Gedaliah murdered; the flight to Egypt

Jeremiah 40:1–43:7 WEB

^40:1The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were carried away captive to Babylon. ²The captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him, “The LORD your God pronounced this evil on this place; ³and the LORD has brought it, and done according as he spoke. Because you have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you. ⁴Now, behold, I release you today from the chains which are on your hand. If it seems good to you to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will take care of you; but if it seems bad to you to come with me into Babylon, don’t. Behold, all the land is before you. Where it seems good and right to you to go, go there.” ⁵Now while he had not yet gone back, “Go back then,” he said, “to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go.” So the captain of the guard gave him food and a present, and let him go. ⁶Then Jeremiah went to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land. ⁷Now when all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed to him men, women, children, and of the poorest of the land, of those who were not carried away captive to Babylon, ⁸then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah the son of the Maacathite, they and their men came to Gedaliah to Mizpah. ⁹Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore to them and to their men, saying, “Don’t be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you. ¹⁰As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans who will come to us; but you, gather wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that you have taken.” ¹¹Likewise when all the Jews who were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and who were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ¹²then all the Jews returned out of all places where they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, to Mizpah, and gathered very much wine and summer fruits. ¹³Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, ¹⁴and said to him, “Do you know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?” But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam didn’t believe them. ¹⁵Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, “Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man will know it. Why should he take your life, that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?” ¹⁶But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said to Johanan the son of Kareah, “You shall not do this thing, for you speak falsely of Ishmael.”

^41:1Now in the seventh month, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal offspring and one of the chief officers of the king, and ten men with him, came to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they ate bread together in Mizpah. ²Then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah arose, and the ten men who were with him, and struck Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword and killed him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land. ³Ishmael also killed all the Jews who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldean men of war who were found there. ⁴The second day after he had killed Gedaliah, and no man knew it, ⁵men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and having cut themselves, with meal offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the LORD’s house. ⁶Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went, and as he met them, he said to them, “Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.” ⁷It was so, when they came into the middle of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah killed them, and cast them into the middle of the pit, he, and the men who were with him. ⁸But ten men were found among those who said to Ishmael, “Don’t kill us; for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey.” So he stopped, and didn’t kill them among their brothers. ⁹Now the pit in which Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had killed, by the side of Gedaliah (this was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel), Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with those who were killed. ¹⁰Then Ishmael carried away captive all of the people who were left in Mizpah, even the king’s daughters, and all the people who remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon. ¹¹But when Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, heard of all the evil that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had done, ¹²then they took all the men, and went to fight with Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and found him by the great waters that are in Gibeon. ¹³Now when all the people who were with Ishmael saw Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, then they were glad. ¹⁴So all the people who Ishmael had carried away captive from Mizpah turned about and came back, and went to Johanan the son of Kareah. ¹⁵But Ishmael the son of Nethaniah escaped from Johanan with eight men, and went to the children of Ammon. ¹⁶Then Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces who were with him took all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after he had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam—the men of war, with the women, the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought back from Gibeon. ¹⁷They departed and lived in Geruth Chimham, which is by Bethlehem, to go to enter into Egypt ¹⁸because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them, because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon made governor over the land.

^42:1Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, came near, ²and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our supplication be presented before you, and pray for us to the LORD your God, even for all this remnant, for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes see us, ³that the LORD your God may show us the way in which we should walk, and the things that we should do.” ⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I will pray to the LORD your God according to your words; and it will happen that whatever thing the LORD answers you, I will declare it to you. I will keep nothing back from you.” ⁵Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don’t do according to all the word with which the LORD your God sends you to tell us. ⁶Whether it is good, or whether it is bad, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God, to whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.” ⁷After ten days, the LORD’s word came to Jeremiah. ⁸Then he called Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, ⁹and said to them, “The LORD, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before him, says: ¹⁰‘If you will still live in this land, then I will build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I grieve over the distress that I have brought on you. ¹¹Don’t be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Don’t be afraid of him,’ says the LORD, ‘for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. ¹²I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you, and cause you to return to your own land. ¹³“‘But if you say, “We will not dwell in this land,” so that you don’t obey the LORD your God’s voice, ¹⁴saying, “No, but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we will see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there we will dwell;”’ ¹⁵now therefore hear the LORD’s word, O remnant of Judah! The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to live there, ¹⁶then it will happen that the sword, which you fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, will follow close behind you there in Egypt; and you will die there. ¹⁷So will it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there. They will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. None of them will remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.’ ¹⁸For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘As my anger and my wrath has been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you, when you enter into Egypt; and you will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach; and you will see this place no more.’ ¹⁹“The LORD has spoken concerning you, remnant of Judah, ‘Don’t go into Egypt!’ Know certainly that I have testified to you today. ²⁰For you have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for you sent me to the LORD your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to the LORD our God; and according to all that the LORD our God says, so declare to us, and we will do it.’ ²¹I have declared it to you today; but you have not obeyed the LORD your God’s voice in anything for which he has sent me to you. ²²Now therefore know certainly that you will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live.”

^43:1When Jeremiah had finished speaking to all the people all the words of the LORD their God, with which the LORD their God had sent him to them, even all these words, ²then Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men spoke, saying to Jeremiah, “You speak falsely. The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You shall not go into Egypt to live there;’ ³but Baruch the son of Neriah has turned you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may put us to death or carry us away captive to Babylon.” ⁴So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, didn’t obey the LORD’s voice, to dwell in the land of Judah. ⁵But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces took all the remnant of Judah, who had returned from all the nations where they had been driven, to live in the land of Judah— ⁶the men, the women, the children, the king’s daughters, and every person who Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan; and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah. ⁷They came into the land of Egypt, for they didn’t obey the LORD’s voice; and they came to Tahpanhes.