Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 39:18

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.

18. thy life shall be for a prey unto thee ] See on Jer 21:9.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

A prey unto thee – An unexpected and unlooked-for gain. He had given proof of faith in courageously delivering Gods prophet.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 18. I will surely deliver thee] Thou hast feared the Lord, and not the king, nor his princes, and thou hast taken the part of the prophet, and become his intercessor. Thou shalt not be slain. Thou hast put thy trust in me; thou shalt therefore be safe whithersoever thou goest. They that fear God need fear nothing besides.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

For God would deliver him, so as he should not die by the sword; but how little else soever he saved, he should save his life, because he had put his trust in God, not fearing the wrath of men in the doing of what was his duty. We read no more in holy writ of this man, and so cannot tell how otherwise God dealt with him; only may be assured that he was not slain by the Chaldeans. And from this we may observe,

1. How kind God hath always declared himself to those who have showed the least kindness to those that have been his true and faithful ministers.

2. That the root of such good works as God rewardeth must be faith, a trusting in the Lord.

3. That those who do good works out of a principle of faith may yet be encumbered with slavish fears.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

18. life . . . for a prey(Seeon Jer 21:9; Jer38:2; Jer 45:5).

put . . . trust in me(Jer 38:7-9). Trust inGod was the root of his fearlessness of the wrath of men, in hishumanity to the prophet (1Ch 5:20;Psa 37:40). The “life”he thus risked was to be his reward, being spared beyond all hope,when the lives of his enemies should be forfeited (“for aprey”).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For I will surely deliver thee,…. Or, in “delivering will deliver thee” p; this is a repetition and confirmation of what is promised in Jer 39:17, and more fully explains it:

and thou shall not fall by the sword: by the sword of the Chaldeans, when the city should be taken, as he feared he should:

but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee: shall be safe; be like a prey taken out of the hand of the mighty, and be enjoyed beyond expectation, having been given up for lost; and therefore matter of the greater joy, such as is expressed at the taking of spoils:

because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord. The Targum is, “in my word”; what he had done in serving the prophet, and other good actions, sprung from a principle of faith and confidence in the Lord; and this the Lord had a respect unto; without which works are not right; and without which it is impossible to please God with them; and which faith may be, and be true, where fears are.

p “eripiendo eripiam te”, Schmidt; “eruendo eruam te”, Pagninus, Montanus.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then he says, that he would be safe, because the Lord would deliver him in that day And, again, he confirms the same thing, For delivering I will deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword The Prophet again calls the attention of Ebedmelech to God himself; for we know how all things are in a confusion when cities are taken by storm. Except then Ebedmelech had his mind fixed on God, he could never have retained any hope of deliverance. Hence the Prophet assures him again, that God would be his deliverer. And he adds, Thy soul shall be for a prey This mode of expression has been elsewhere explained. The comparison is taken from those who deem that a great gain which is yet but small, if they get it beyond their expectation, as when a man finds a prey which he had by no means hoped for: he becomes suddenly rich, or increased in his goods; and though the gain may not be great, he yet greatly rejoices. So they who escape alive from present death, have no small reason to be joyful, because their life has been preserved. In the meantime God alludes to those who regard it enough to escape from death, though they may be deprived of all other things. As those who, in shipwreck, cast forth their mer-chandize, and their money, and all they have, deem it enough if they can reach the harbor, and they prefer to beg their bread all their life rather than to sink in the midst of the sea, so he who escapes with his life; though poverty is bitter, yet the horror of death is so great, that he deems his life a great, gain, though stripped of all that he had.

The reason follows, because he trusted in God. Another reason might have been assigned, even because he had not been wanting in his kindness to a holy man, but had extended his hand to him in his extreme misery; but as that office of humanity proceeded from faith and piety, God does here express the chief cause. As then the mercy which Ebedmelech exercised towards the Prophet was an evidence of his piety and faith, here is found the fruit in its own tree, or in its root: and certain it is, that Ebedmelech would have never been so humane towards the Prophet, had he not relied on God and his aid; for unbelief is always timid. There is then no doubt but that the vigor which appeared in Ebedmelech, when he regarded his life in bringing aid to the Prophet, made manifest that faith which is now commended: because then thou hast trusted in me, therefore delivering I will deliver thee, says God. There is now then no doubt but that Ebedmelech had some of the elements of faith and piety. If then God has allowed us to make farther progress, we may feel the more assured that he will be our deliverer; for his grace and his power will ever exceed our faith, how much so ever it may be. Now follows —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

REFLECTIONS

WHO would have believed (saith the Prophet) among the kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem! But the cause is immediately given. For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, it is that which hath shed the blood of the just in the midst of her. But Reader! behold not only in this history, but in the history of all the earth, what sin hath wrought. It was sin that caused the destruction of the old world by a flood! It was sin that gave rise to the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire. And it as sin, by which death hath entered into the circumstances of all mankind, and destroys all, because all have sinned. And would you see a yet more tremendous display of the effects of sin, than the everlasting destruction of rebellious men and angels, put all together; behold it in the death of Christ; when he who knows no sin became sin and a curse for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Yea, Reader, in the Son of God taking upon him our nature, and dying, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God, there is a greater manifestation of the awful nature of sin, than the overthrow and annihilation of all the creation of God would have been in proof!

