Jeremiah 39 Devotional

Spared Because He Trusted

“For I will surely rescue you so that you do not fall by the sword. Because you have trusted in Me, you will escape with your life like a spoil of war, declares the LORD.’””Jeremiah 39:18 (BSB)

Everything Jeremiah warned about happens in a few verses. The wall is breached, Zedekiah flees by night and is caught, his sons are killed before his eyes, and he is blinded and led away in bronze chains (39:2-7). The city burns, and its people are carried off (39:8-9).

Yet two people are singled out for protection. Jeremiah, imprisoned for telling the truth, is released by order of the king of Babylon and sent home among his own people (39:11-14). Then the narrator recalls a word from the siege. Ebed-melech, the foreign official who pulled Jeremiah from the cistern, will not fall into the hands of the men he fears. God will rescue him, and the reason is stated plainly: he trusted in the LORD (39:16-18). His courage in chapter 38 was real, but it is his trust that God names. Paul writes that anyone who believes in Christ will never be put to shame (Romans 10:11). When everything around them falls, those who rest on God are not lost with it.

To think about: What fear would loosen its hold on you if you trusted God the way Ebed-melech did?