Jeremiah 41:7

7 When they arrived in the middle of the town, Ishmael, Nethaniah's son, and the men with him slaughtered them and threw their bodies into a cistern.

Jeremiah 41:7 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 41:7

And it was [so], when they came into the midst of the city,
&c.] Where Gedaliah's house was, to which he invited them; and as they went in, he shut up the court, as Josephus ^F8 says, and slew them, as it here follows: that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them, [and cast them] into the
midst of the pit;
when he had slain them, the fourscore men he had enticed into the city, except ten of them, he cast their dead bodies into a pit near at hand: he, and the men that [were] with him;
Ishmael and the ten princes, with what servants they brought with them; these were all concerned in the death of these men.

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 Antiqu. l. 10. c. 9. sect. 4.

Jeremiah 41:7 In-Context

5 eighty men with shaved beards, torn clothes, and gashed bodies arrived from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria. They were bringing grain offerings and incense to present at the LORD's temple.

6 Ishmael, Nethaniah's son, left Mizpah to meet them, weeping as he went. When he reached them, he said, "Come to Gedaliah, Ahikam's son!"

7 When they arrived in the middle of the town, Ishmael, Nethaniah's son, and the men with him slaughtered them and threw their bodies into a cistern.

8 But there were ten men among them who begged Ishmael, "Don't kill us; we have wheat, barley, oil, and honey hidden in a field." So he stopped and didn't kill them along with the rest. (

9 Now the cistern that Ishmael used to discard the bodies of the men he had killed because of their association with Gedaliah was the one that King Asa had made to defend against Israel's King Baasha. Ishmael, Nethaniah's son, filled it with the dead.)

Footnotes

• [a]. Heb lacks and threw their bodies; cf 41:9.