Ebed-melech in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

("king's stare".) (An oriental phrase), an Ethiopian eunuch of king Zedekiah, instrumental in Jeremiah's deliverance out of Malchiah's dungeon pit. Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian Gentile slave, did that which none of Jeremiah's own countrymen attempted in his behalf. Often God raises friends to His people from quarters from whence least they could expect it. Ebedmelech's courageous interference in Jeremiah's behalf, at a time when he might naturally fear the wrath of the princes to which even the king had to yield (Jeremiah 38:4- 13; Jeremiah 39:16-18), brought deliverance not only to the prophet, but ultimately to himself as his reward from God. None ever loses by being bold for God (Matthew 10:42). He might have spoken privately to the king, as being over the king's harem (Nubians being chosen for that office to the present day), but Ebed-melech "went forth out of the king's house to the gate of Benjamin," and there spoke publicly to the king, "these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah whom they have cast into the dungeon, and he is like to die for hunger in the place where he is, for there is no more bread in the city." With 30 men to guard against the princes' opposition, and by means of torn clothes and worn garments ("cast clouts and rotten rags," for God chooses weak things to confound the mighty, 1 Corinthians 1:27-29), he raised Jeremiah up from the pit. So when his enemies should perish God promised Ebedmelech should be saved, "because thou hast put thy trust in Me" (compare 1 Chronicles 5:20; Psalm 37:40). Trust in God generates fearlessness of man and brings true safety for eternity, and often even here (Jeremiah 39). So shall they be rewarded who have visited Christ, in the person of His servants, in prison (Matthew 25:34 ff).