Jeremiah 41: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, a member of the royal family, eats a meal with Gedaliah at Mizpah and then kills him along with the Judeans and Babylonian soldiers there. Two days later he tricks and kills eighty pilgrims coming from the north, sparing ten who offer him hidden food stores, and throws the bodies into a cistern. He takes the rest of the people of Mizpah captive toward Ammon, but Johanan son of Kareah and the army commanders catch him at Gibeon and win the captives back, while Ishmael escapes with eight men. Johanan then leads the survivors toward Egypt, afraid of what the Babylonians will do about Gedaliah's murder.

Claim by Claim

1. 41:1
   • It happened in the seventh month.
   • Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, came to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam at Mizpah.
   • Ishmael was of the royal line.
   • The king's chief officers were involved, though the text leaves ambiguous whether this describes Ishmael himself or a separate group who came with him.
   • Ten men came with Ishmael.
   • There at Mizpah they ate a meal together.
2. 41:2
   • Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and the ten men with him rose up.
   • They struck Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword.
   • They killed him.
   • The king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah over the land.
3. 41:3
   • Ishmael also killed all the Jews who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah.
   • Ishmael killed the Chaldeans who were found there.
   • Ishmael killed the men of war.
   • The text leaves ambiguous whether the men of war are the same as the Chaldeans found there or a separate group.
4. 41:4
   • It was the second day after Gedaliah had been killed.
   • No one knew about the killing.
5. 41:5
   • Men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria.
   • They were eighty men.
   • Their beards were shaved off.
   • Their clothes were torn.
   • They had cut themselves.
   • They carried a grain offering and frankincense in their hand.
   • They were bringing these to the house of the LORD.
6. 41:6
   • Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them.
   • He wept continually as he went.
   • When he met them he spoke to them.
   • He said to them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.
7. 41:7
   • When they came into the middle of the city, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah killed them.
   • He cast them into the middle of the cistern.
   • The men who were with him acted along with him.
8. 41:8
   • Ten men were found among them.
   • Those ten said to Ishmael, Do not kill us.
   • They said they had hidden stores in the field.
   • They said the stores were wheat, barley, oil, and honey.
   • Ishmael stopped.
   • Ishmael did not kill them along with their companions.
9. 41:9
   • The cistern was the one into which Ishmael threw all the corpses of the men he had struck down.
   • Those men were struck down in connection with Gedaliah, and the text leaves ambiguous whether this means because of Gedaliah or alongside Gedaliah.
   • King Asa had made that cistern.
   • Asa made it because of his fear of Baasha king of Israel.
   • Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with the slain.
10. 41:10
    • Ishmael took captive all the rest of the people who were at Mizpah.
    • Among them were the king's daughters.
    • Among them were all the people who remained at Mizpah.
    • Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed those people to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.
    • Ishmael the son of Nethaniah took them captive.
    • Ishmael set out to cross over to the Ammonites.
11. 41:11
    • Johanan the son of Kareah heard of all the evil Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done.
    • All the captains of the forces who were with Johanan heard of it as well.
12. 41:12
    • They took all the men.
    • They went to fight against Ishmael the son of Nethaniah.
    • They found Ishmael by the great waters in Gibeon.
13. 41:13
    • All the people who were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces with him.
    • The people were glad.
14. 41:14
    • All the people whom Ishmael had taken captive from Mizpah turned around and came back.
    • They went over to Johanan the son of Kareah.
15. 41:15
    • Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan.
    • Eight men escaped with him.
    • Ishmael went to the Ammonites.
16. 41:16
    • Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces with him took all the remnant of the people from Mizpah.
    • He had recovered those people from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah.
    • This was after Ishmael had struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.
    • The group included strong men who were fighting men.
    • The group included women.
    • The group included children.
    • The group included court officials.
    • He had brought them back from Gibeon.
17. 41:17
    • They set out and stayed at Geruth Chimham.
    • Geruth Chimham is near Bethlehem.
    • Their purpose was to go on into Egypt.
18. 41:18
    • They intended this because of the Chaldeans.
    • They were afraid of the Chaldeans.
    • The reason was that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.
    • The king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah over the land.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

