Mud

[Brad Fox]

 

One of the great personal stories of the Bible concerns Jeremiah, a prophet of Judea in Israel about 600 B.C.  Now, some people think a prophet only sees future events (foretelling), and this is indeed true to some extent.  But another way to think of a prophet is one who sees current events for what they really are, and can clearly predict where the events are leading (forthtelling).  Sometimes this is very helpful to a prophet’s work and reputation; other times it is a cause of unrelenting irritation to those who are the subject of the prophesies.

            Such was the case with Jeremiah.  It was in the waning days of a siege of Jerusalem that Jeremiah was pleading his case for the people to surrender to the invading army of Babylon.  It was better, he prophesied, for them to reap the consequences of their disobedience to God, their worship of false idols, than to try to avoid the inevitable.  Needless to say, this prophecy wasn’t a happy alternative for the city leaders and army commanders who were fighting desperately to save the city.  A city under siege for months or years on end becomes a furnace of pain and fear.  Food supplies are exhausted.  Children are abducted and eaten.  Disease is a constant worry.  People give up hope and take out their anger and frustration with each other.  Rumors of ruin abound.  There’s a delicate balance between hanging on and surrender.  The leaders and commanders had had enough of Jeremiah and his nay-saying.  They wanted to get rid of him once and for all. 

A weak and confused King Zedekiah couldn’t bear one more problem or complaint, so he gave in and allowed the leaders to do with Jeremiah as they wanted.  Someone among the crowd had a particularly cruel streak as they decided to put him in an underground water cistern.  This would mean that Jeremiah would have died by drowning after exhausting himself.  Not an easy way to die!  As they lowered him down through the small entry shaft, they lost sight of him and assumed the water was about to silence their nemesis.  What they didn’t know was that the cistern had been drained of most of its water and was now only a container of hip-deep mud.  As Jeremiah descended into the ooze, he certainly wasn’t in any danger of drowning, but on was firmly stuck in the gelatinous earth. 

At this point, his chances for survival didn’t look very good.  In fact, he was going to die of exposure if he couldn’t free himself.  He would need help from outside the cistern to escape, and the chances of that happening were slim and none.  The city was in turmoil above.  Everyone had his or her own survival to worry about, and no one was concerned about saving the life of a “troublemaker”.  Even if he could escape the cistern, what lay ahead for him above in the soon-to-be conquered city?

But Jeremiah had a friend.  His name was Ebed-Melech, an Egyptian from the Upper Nile region.  Probably a black man; definitely not one of the chosen Israelite race.  This man risked his own life to plead for the life of Jeremiah.  He approached the King when he was holding court at one of the city gates.  We don’t know much about this man’s background or station in life.  Why was he, an Egyptian, in an Israelite city under siege?  Perhaps he was doing business there when the siege began; more likely he was a slave or indentured servant.  Nevertheless, he spoke up to a foreign king (Zedekiah) and asked him to save Jeremiah’s life.  Why?  Maybe he had seen the authenticity of Jeremiah’s life and work.  Maybe he was impressed how he held his head when all about him were losing theirs.  Was it the almighty, loving God he spoke of?  There must have been something very impressive about Jeremiah to make this man risk his own well-being.  After all, it was a dog-eat-dog situation in that city, and one needed to maintain a low profile at the risk of being executed on the spot.  But he intervened for Jeremiah anyway. 

Zedekiah, now in full frantic overwhelm mode, reflexively gave in and authorized Ebed-Melech to take 30 men with him to pull Jeremiah out of the cistern.  One would think that 3-4 men would have been plenty, but apparently, Jeremiah had become so mired in the muck that the strength of that many men were needed to free him.  Jeremiah even had to pad his limbs with rags to prevent the ropes from tearing him apart!  Once freed, Jeremiah was placed under arrest and kept under watch in the King’s courtyard until the collapse of the city. 

Nice story so far…  But God wasn’t through with Ebed-Melech yet.  While sitting in the courtyard, God spoke to Jeremiah and told him to assure Ebed-Melech that because he had trusted in Him in order to save Jeremiah’s life, he himself would be saved from death and would escape with his life.  Moral:  no one is ever unqualified for the love and protection of God.  Becoming part of God’s family is not a matter of heredity, but of faith and trust.

Fast forward to D-day.  The defenses of the city are starting to crumble.  People are giving up hope, not the least of which is the King himself.  In a secret meeting with Jeremiah, he asks him to prophesy one last time about the future of the city and himself.  Two choices were offered by God:  1) give yourself up and live and 2) resist the victorious Babylonians and lose your family, the city, and your own freedom.  And with a bit of irony, God told Jeremiah to speak these words:  “All the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon.  Those women will say to you:

 

‘They misled you and overcame you-

Those trusted friends of yours

Your feet are sunk in the mud;

Your friends have deserted you.’” 

(Jeremiah 38:22)

 

Ouch!  A metaphor foreshadowed by the very treatment to which he had subjected Jeremiah.  You could end the story here and it would be interesting in and of itself.  But God wasn’t through with Jeremiah either!  Once Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, they killed the Zedekiah’s sons before his own eyes then blinded him and hauled him off to Babylon in shackles.  Imagine.  Seeing your own beloved sons wantonly wasted so that you would have no hope of a successor, and then losing your sight in an act of vengeance and wasting away in a foreign prison.  The people of Jerusalem were also chained together in long lines and bound for Babylon where they would serve as slaves.  Depressing!  And to add insult to injury, Jeremiah was also part of this slave caravan even though he was the one who had pleaded with the people to repent and cling to the one True God. 

But God had other plans.  Jeremiah’s reputation preceded him, and he was sought after by Nebuchadnezzer himself, the king of Babylon.  It seems that Jeremiah had made quite an impression on the conquering victors, as he was the only Israelite who had advocated surrender.  Nebuchadnezzer sent the leader of his personal guard to seek out Jeremiah and reward him for his aid to the Babylonians.  He was indeed found among the slaves, and Nabuzaradan, the guard commander, gave Jeremiah a choice:  go with him to Babylon in honor and be well treated for the rest of his life; or remain with the few poor people remaining in Israel.  

What would you do?  After being abused and ignored by the Israelites for most of his adult life, who could blame Jeremiah for choosing the easy life in Babylon, where all his needs and desires would be met.  He’d done his work; he was faithful to God ‘til the bitter end.         

However, he decided to stay with an impoverished remnant of Israelites left by the Babylonians to tend the fields.  They didn’t want to listen to Jeremiah either as they revolted against the appointed governor, assassinated him, and bolted for Egypt.  He had warned them too.  So the personal story didn’t exactly end well for Jeremiah, unless you consider this:  The response of people to our testimony of God is not necessarily a measure of our success.  Only God determines whether we are a success.  In this story, we can see that Jeremiah was successful in that he was God’s faithful agent, even though the Israelites didn’t care to listen to him.  God used Jeremiah to reach out to His people, to communicate with them.  He did his job even though the Israelites didn’t respond.  This story, which transpired so long ago, was for us.  Can we be faithful to do what God asks us to do, even if we aren’t successful by the world’s standards?