Jeremiah 41
A royal kills Babylon’s appointed governor
A meal and a murder
1In the autumn [1] of the year Jerusalem fell, a member of the royal family [2] came to Mizpah [3]and ate a meal with the Babylonian-appointed governor, Gedaliah son of Ahikam. The governor’s guest was Ishmael [4] son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama. Ishmael had been a top official for Judah’s former king, Zedekiah. He brought 10 men with him.2While they ate, Ishmael and his men assassinated Governor Gedaliah with their swords. 3The men also murdered Gedaliah’s other guests from Judah along with some Babylonian soldiers who were there at the time.
Murdering mourners
4One day later, before news of the murder had gotten out, 580 grieving pilgrims from the northern towns of Shechem, [5] Shiloh, and Samaria approached Mizpah on their way to the ruins of the Jerusalem Temple. The men had shaved their beards, ripped their clothes, and cut their skin. [6] They were bringing grain and incense offerings to present at the Temple.6Ishmael went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping. [7] He said, “Come with me to see Governor Gedaliah.” 7When they all arrived at Mizpah’s town center, Ishmael and his men began slaughtering them and throwing their bodies in a cistern [8] water pit. 8But 10 men under attack convinced Ishmael not to kill them. They said, “If you don’t kill us, we can provide you with supplies we have hidden in the fields. We’ve got wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey.”
9The cistern Ishmael used for all the bodies, including Governor Gedaliah, was one that King Asa [9] had built to provide water for Mizpah during his war with King Baasha of Israel. Ishmael filled the cistern with the bodies of the men he had killed.
10Ishmael arrested everyone in the town of Mizpah. That included former King Zedekiah’s daughters [10] and everyone that Babylon’s royal guard commander, Nebuzaradan, had entrusted to Gedaliah’s care. [11] Then he headed to Ammon, across the Jordan River Valley.
Hunting a royal killer
11When Johanan son of Kareah and other militia leaders heard about Ishmael’s crimes, 12they gathered their troops and set out to chase them down and fight them. They caught up with Ishmael’s group at Gibeon. [12] 13When Ishmael’s captives saw Johanan’s militia arrive, they were relieved and happy. 14Right away, they left Ishmael’s caravan and rushed to Johanan’s militia.Royal getaway
15Ishmael escaped to Ammon with eight men. 16Johanan and his men escorted all the freed captives to the town of Gibeon. These people included soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs. 17From there, they headed south and stopped at Geruth Chimham [13] near the town of Bethlehem. 18They were afraid of what the Babylonians would do once they found out that Ishmael had murdered their appointed governor, Gedaliah.Footnotes
The original Hebrew text says it was “the seventh month” on the Hebrew lunar calendar. It’s called Tishri and also Ethanim. It runs from about mid-September to mid-October. The writer doesn’t say what year. But the presumption here is that he’s continuing the story from the fall of Jerusalem in July of 586 BC. Some scholars say Jerusalem fell in 587 BC.
The royal family here refers to King David’s family dynasty, which began some 600 years earlier. Since David’s time, the only legitimate kings of the Israelites came from David’s family.
Mizpah was the new capital of Babylon’s Judah—the new Jerusalem—since Babylon destroyed Jerusalem. Several sites have been suggested as contenders. Perhaps the top contender is Tell en-Nasbeh, about 8 miles (12 km) north of Jerusalem. Another is Nabi Samwil, 5 miles (8 km) northwest of Jerusalem.
This is the same Ishmael that Johanan, one of Judah’s militia leaders, had warned was going to try to assassinate him (Jeremiah 40:13-16). Johanan said that Baalis, king of Ammon, had ordered the hit.
Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria weren’t part of Judah. They were part of the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel, which Assyrians from what is now northern Iraq erased from the world map in 722 BC by killing or deporting the citizens. These men in mourning, likely for the Temple, suggest King Josiah’s religious reform movement a generation earlier in 622 BC had worked. He went into what once was Israel’s kingdom and tore down pagan worship centers and promoted worship at Jerusalem’s Temple.
Shaving beards and wearing torn clothes were common ways of expressing grief—like wearing dark clothes today. So was cutting the skin. But Jewish law said that’s a custom to avoid: “Don’t do anything to commemorate the dead if it involves cutting your body or permanently painting yourself with tattoos” (Leviticus 19:28).
These were fake tears from what sounds like a man who made a game of treachery and murder.
A cistern was a storage pit to collect rainwater or water hauled from a spring or a stream. It was often chiseled out of stone and lined with waterproof plaster. And in this dry land, it was often empty after a hot summer and before the winter rains.
King Asa ruled Judah from about 911-870 BC, some 300 years before Jeremiah. So, the cisterns were that old.
It comes as a surprise that the Babylonians didn’t kill King Zedekiah’s daughter, as they did his sons. They may have hidden, like some of the local militias did.
That included Jeremiah (Jeremiah 40:5-6).
Gibeon has been identified with a dirt mount of ruins called Tel el-Jib, about a two-hour walk north of Jerusalem, six miles (10 km).
Location unknown. They didn’t go home to Mizpah but instead headed south. That was the only direction they could go by land to get away from Babylon. They expected Babylon to retaliate for the murder of their appointed governor.
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