabmag, Rabsaris, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Shaphan, Sharezer, Zedekiah
Places
Arabah, Babylon, Hamath, Jericho, Jerusalem, Riblah
Topics
Babylon, Captains, Chamberlain, Chief, Doorway, Eunuchs, Gate, Heads, Jerusalem, Mages, Magian, Middle, Nebo-sarsekim, Nebushazban, Nergal, Nergal-sarezer, Nergal-sar-ezer, Nergalsharezer, Nergal-sharezer, Ner'gal-share'zer, Nergal-shar-ezer, Officer, Officers, Official, Officials, Places, Princes, Rabmag, Rab-mag, Rabsaris, Rab'saris, Rab-saris, Residue, Rest, Ruler, Samgar, Samgarnebo, Samgar-nebo, Sam'gar-ne'bo, Samgar-nebu, Sarsechim, Sar'sechim, Sar-sekim, Sat, Seats, Sharezer, Sin-magir, Sit, Town, Wit
Outline
1. Jerusalem is taken.
4. Zedekiah is made blind and sent to Babylon.
8. The city laid in ruins,
9. and the people captivated.
11. Nebuchadrezzar's charge for the good usage of Jeremiah.
15. God's promise to Ebed Melech.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 39:1-7

     1429   prophecy, OT fulfilment

Jeremiah 39:1-10

     4215   Babylon
     5529   sieges

Library
Ebedmelech the Ethiopian
'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.'--JER. xxxix. 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.
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Last Agony
'In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it. 2. And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up. 3. And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarse-chim, Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon.
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Eastern Wise-Men, or Magi, visit Jesus, the New-Born King.
(Jerusalem and Bethlehem, b.c. 4.) ^A Matt. II. 1-12. ^a 1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem [It lies five miles south by west of Jerusalem, a little to the east of the road to Hebron. It occupies part of the summit and sides of a narrow limestone ridge which shoots out eastward from the central chains of the Judæan mountains, and breaks down abruptly into deep valleys on the north, south, and east. Its old name, Ephrath, meant "the fruitful." Bethlehem means "house of bread." Its modern
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

How those who Use Food Intemperately and those who Use it Sparingly are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 20.) Differently to be admonished are the gluttonous and the abstinent. For superfluity of speech, levity of conduct, and lechery accompany the former; but the latter often the sin of impatience, and often that of pride. For were it not the case that immoderate loquacity carries away the gluttonous, that rich man who is said to have fared sumptuously every day would not burn more sorely than elsewhere in his tongue, saying, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

'As Sodom'
'Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2. And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. 3. For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4. And it came to pass, in the ninth year of his reign,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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