41:1

"The seventh month" is Tishri, falling in September–October. The year is 586 BC or shortly after: Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem, deported much of the population, and appointed Gedaliah to govern the people left behind, with Mizpah, a town about eight miles north of the ruined Jerusalem, as his administrative seat. Ishmael's descent "from the royal family" means the line of David, which Babylon had just deposed; the previous chapter reports that the king of Ammon had sent him to kill Gedaliah. Sharing a meal placed a host and guest under an obligation of mutual protection, which makes the killing that follows a double offense in the eyes of the original readers.

41:2

The king of Babylon is Nebuchadnezzar. Gedaliah's grandfather Shaphan was the royal secretary under King Josiah, and his father Ahikam had protected Jeremiah from execution (Jeremiah 26:24), so the family was a well-known one in Jerusalem.

41:3

The King James "Chaldeans" means Babylonians; Chaldea was the region of southern Mesopotamia the ruling dynasty came from. The men killed here were the small Babylonian garrison stationed with the governor.

41:5

Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria were towns in the former northern kingdom of Israel, destroyed by Assyria over a century earlier; Shiloh had once housed the tabernacle. Shaving the beard, tearing one's clothes, and gashing the skin were customary signs of grief and mourning in the ancient Near East, here presumably for the destroyed temple. A "grain offering" was a gift of flour or grain, and incense was aromatic resin burned as an offering. "The house of the LORD" is the Jerusalem temple, which had been burned a few months before, the men are bringing offerings to a ruined site, which was evidently still in use for worship.

41:6

Ishmael cries as he walks out to meet them so that he will look like one more mourner coming to join them. It is a disguise, not grief.

41:7

The pit is a cistern: a large bottle-shaped hole cut into rock to collect and store rainwater, standard in a country with no summer rain. An empty one made a convenient dungeon or, as here, a mass grave.

41:8

Grain and other stores were hidden in concealed underground pits in the fields to keep them from raiding armies and tax collectors. The ten men are offering to buy their lives with the location of such caches.

41:9

Asa was king of Judah about three centuries earlier; Baasha was king of the rival northern kingdom of Israel. Asa fortified Mizpah against him (1 Kings 15:22), and a large cistern to supply a garrison with water in a siege was part of such works.

41:10

"The king's daughters" are the daughters of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, left behind when the Babylonians blinded and deported him. Nebuzaradan was Nebuchadnezzar's chief officer, who had overseen the destruction of Jerusalem. The Ammonites were a kingdom east of the Jordan whose king, Baalis, had backed Ishmael's plot (Jeremiah 40:14); crossing over to them meant putting himself beyond Babylonian reach.

41:11

Johanan was a leader of soldiers from Judah. His men had not been in the town when Ishmael killed Gedaliah.

41:12

The great pool at Gibeon, about five miles from Mizpah, was a well-known landmark: a rock-cut shaft some thirty-seven feet across with a spiral stairway down to the water table. It was also the site of an earlier famous confrontation (2 Samuel 2:13).

41:16

The King James "eunuchs" translates a word for a court official; such men were often, though not always, castrated, and the term came to mean a royal officer generally. These are surviving members of the Judean royal household.

41:17

"Geruth Chimham" is left untranslated because its sense is uncertain; it appears to mean a lodging place or holding belonging to Chimham, probably the son of Barzillai whom David rewarded with land near Bethlehem (2 Samuel 19:37–40). Bethlehem lies south of Jerusalem, on the road toward Egypt.

41:18

The fear is of Babylonian reprisal: Ishmael had murdered the governor Babylon itself installed, and the survivors expect the empire to punish the whole community for it, whether or not they took part.