It was an interesting morning doing Bible study. I’m using a chronological outline to read through the Bible in a year and right now I’m reading through Jeremiah. Today was two chapters of Jeremiah and a few Psalms. Three things struck me.

I. Ethiopian Eunuchs are Great Guys! In Jeremiah 38 Jeremiah’s enemies toss him in a muddy cistern because he keeps telling people that God has given Jerusalem into the hands of Babylon. Jeremiah’s enemies don’t believe him and they think he is convincing the troops to give up. So sure, a cistern seems a logical place to put him. I guess they were too chicken to kill him themselves. Now for some reason Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch, is living in besieged and surrounded Jerusalem. What is a foreigner doing in Judah while the country is under attack? He’s rescuing Jeremiah, that’s what he’s doing (Jeremiah 38:7-13). And here’s God’s response to Ebed-melech:

The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the court of the guard: “Go, and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will fulfill my words against this city for harm and not for good, and they shall be accomplished before you on that day. But I will deliver you on that day, declares the LORD, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the LORD.'” (Jeremiah 39:15-18)

The next Ethiopian eunuch we meet in scripture is unnamed but likewise puts his trust in the Lord. In Acts 8 he’s riding along reading Isaiah 53 and wondering about the meaning. God sends Philip to him to explain and the eunuch gets baptized.

God blessed and worked through Israel and says that he’ll bless Egypt and Assyria (Isaiah 19:23) but Ethiopia is never mentioned specifically as a country God would favor. And eunuchs are the wrong sort of people. They cannot be circumcised and they cannot enter the temple (Deuteronomy 23:1) and yet here are two of them putting their trust in God and being blessed. I’m so glad that God chooses the least likely, that his favor is not a matter of ethnicity or physical properties. That means a person like me can find God’s favor. A person like you can too.

II. Incorruptible Governors. This one is a bit more circumspect of a thought. In Jeremiah 40, Jerusalem has fallen, Zedekaih has been blinded and hauled to Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar has set up rules to watch over Israel. In other words, the whole nation is now in exile. The poor are left to take care of the land and many who fled during the invasion have now returned to Israel. Word comes to Gedaliah, the Jewish governor, that one of the returnees has been sent to assassinate him but he doesn’t believe it.

For some reason this got me thinking of Jesus future reign on earth. He will return and the saints will be raised with him and rule with him (Revelation 3:21, 20:4) on this earth. This is fitting because how can you corrupt or intimidate a resurrected saint? What kind of bribe are you going to offer him or her? Can a threat of death be made that will sway them? What kind of material thing would they want to hoard for themselves? There could be no better vice-regents on earth than resurrected saints!

III. Heads. Psalm 74 was one of the Psalms I read this morning with Jeremiah 39-40. In it Asaph is lamenting that God has cast off his people and that God’s foes are scoffing. But Asaph has hope and he remembers God’s might. In verses 13-14 Asaph remembers that God “broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters” and also that he “crushed the heads of Leviathan” and “gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.” So multiple sea monsters have multiple heads, that makes sense. But what I didn’t know is that Leviathan, who is a single beast, had multiple heads and God crushed them. If you look up “Leviathan” throughout the scriptures, you’ll see that it is described as a large, dangerous sea creature and one that God is always powerful over it. But in Job 41 Leviathan has one tongue and in Isaiah 27 Leviathan is yet to be crushed. So perhaps “Leviathan” describes a sort of creature rather than a single living animal. And one of them had multiple heads. That just struck me as cool.