Bible Strands
Jeremiah 38:13
and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Ebed-melech’s men pull Jeremiah out of the cistern after he follows the Cushite’s instruction to pad the ropes. The prophet is then left in the courtyard of the guard while King Zedekiah prepares to question him.
The words — וַ/יִּמְשְׁכ֤וּ (va/i.yim.she.Khu) means "and they drew out," and וַ/יַּעֲל֥וּ (va/i.ya.'a.Lu) means "and they brought up," both describing the physical extraction from the pit.
The thread — This rescue mirrors later guarded prophetic and apostolic accounts where divine messengers remain under official supervision, such as Jeremiah’s prior confinement (Jeremiah 37:21) and Paul’s guarded status in Acts 23:35 and Acts 28:16.
Why it lands — The text requires a reader to acknowledge that deliverance often follows a specific, practical obedience rather than a miraculous interruption. It demands readiness to remain under scrutiny after being rescued, without assuming immediate resolution of the underlying conflict.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
So they drew up Jeremiah with cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 37:21 So King Zedekiah gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard and given a loaf of bread daily from the street of the bakers, until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.
- Acts 23:35 he said, “I will hear your case when your accusers arrive.” Then he ordered that Paul be kept under guard in Herod’s Praetorium.
- Acts 28:16 When we arrived in Rome, Paul was permitted to stay by himself, with a soldier to guard him.
- Acts 28:30 Paul stayed there two full years in his own rented house, welcoming all who came to visit him.
- 1 Kings 22:27 and tell them that this is what the king says: ‘Put this man in prison and feed him only bread and water until I return safely.’”
- Jeremiah 38:6 So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah with ropes into the cistern, which had no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.
- Jeremiah 38:28 And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured.
- Jeremiah 39:14 had Jeremiah brought from the courtyard of the guard, and they turned him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him home. So Jeremiah remained among his own people.
- Acts 24:23 He ordered the centurion to keep Paul under guard, but to allow him some freedom and permit his friends to minister to his needs.