The Murder of Gedaliah ben Ahikam
The governor left over the remnant in the Land was murdered by his own people. The last inhabitants then fled to Egypt, and the country was emptied altogether.
Nebuzaradan deported nearly everyone but left the poorest as vinedressers and farmers, and set over them Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan—from a family that had protected prophets for generations; his father had once saved Jeremiah from death. Gedaliah settled at Mizpah. Refugees who had hidden in neighboring lands streamed back, "and they gathered wine and summer fruit in great abundance." Jeremiah stayed with him. For the first time in years there was hope of ordinary life on their own soil under foreign rule.
Johanan son of Kareah came and warned him: Ishmael son of Nethaniah, of royal blood, has been sent by Baalis king of Ammon to kill you—let me strike first. Gedaliah answered, "Do not do this thing, for what you say of Ishmael is false."
In the seventh month Ishmael came with ten men, ate bread with him at Mizpah, then rose and killed him, along with the Jews who were there and the Babylonian garrison.
The survivors, terrified of Babylonian reprisal, fled to Egypt, taking Jeremiah against his will. The land lay empty. The day of the murder, the third of Tishrei, is kept as the Fast of Gedaliah, immediately after Rosh Hashanah.
How we know
On the chronology
Academic history dates this event differently. In the age of the kings the divergence is not the one familiar from the Persian period, where Seder Olam runs about a hundred and sixty-five years short. Here academic chronology reckons some reigns as overlapping — father and son on the throne together — so its span from the division of the kingdom to the destruction of the Temple comes out nearly three decades shorter. The gap therefore grows: a hundred and thirty-five years at the division, a hundred and fifty-four at Sennacherib, a hundred and sixty-four at the destruction. The anchors of the academic count are external documents: the battle of Qarqar (853), Jehu's tribute on the Black Obelisk (841), the fall of Samaria (722), Sennacherib's campaign (701), Megiddo and Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns in the Babylonian Chronicles (609, 605, 597). Both dates appear on the timeline when the divergence layer is on.
Sources
Tanakh
- Melachim II 25:22–26 — Gedaliah’s governorship and his death
- Yirmiyahu 40–43 — the detailed account: the warning, the murder, the flight to Egypt
- Zechariah 8:19 — the fast of “the seventh month” among the four fasts
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Niddah 61a — the reproach to Gedaliah: slander is not to be accepted, but he should have taken care
- Rosh Hashanah 18b — the Fast of Gedaliah: the death of the righteous weighs as the burning of the House
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.
People and places
Jeremiah · Jeremiah · Baruch ben Neriah · The four fasts of the destruction · Gedalyah ben Achikam · Yishmael ben Netanyah · Yochanan ben Kareach · Mitzpah