When the good news got out that Gedaliah was in charge of affairs in Judah, the people who had fled and hidden because of the siege began to come back to the land (Jer. 40:7, 11–12). Gedaliah was a good man from a good family, although events proved that he was very naive about practical politics.
The faithful governor (40:7–12). Gedaliah told the people exactly what Jeremiah had been telling them for many years: Serve the Babylonians and you will live safely in the land. The people couldn’t reap any harvest of grain because the fields hadn’t been sown during the siege, but they could gather the produce that had not been destroyed in the war. The remnant in Judah had to follow the same instructions that Jeremiah gave to the exiles in Babylon: Live normal lives, turn to the Lord with all your hearts, and wait for the Lord to deliver you (29:4–14). God had promised a future for the nation because the nation had important work to do.
The concerned captain (40:13–16). Johanan started out as a courageous leader, but later he led the people astray. We don’t know how he and his associates heard about Ishmael’s plot to assassinate Gedaliah, but their information was certainly accurate. Had Gedaliah listened to them, the governor’s life would have been spared.
Why did Ishmael want to kill Gedaliah? The fact that the king of the Ammonites had hired him (40:14) suggests that he was making money, but much more was involved. The Ammonites had been a part of the “summit conference” in Jerusalem, where the nations allied with Judah had planned to break the Babylonian yoke (27:1–3). As a friend of Zedekiah and the king of Ammon, Ishmael didn’t want to see the Jewish people submit to Nebuchadnezzar even after the war had ended. He was a patriot who used his patriotism to promote his own selfish purposes.
Perhaps the key factor had to do with pride and selfish ambition. Ishmael was a descendant of David through Elishama (41:1; 2 Sam. 5:16), and he no doubt felt that he should have been named ruler of the nation because of his royal blood. Who was Gedaliah that he should take the place of a king? The way the Babylonians had treated Ishmael’s relative, King Zedekiah, was no encouragement to submit to their authority.
Johanan wanted to kill Ishmael, but Gedaliah refused the offer. In this, the governor was right, but he was wrong in not assembling a group of loyal men who could guard him day and night. Not only would that have told Ishmael that the governor knew what was going on, but also it would have protected Gedaliah’s life from those who wanted to destroy him. The governor should have listened to Johanan and not been so naive about Ishmael. “For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure” (Prov. 11: niv).
The deceitful murderer (41:1–18). In the Near East, when people eat together, they’re pledging their friendship and loyalty to one another. Ishmael, however, used the meal as a trap to catch Gedaliah and his men so he could kill them. We don’t know how many men were with the governor, but ten of Ishmael’s men were able to dispatch them quickly.
To his terrible breach of hospitality he added hypocrisy, weeping before the eighty Jewish pilgrims who had come to worship, and then killing seventy of them. His greed was revealed when he spared the other ten in order to find out where their supply of food was hidden. He was a cunning and ruthless man who would stop at nothing to get his own way.
Ishmael climaxed his crimes by kidnapping the helpless Jewish remnant and starting for the land of the Ammonites. At this point, however, Johanan came to the rescue and delivered the remnant from Ishmael’s power, but Ishmael escaped. It was a series of tragedies that probably could have been averted had Gedaliah listened to his friends and acted with more caution.
Johanan showed courage in rescuing the Jews, but when he was finally in charge, he revealed his own lack of faith by wanting to take the remnant to Egypt! He didn’t remember the counsel of Gedaliah (Jer. 40:9) or the messages of Jeremiah, both of whom warned the Jews to stay in the land and not go to Egypt. How easy it is for a good man to go astray simply by turning away from the Word of God!