Ian Boyne, ContributorChe was sunk in a pit and left to die save for one man, Ebedmelech, an African.
While the Bible has for centuries been used by racists to subjugate and demean black people and to elevate Caucasians and Jews, the fact is that the story of Ebedmelech's heroic act to save Israel's most feared prophet is just one of a number of such acts. The prophet Zephaniah was a black man (Zephaniah 1:1). A Jewish Diaspora is prophesied by both Isaiah (11:11) and Zephaniah (3:10) as being in Ethiopia at the time of Christ's return. And Africans-Cushites or Ethiopians, served in the Jewish military. Indeed, Africans have a proud history as soldiers in the Ancient Near East.
Ebedmelech who saved Jeremiah's life when no Israelite stood up for this great servant of Yahweh was probably a high-ranking military attache. Jeremiah 38 tells the story of the Babylonian invading army storming the gates of Jerusalem. Jeremiah's message had earned him the wrath and disgust of his fellow citizens so they dumped him in a pit (Jer.38: 4). King Zedekiah agreed to this infamy. Verse 9 shows that only this courageous African pleaded for Jeremiah and, surprisingly, his plea was heard. He was obviously a man of clout. In verse 7 he is called a eunuch. The Hebrew term used (Saris) originally meant an official. According to the Biblical scholar, J Daniel Hays, writing in the August I998 issue of the scholarly magazine Bible Review, the term saris is never used in Jeremiah in a way requiring it to mean eunuch, but implies a high-ranking official.
Hays takes it as significant that four times in the account, Ebedmelech's Cushite (African) identity is emphasised and he notes that the fact that Jeremiah asks rhetorically whether the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots indicates that blacks were well-known in Jeremiah's Jerusalem. "Perhaps Ebedmelech was part of a larger Cushite contingent stationed in Jerusalem". Hays finds it odd that with the flood of monographs, articles and books dealing with women and other marginalised groups in the Bible "this interest in marginalised figures has not carried over to other peoples, particularly blacks."
The Bible includes 54 references to Cush and Cushites. The Cushites were known as mighty warriors. The nation of Cush stretched along the Nile south of Egypt. Many historians refer to the region as Nubia. (Incidentally, the Biblical references to Ethiopia does not refer to the modern state of Ethiopia but to the African continent). The Egyptians called the Cushite region Ta-sety meaning Land of the Bow, probably referring to the weapon most associated with the area.
Excavation of a tomb 2500---2052 BCE in Kerma the early Cushite capital revealed a young archer lying on his side with his bow and bowstring in his hand. In addition models of 40 Cushite soldiers, all archers carrying bows, were discovered in the tomb of Mesehty at Assiut in Egypt from roughly the same period. These Cushite archers have been described as Pharaoh's elite bodyguards. Says Hays in his enlightening article :"The Cushites were widely known throughout the ancient world as mercenaries, fighting for both sides in Egypt, Assyria, Israel, Persia and Greece". In the Eighth Century BCE the Cushite Kingdom became very powerful.
The close association between ancient Cushites(African) and Israel does not make it surprising that that we find the Black Jews of Ethiopia, the Falashas, keeping all the Jewish religious and cultural practices including Sabbath and Holy-day keeping as well as the Kosher laws and sacrifices. They strictly follow the Old Testament, are strict Monotheists and look for the Jewish Messiah.
For his heroic and magnanimous act of saving the Prophet of God, Yahweh saved Ebedmelech during the Babylonian captivity. Concludes J. Daniel Hays in the Bible Review article: "Unlike Zedekiah and the Hebrew princes in Jerusalem who perished because they opposed Jeremiah and his message from YHWH, Ebedmelech was saved because of he trusted YHWH and defended Jeremiah. Ebedmelech a foreign black soldier represents the people of faith. When the entire Hebrew nation was being condemned because of disobedience and covenant violation, a black Cushite was delivered because of his faith".
