1. of the royal seed. This is a politically significant notation. Gedaliah is the grandson of Shaphan, a court scribe, and not a member of the dynastic family. Ishmael thus regards him as both usurper and a quisling, while his own biological connection to the royal line may have encouraged him to make a move for the throne, once he has eliminated Gedaliah and at such time as there might be a possibility to shake off the Babylonian yoke.

the king’s officers. These words do not appear in the parallel passage in 2 Kings 25:25, and they are probably an erroneous insertion here because Ishmael’s contingent of ten men is all that is mentioned in what follows.

they broke bread together. This act of fellowship indicates Ishmael’s strategy of deception. Gedaliah would surely have had many more than ten men around him, even including Chaldean soldiers, but he and those with him are taken by surprise by Ishmael and his ten killers.

5. eighty men with beards shaved and rent garments and slashed bodies. These are all signs of mourning. Slashing the body is explicitly prohibited in the Torah, but popular practice is quite another matter. The mourning, of course, is for the destruction of the Temple.

grain offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring to the house of the LORD. Since they know that the house of the LORD is no longer standing, this would have to be a pilgrimage to the site of the destroyed Temple, where they hope to participate in some sort of rite with the grain offering and the incense, though animal sacrifice would be not possible without the Temple and its altar.

6. walking along weeping. He pretends to share their mourning.

Come to Gedaliah. In this way he lures them into Mizpah, concealing his murder of Gedaliah.

7. Ishmael son of Nethaniah slaughtered them. The likely motive for this act of mass murder is to make sure, lest any of the pilgrims passing by Mizpah get word of what has happened there, that no report of the assassination be made. Ishmael’s unflinching ruthlessness is clearly evident.

8. we have hidden stores in the field. It should be kept in mind that the Judahite population has been under siege, and so food supplies are very scarce. Ishmael would have to keep these men alive so that they could lead him to the storage pits or other places of concealment where they had left the provisions.

9. the cistern into which Ishmael had flung all the corpses. Merely wanting to get the bodies out of sight, he compounds the brutality of the murders by denying his victims a proper burial.

the one that King Asa had made on account of Baasha king of Israel. This was in a time of war between the southern kingdom ruled by Asa and the northern kingdom. The cistern was probably dug to provide a water supply if Baasha were to besiege Mizpah.

Ishmael son of Nethaniah filled it with the slain. This grisly detail offers a concrete image of the magnitude of the slaughter.

10. the daughters of the king. The king’s sons were executed by Nebuchadrezzar, but evidently his daughters were allowed to take refuge with Gedaliah at Mizpah.

12. the great pool. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “many waters,” but in 2 Samuel 2:13 it is a pool at Gibeon alongside which a battle in the civil war takes place.

14. And all the people whom Ishmael had taken captive from Mizpah swung round and turned back. As captives, they were scarcely willing allies of the murderous Ishmael, so it is hardly surprising that they should go over to the other side at the first sign of a strong opposing force. Ishmael, confronted by superior numbers and compelled to flee, is in no position to retain them.

15. with eight men. Two of the ten are now missing. