5 Then Zedekiah the king said, “Look, he is in your hand. For the king can do nothing against you.”
6aSo they took Jeremiah and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the king’s son, which was in the court of the prison, and they let Jeremiah down with ropes. And in the dungeon therewas no water, but mire. So Jeremiah sank in the mire.
7aNow Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, one of the1 eunuchs, who was in the king’s house, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the dungeon. When the king was sitting at the Gate of Benjamin,
8 Ebed-Melech went out of the king’s house and spoke to the king, saying:
9 “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon, and he is likely to die from hunger in the place where he is. For thereisano more bread in the city.”
10 Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian, saying, “Take from here thirty men with you, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the dungeon before he dies.”
11 So Ebed-Melech took the men with him and went into the house of the king under the treasury, and took from there old clothes and old rags, and let them down by ropes into the dungeon to Jeremiah.
It is not likely that Ebed-Melech sways the king by humanitarian or moral considerations. He simply stresses to the king his belief that Jeremiah is a prophet about to die. Zedekiah probably acts to return Jeremiah to the relatively posh digs of the royal guards because he too realizes that Jeremiah is a prophet. He does not want to lose his crystal ball. Evidently, the king holds an audience with Jeremiah just after his release from the pit (verse 14).
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