Faith in the Pit — Trust in the Journey
Torah: Bereshit (Genesis) 12–13
Prophet: Jeremiah 38:1–13
Focus Verse: “He will soon die there of hunger… Take thirty men and pull Jeremiah out before he dies.” (Jer 38:9–10)
Four Voices
Prophet — Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 38:1–13
An Advocate Pleads for Justice
1 Now Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malkijah heard what Jeremiah had been telling the people. He had been saying, 2 “This is what the Lord says: ‘Everyone who stays in Jerusalem will die from war, famine, or disease, but those who surrender to the Babylonians will live. Their reward will be life. They will live!’ 3 The Lord also says: ‘The city of Jerusalem will certainly be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it.’”
4 So these officials went to the king and said, “Sir, this man must die! That kind of talk will undermine the morale of the few fighting men we have left, as well as that of all the people. This man is a traitor!”
5 King Zedekiah agreed. “All right,” he said. “Do as you like. I can’t stop you.”
6 So the officials took Jeremiah from his cell and lowered him by ropes into an empty cistern in the prison yard. It belonged to Malkijah, a member of the royal family. There was no water in the cistern, but there was a thick layer of mud at the bottom, and Jeremiah sank down into it.
7 But Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an important court official, heard that Jeremiah was in the cistern. At that time the king was holding court at the Benjamin Gate, 8 so Ebed-melech rushed from the palace to speak with him. 9 “My lord the king,” he said, “these men have done a very evil thing in putting Jeremiah the prophet into the cistern. He will soon die of hunger, for almost all the bread in the city is gone.”
10 So the king told Ebed-melech, “Take thirty of my men with you, and pull Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies.”
11 So Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to a room in the palace beneath the treasury, where he found some old rags and discarded clothing. He carried these to the cistern and lowered them to Jeremiah on a rope. 12 Ebed-melech called down to Jeremiah, “Put these rags under your armpits to protect you from the ropes.” Then when Jeremiah was ready, 13 they pulled him out. So Jeremiah was returned to the courtyard of the guard—the palace prison—where he remained.
Chiastic Structure Prophet — Jeremiah 38:1–13
Old Testament
Bereshit (Genesis) Chapter 12
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
15 Pharaoh’s ministers saw her and spoke highly of her, agreeing among themselves that she was fit to be a wife for Pharaoh, so the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s palace.
16 Pharaoh treated Abram well because of her; in this way Abram acquired flocks, cattle, donkeys, bondmen, bondwomen, she-donkeys, and camels.
17 God struck Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues at the word of Sarai, the wife of Abram.
18 Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What is this that you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to myself as a wife? Now here is your wife; take her and go!”
20 Pharaoh charged men to escort and guard Abram, and they escorted him together with his wife and all that he possessed.
Bereshit (Genesis) Chapter 13
1 From Egypt, Abram went up to the south of Canaan—he, his wife, and everything he owned—and Lot was with him.
2 Abram was heavily laden with cattle, silver, and gold.
3 He continued on his travels, from the south of Canaan toward Bethel, until he reached the place where he originally had his tent, between Bethel and Ai,
4 the site of the altar that he had built there at first, where Abram had invoked God. And now again, Abram invoked God there.
Chiastic Structure Genesis 12:14-13:4
Midrashic Reflection — “The Voice from the Mud”
The sages say that when Jeremiah sank, the mud whispered, “I too am creation—do not despise me.” The dust that swallowed him was the same dust that formed Adam; descent became dialogue. In Hebrew thought, even the pit participates in providence—matter remembering its Maker.
Ebed-melech, the Cushite, heard what the king tuned out. Foreign, uncredentialed, unafraid—he moved the palace with compassion. His torn cloth became liturgy in motion, the first theology of tenderness: soft rags rescuing hard truth. God’s deliverance, once again, arrived from the margins.
Abram’s Egypt was the same geometry inverted—a pit stretched into pilgrimage. Faith compressed by fear, expanded by grace. He descended narrow (Mitzrayim = “constriction”) and ascended spacious, returning not richer in silver but in sight.
Faith, then, is never born on stable ground. It begins where we sink, not where we stand—where the clay reclaims the breath and exile becomes exegesis.
The pit is not punishment but pedagogy: God teaching dust how to rise.
PARDES: Four Layers of Understanding
Peshat (Plain):
Jeremiah is punished for truth; Abram is tested by travel. Both are rescued through divine intervention.
Remez (Hint):
The pit and the wilderness are mirrors—each a liminal space where God reshapes the soul for its next assignment.
Drash (Interpretive):
Faith is not proved by comfort but by courage. When leaders bury prophets or when fear hides truth, God raises unexpected advocates. The church and the union alike need Ebed-melechs—voices from the edges who act when power hesitates.
Sod (Mystical):
Mud and movement are two faces of the same anointing. The cistern is the womb; the journey is the birth. Each descent writes a hidden Name upon the soul that can only be read after deliverance.
Word Studies
בּוֹר (Bor) – Cistern / Pit: also “abyss” or “prison.” A symbol of descent into truth’s silence. To fall into a bor is to face what cannot be avoided.
לֶךְ־לְךָ (Lekh-Lekha) – “Go for yourself / go to yourself.” The journey of Abram is inward before outward—obedience as self-revelation.
עֶבֶד מֶלֶךְ (Ebed-Melekh) – “Servant of the King.” Ironically, he becomes God’s true servant when royalty fails to serve justice.
מַסָּע (Masá) – “Journey.” In Torah literature, every journey is both geographical and spiritual—movement as metamorphosis.
