What an honor it is to be invited to participate in this special issue honoring D. A. Carson! Throughout my career Don Carson has been a model for what a Christian scholar should be, and I am appreciative beyond words for his contribution to the study and exposition of God’s word. Anecdotally, during the same week when I drafted this article, I was using his Pillar commentary on John as I prepared to teach an adult Sunday School class.

It was twenty-five years ago that I joyfully read the email from D. A. Carson that my proposal for From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race (FEPN) had been accepted for the prestigious NSBT series. I was much younger back then, not yet established as a writer, and my book proposal on race had already been turned down by several publishers, so you can imagine my excitement when Carson accepted it. Over the years, this book has made a positive impact on the church, especially in race relations, and I am eternally grateful to Don Carson for accepting it.

1. Introduction—The Two Ethiopian Officials

In FEPN one important aspect of my study was to explore the theological significance of the many Black Africans that appear in the Bible. Two of the most significant characters I studied were the Ethiopian¹In the Hebrew OT this region is called Cush. It was on the Nile River to the south of Egypt in what is now Sudan. The Greeks, however, referred to everything south of Egypt as “Ethiopia,” so in the Greek Septuagint (LXX) text of Jeremiah and likewise in Acts these two characters, who are from the same exact area, are both called Ethiopians. official/eunuch²Both in Hebrew (Jer 38:7) and in Greek (Acts 8:27) the term used of these men can connote a eunuch or, more likely in these contexts, an official. named Ebedmelech (Jer 38–39) and the Ethiopian official/eunuch converted by Philip (Acts 8). The fact that there are two Ethiopian officials playing important roles in the salvation story, one in the OT and one in the NT, is rather amazing, and can hardly have been coincidental.

While in FEPN I was only able to mention this connection briefly, over the last fifteen years or so I have been able to explore the intertextual relationship between these two stories in more detail. From a broad perspective, I explored the intertextual use of LXX Jeremiah in Luke-Acts in general.³J. Daniel Hays, “The Persecuted Prophet and Judgment on Jerusalem: The Use of LXX Jeremiah in the Gospel of Luke,” BBR 25 (2015): 453–73. Then, more specifically, I studied the intertextual-allusion⁴I am using the term “allusion” to refer loosely to the same phenomenon that Richard Hays labels as “allusive echo,” metalepsis, or “intertextual echo.” As Hays explains, “Allusive echo functions to suggest to the reader that text B should be understood in light of a broad interplay with text A, encompassing aspects of A beyond those explicitly echoed.” Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 20. relationship between these two Ethiopian official/eunuch stories.⁵J. Daniel Hays, “Central Paradigms for the Gentile Inclusion: An Intertextual Comparison of Jeremiah’s Ebedmelech and Luke’s Ethiopian Eunuch,” Sapientia Logos 3.1 (2010): 1–24; and more recently, “Judgment, Deliverance, and Ethiopians: Allusions to Jeremiah’s Ebedmelech Narrative in Acts 8” (paper presented at the SBL international meeting, Uppsala, Sweden, June 2025). Much of the material presented in this Themelios article is drawn from these works.

In these studies, I was seeking to answer several fundamental and related questions: (1) Of all the conversion stories that Luke could have used, why did he choose the Ethiopian eunuch story? (2) Are there clear allusions in Acts 8 back to the Jeremiah narrative about Ebedmelech the Ethiopian (Jer 38–39). And, if so, (3) What do they add to our theological understanding of Acts? In this short article paying tribute to D. A. Carson, I would like to synthesize and summarize five main observations from my study, followed by an overall conclusion, thus updating my initial observations in FEPN.

2. Luke-Acts, Jeremiah, and Ethiopian Officials

1. When exploring intertextuality the distinctives of Jeremiah are important to note.

It is important not to lump Jeremiah in with all the other literary prophets of the Hebrew Bible into one amorphous mass (“The Prophets”) but to recognize his particular characteristics, even within the prophetic corpus. There are several distinctives of Jeremiah that are relevant to our study. First of all, and perhaps most noticeable, is the large amount of narrative biographical material in the book of Jeremiah, in contrast to the other literary prophets. Second, the city of Jerusalem plays an essential role in the book of Jeremiah, especially the prediction and the fulfillment of the destruction of Jerusalem. Third, Jeremiah is characterized as the proto-typical persecuted prophet. He is frequently in conflict with the ruling authorities in Jerusalem during his tumultuous ministry, being threatened, convicted, beaten, and imprisoned.

Also unique within the prophetic corpus is Jeremiah’s story of Ebedmelech the Ethiopian. While the other prophets, like Isaiah, prophesy of the future inclusion of the Gentiles, Jeremiah actually tells the story of one (38:7–39:18; LXX 45:7–46:18).⁶In the latter half of Jeremiah the order and numbering of the chapters in the Greek Septuagint (LXX) differ from that of our English Bibles, which follow the Hebrew Masoretic Text. At the climactic moment in the book of Jeremiah, as the Babylonians are closing in, and as all of Jerusalem’s leaders reject God’s message and turn against Jeremiah his prophet, Ebedmelech the Ethiopian boldly defends and rescues Jeremiah. Then as judgment comes and all of these Judean leaders are executed or exiled, Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, in stark contrast, is delivered. Indeed, several scholars have noted that Ebedmelech the Ethiopian serves as a “symbol” or “representative” of the remnant of faith, or especially of Gentiles who are saved by faith.⁷Walter Brueggemann, To Build, To Plant: Jeremiah 26–52, ITC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991); Christopher R. Seitz, “The Prophet Moses and the Canonical Shape of Jeremiah,” ZAW 101 (1983): 17–18; Tom Parker, “Ebed-Melech as Exemplar,” in Uprooting and Planting: Essays on Jeremiah for Leslie Allen, ed. John Goldingay, LHBOTS 459 (New York: T&T Clark, 2007), 253–59. He is a real-life character in the narrative who also provides a symbolic picture of the prophetic Gentile inclusion.

2. Jeremiah was popular and quite well-known in the latter half of the first century AD.

One of the questions that frequently arises when claiming to see allusions and intertextuality is whether or not the original audience would have recognized it. In this regard, it is helpful to note that Jeremiah was extremely popular and well-known in the late first century,⁸Joachim Jeremias remarks that Jeremiah was “one of the favorite prophets of the people” (“Ιερεμιας,” TDNT 3:219). much more so than today. This is evident from the extraordinarily large number of popular written works circulating that were associated with Jeremiah and/or his scribe Baruch (beyond the book of Jeremiah). This includes Lamentations; 1, 2, and 3 Baruch; The Epistle of Jeremiah; Paralipomena Jeremiah (4 Baruch); and The Lives of the Prophets. Likewise, several fragments discovered at Qumran reference Jeremiah and/or events in the book of Jeremiah (4QApocryphon of Jeremiah C, 4QPseudo-Ezkiel [4Q483–90]; 4Q384; 4Q385; 4Q389).

In addition, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus held Jeremiah in extraordinarily high regard, mentioning him specifically over 44 times. Josephus especially highlights Jeremiah’s prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction and the prophet’s extensive persecution (trials, imprisonment, beating, etc.). Josephus also specifically recounts the story of Jeremiah’s rescue by “The Ethiopian” (Ant. 10.122).

3. Luke-Acts references and alludes to the OT (especially the Greek LXX) extensively.

Without question the books of Luke and Acts use the LXX Old Testament frequently. Sanders states, “Luke is the most explicit of the evangelists in insisting that to understand what God was doing in Christ one had to know Scripture.”⁹James A. Sanders, “Isaiah in Luke,” in Luke and Scripture: The Function of Sacred Tradition in Luke-Acts, ed. C. A. Evans and James A. Sanders, reprint ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001), 18. Yet often Luke makes connections to the OT by indirect allusion rather than direct citation. Bock writes: “The Old Testament is not cited with explanation points like Matthew, but woven into the fabric of the account. This implicit literary style of Old Testament citation may be responsible for much of the ‘subtlety’ since Luke indulges by choice in little explicit editorial comment.”¹⁰Darrell L. Bock, Proclamation from Prophecy and Pattern: Lucan Old Testament Christology, JSNTSup 12 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 269. Thus Luke expects his readers to see his allusions back to the OT without explicitly identifying those allusive connections.

4. Jeremiah echoes throughout Acts 2–8 in particular.

Within the Book of Acts, it is in chapters 2–8 that the influence of Jeremiah is the most pronounced, for this is the portion of the narrative that deals most directly with the opposition to and persecution of God’s spokespersons (his prophets) in Jerusalem. Indeed, there is quite a high concentration of the word “prophet” in Acts 2–8 (2:16, 30; 3:18, 21, 22, 24; 7:37, 42, 48, 52; 8:28, 30, 34). Just as Jesus was characterized as a prophet and persecuted as a prophet in Luke, now his new spokespersons, especially Peter and Stephen (and Paul, later in the story), are characterized as prophets and persecuted as prophets in Acts.¹¹Luke Timothy Johnson, Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church: The Challenge of Luke–Acts to Contemporary Christians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 32; David G. Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 13.