Pause then, my soul, over these solemn considerations! Behold the judgments against sin, going on throughout the earth! Look at the effects of sin, in the sorrows, and wars, and carnage, and miseries, both in private life and public bodies. And when the full influence of these solemn things are suitably felt in thine own apprehension, look unto Jesus, the only refuge and consolation under all. Oh! for grace to know him, who by death hath destroyed him that had the power of death; and delivered them who through fear of death are all their life time subject to bondage.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Jer 39:18 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.

Ver. 18. For I will surely deliver thee. ] Heb., Delivering, deliver thee. It would be a great stay of mind, if God should say the same to us in particular and by name, as he doth here to this Ethiopian. And yet he saith no less to us in the precious promises, which we are by faith to appropriate.

But thy life shall be for a prey unto thee. ] Pro lucre cessura est. For saving my prophet’s life, thou shall have thine own; so sure a gain is godliness.

Because thou hast put thy trust in me. ] What may not faith have at God’s hands? Those that trust him, do, after a sort, engage him to deliver them, and to do them good.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Jeremiah

EBEDMELECH THE ETHIOPIAN

Jer 39:18 .

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.

I. The identity in all ages of the bond that unites men to God.

It is a common notion that faith is peculiar to the New Testament. But the Old Testament ‘trust’ is identical with the New Testament ‘faith,’ and it is a great pity that the variation in translation has obscured that identity. The fact of the prominence given to law in the Old Testament does not affect this. For every effort to keep the law must have led to consciousness of imperfection, and that consciousness must have driven to the exercise of penitent trust. The difference of degrees of revelation does not affect it, for faith is the same, however various the contents of the creed.

Note further the personal object of Faith-’in ME.’ The object of Faith is not a proposition but a Person. That Person is the same in the Old Testament and in the New. The Jehovah of the one is the God in Christ of the other. Consequently faith must be more than intellectual assent, it must be voluntary and emotional, the act of the whole man, ‘the synthesis of the reason and the will.’

II. The contrast of a formal and real union with God.

The king, prophets, priests, the whole nation, had an outward connection with Him, but it meant nothing. And this foreigner, a slave, perhaps not even a proselyte, a eunuch, had what the children of the covenant had not, a true union with God through Faith.

Judaism was not an exclusive system, but was intended to bring in the nations to share in its blessings. Outward descent gave outward place within the covenant, but the distinction of real and formal place there was established from the beginning. What else than this is the meaning of all the threatenings of Deuteronomy? What else did Isaiah mean when he called the rulers in Jerusalem ‘Rulers of Sodom’? Here the fates of Ebedmelech and of Zedekiah illustrate both sides of the truth. The danger of trusting in outward possession and of thinking that God’s mercy is our property besets all Churches. Organisations of Christianity are necessary, but it is impossible to tell the harm that formal connection with them has done. There is only one bond that unites men to God-personal trust in Him as ‘in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.’

III. The possibility of exercising uniting faith even in most unfavourable circumstances.

This Ebedmelech had everything against him. The contemptuous exclusion of him from any share in the covenant might well have discouraged him. The poorest Jew treated him as a heathen dog, who had no right even to crumbs from the table spread for the children only. He was plunged into a sea of godlessness, and saw examples enough of utter carelessness as to Jehovah in His professed servants to drive him away from a religion which had so little hold on its professed adherents. The times were gloomy, and the Jehovah whom Judah professed to worship seemed to have small power to help His worshippers. It would have been no wonder if the conduct of the people of Jerusalem had caused the name of Jehovah to be blasphemed by this Gentile, nor if he had revolted from a religion that was alleged to be the special property of one race, and that such a race! But he listened to the cry of his own heart, and to the words of God’s prophet, and his faith pierced through all obstacles-like the roots of some tree feeling for the water. He found the vitalising fountain that he sought, and His name stands to all ages as a witness that no seeking heart, that longs for God, is ever balked in its search, and that a faith, very imperfect as to its knowledge, may be so strong as to its substance that it unites him who exercises it with God, while the possessors of ecclesiastical privileges and of untarnished and full-orbed orthodox knowledge have no fellowship with Him.

IV. The safety given by such uniting faith.

To Ebedmelech, escape from death by the besiegers’ swords was promised. To us a more blessed safety and exemption from a worse destruction are assured. ‘The life which is life indeed’ may be ours, and shall assuredly be ours, if our trust knits us to Him who is the Life, and who has said ‘He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

life = soul. Hebrew. nephesh. App-13.

a prey: i.e. he should save it. Compare Jer 21:9.

put thy trust = confided. Hebrew. batah. App-69.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

trust

(See Scofield “Psa 2:12”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

but: Jer 21:9, Jer 38:2, Jer 45:4, Jer 45:5

because: Jer 17:7, Jer 17:8, Rom 2:12, 1Ch 5:20, Psa 2:12, Psa 33:18, Psa 34:22, Psa 37:3, Psa 37:39, Psa 37:40, Psa 84:12, Psa 146:3-6, Psa 147:11, Isa 26:3, Eph 1:12, 1Pe 1:21

Reciprocal: Zep 2:3 – hid

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Jer 39:18. Ebed-melech was assured that he would not die by the sword when the city fell. Thus we have another Instance of personal favor bestowed for a righteous life even amidst the trials of the calamity that was to come upon the nation.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

39:18 For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prize to thee: because thou {g} hast put thy trust in me, saith the LORD.

(g) Thus God recompensed his zeal and favour which he showed to his prophet in his troubles.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes