There was an Ethiopian, a eunuch… (Acts 8:27)
We know nothing about the Ethiopian’s past. As Jesus said in Matthew 19:12, there were several ways males could become eunuchs. Without reproductive organs, eunuchs could not father children, just as a barren woman cannot bear children. In societies that valued families and descendants, they could feel a deep sense of loss, perhaps even shame (Genesis 30:1; 1 Samuel 1:2-16; Luke 1:25). We don’t know how the eunuch felt about his impotence. But we do know that the Law of Moses forbade him, as a castrated man, to “enter the assembly of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:1). His worship in Jerusalem had to be at a distance from the temple assembly. We also know that Isaiah addressed this situation, speaking to the Ethiopian as both a foreigner and as a eunuch. In Isaiah 53, he read about the death that saves sinners. If, on the long road home, he read the section immediately after Isaiah 53, he saw the bright future planned by God. Isaiah 54 addressed the barren woman, promising her a family. Isaiah 56 addressed foreigners and eunuchs, promising them a secure place in God’s house and an eternal future “better than sons and daughters.”
Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from His people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, who choose the things that please Me and hold fast My covenant, I will give in My house and within My walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off…. These I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer… for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:3-5, 7)
Jesus quoted this very passage (Mark 11:17). He went on to show that Jerusalem’s temple would become irrelevant (John 4:21; Luke 21:5-6). The true house of God is His household or family, the church saved by Jesus’ death (Acts 20:28; Ephesians 2:19-22). The eunuch entered that family by baptism (Acts 2:47; 8:38-39; 1 Corinthians 12:13-14). He thus received the blessings promised by Isaiah—promises even for foreigners and eunuchs.