As noted above, the book of Jeremiah—and no other prophetic book—is likewise characterized by frequent persecutions of the prophet, including schemes and efforts to silence him, along with accusations, confrontations, trials, and attempts to have him executed. Acts 2–8 is interlaced with these exact same themes.

Not only thematically but also structurally there are several strong conceptual parallels between Acts 2–8 and Jeremiah 37–39 (LXX Jeremiah 44–46). Within Acts 2–8 there are two major confrontations between God’s new spokesmen (implied to be prophets) and the authorities: Peter’s proclamation (Acts 2) followed by his trial (Acts 3); and Stephen’s proclamation (Acts 6) followed by his trial and execution (Acts 7). This is highly reminiscent of events in Jeremiah’s life, especially his two confrontations and arrests presented in Jeremiah 37–39.

In both accounts (Jeremiah 37–39 and Acts 2–8) God’s spokesmen (prophets) point out Israel’s sin of disobedience, especially accusing the ruling authorities in Jerusalem. In both accounts numerous officials and officers that represent these ruling authorities in Jerusalem are mentioned. Also, in both accounts one of the central motifs is that these authorities are trying to silence God’s prophets and their message. This opposition escalates into a pattern of repeated and intensifying persecution against God’s prophets. This results in the prophet being cast into prison, both in Acts 2–8 and in Jeremiah 37–39.

While many of the allusions are general and thematic, there are also quite a few specific intertextual connections between Acts 2:1–8:3 and Jeremiah. For example, in Acts 2:14 Peter addresses the crowd as “Men of Judea and dwellers of Jerusalem.” In Greek this phrase occurs nowhere else in the LXX except in Jeremiah, where it occurs exactly like this 8 times (Jer 4:3, 4; 11:2; 18:11; 19:3; and 39:32).

Likewise, in Acts 7:51–52, as Stephen draws his speech to a climactic conclusion and as his own death draws near, he makes several probable allusions to Jeremiah by the terminology he chooses. For example, Stephen indicts his accusers by proclaiming, “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised.” While the term, “stiff-necked,” is used several times in Exodus to refer to Israel’s defiant disobedience (33:3, 5; 34:9), in Jeremiah 7:25–26, the “stiff-necked” terminology occurs in this exact same context as Stephen’s: the repeated rejection of the prophet. Note also that in Jeremiah 7:25–26 the prophet Jeremiah is doing exactly the same thing that Stephen is doing in Acts 7:51–52—he is summarizing and characterizing the history of Israel as a constant defiance and rejection of the prophets.

Relatedly, the references to being “uncircumcised of heart and ears” would also appear to be an allusion to the book of Jeremiah. Only in Jeremiah are there references to both the uncircumcised of heart (Jer 9:28) and uncircumcised of ears (Jer 6:10).¹²Bill T. Arnold, “Luke’s Characterizing Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Acts,” in History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts, ed. Ben Witherington III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 318.

Stephen’s accusation in Acts 7:52, “Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute?” echoes Jesus’s statements in Luke 11:47–50 and 13:33–35. Many scholars assume that Stephen is referring to the execution of Isaiah described in Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 5.1–16. Yet, as in Luke 11:47–50, here the evidence for seeing Jeremiah in this context is stronger. As noted above, in the book of Jeremiah his persecution is a dominant theme, and in numerous extra-canonical texts of Second Temple Judaism Jeremiah is presented as the paradigm of the persecuted prophet, not Isaiah or any other prophet.

Furthermore, in The Lives of the Prophets, while the execution of several prophets is recounted—Isaiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Amos—it is Jeremiah who is “stoned by his people” (Liv. Pro. 2.1), a tradition likewise echoed in 4 Baruch 9:21–32. That is, of all the prophets, the tradition of being stoned to death is associated only with Jeremiah. Thus in the story of Acts 7, it is highly ironic that Stephen himself is stoned by the people and the leaders of Jerusalem just a few verses after this allusion to Jeremiah (Acts 7:58).

5. The story of the Ethiopian’s conversion in Acts 8:26–40 makes several intertextual allusions to the Ethiopian in Jeremiah 38–39.

In the context of confrontations with leaders, tense trials, indictments of judgment, and imprisonments of God’s new prophets, the appearance of an Ethiopian official/eunuch would seem to be a rather strong allusion or intentional parallel to the Ethiopian official/eunuch in Jeremiah 38:7–39:18. Ebedmelech the Ethiopian plays a critical role in Jeremiah (he saves the prophet and then is saved himself from the destruction of Jerusalem). Furthermore, his appearance as a central character alongside Jeremiah and Baruch in the book of 4 Baruch indicates that there continued to be a very strong tradition associating him with Jeremiah and the parallel destructions of Jerusalem in 587 BC and AD 70.

Both of these men are referred to as Ethiopians (and officials or eunuchs), and they are from the same place—a kingdom on the Nile River, just south of Egypt. In addition, both men are also connected to the royal court. The Ethiopian eunuch is “an important official” in the court of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians (Acts 8:27). Ebedmelech is similarly an official in the “house of the king” (Jer 38:7).¹³The social/historical implications of Ebedmelech’s name along with the contextual meaning of the Hebrew term sārîs combine to provide strong evidence that Ebedmelech was an official, probably a soldier or officer of some type.

Likewise, both of these stories are related to Jerusalem. In Jeremiah 38, Jeremiah the prophet warns the people to flee Jerusalem, and in Jeremiah 39, Jerusalem comes under siege and is destroyed. In Acts, judgment on Jerusalem hangs in the air as Peter and Stephen echo the impending judgment voiced by Jesus in Luke 21, who also, following Jeremiah, had warned the people to flee Jerusalem (Luke 21:21). In Acts 2–8 the persecution and hostility by the leaders in Jerusalem against God’s prophets escalates, culminating in the death of Stephen.

In Jeremiah 38–39 everyone in Jerusalem has turned against Jeremiah. All of the leadership in Israel have conspired against him and openly turned hostile against him, persecuting him and trying to kill him. They have all rejected the word of God and his messenger, and they have tried repeatedly to silence him. At this very time, when all of Jerusalem has rejected the prophet and his message from God, Ebedmelech the Ethiopian suddenly appears, responds positively, and believes, thus finding salvation and deliverance (Jer 39:17–18) even as Jerusalem falls and the leaders who opposed Jeremiah are executed (Jer 39:1–7).

The situation in Acts 2–8 is very similar. The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem have rejected the message from God as well as his messengers (who are compared to the prophets). These leaders try to silence the messengers, and as in Jeremiah 38–39, in Acts 2–7 God’s messengers are imprisoned. This fails to silence them, however, and the Judean authorities in Jerusalem then kill one of the messengers and scatter the rest. At this very point in time, when the leaders in Jerusalem have openly turned hostile against the gospel and those who proclaim it, seeking to silence its message, an Ethiopian official suddenly appears, reading from Isaiah 53, an OT prophecy that proclaims the very heart of the gospel. This Gentile, in contrast to the Jews in Jerusalem and especially the leaders, believes the message from God and finds deliverance, just as Ebedmelech did. For both of them the message was not silenced.

3. Conclusion

As Luke told the story of how the gospel spread out from Jerusalem, no doubt there were hundreds of conversion stories to choose from. Under God’s inspiration, the Ethiopian official’s conversion by Philip was likely selected for several reasons. First of all, in the programmatic Acts 1:8 Jesus told his disciples that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Acts 2–7 recounts the explosion of the gospel in Jerusalem. Acts 8:1–8 notes the spread from Jerusalem throughout Judea and Samaria. The Ethiopian in Acts 8:26–40 certainly qualifies as representing the next step, taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

The intertextual connection to Jeremiah 38–39 also adds several nuances to the unfolding story in Acts. First of all, in Jeremiah, the story of Ebedmelech the Ethiopian is a paradigmatic, “real life” version of the prophetically-proclaimed inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God. By alluding to that story in Acts 8, Luke is using his Ethiopian conversion story as a dramatic opening picture of that same prophetic Gentile inclusion, a biblical theme that will continue throughout the book of Acts, even taking center stage as the story unfolds.

Thus both Ebedmelech in Jeremiah and the Ethiopian in Acts 8 serve as paralleling models or paradigms of the Gentile inclusion. The fact that they are both Black Africans is not insignificant, for God is apparently using these two Black people of faith to symbolize and represent the inclusion of “every people and nation” into the people of God.

Second, the allusion to Jeremiah 38–39 recalls the rejection of God’s word and the persecution of his prophet by the leaders in Jerusalem that led to the horrific destruction of the city by the Babylonians. The similarities between that situation in Jeremiah and the situation described in Acts 2:1–8:3 are remarkably close, and drawing attention to these parallel situations is likely one of Luke’s intentions. While these two Gentile Ethiopians believed the word of God, the leaders of Jerusalem rejected it and persecuted God’s prophets, bringing an indictment of judgment upon them and their city, Jerusalem.

Thus in connecting to Jeremiah’s story of Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, Luke is also underscoring the consequences for the rejection of God’s message and the murder of Jesus Christ his son and prophet in Jerusalem. The Romans will destroy Jerusalem, just as the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem back in the day of Jeremiah. In contrast, the gospel of Jesus Christ will not be silenced but will be spread among the nations, even to the ends of the earth.

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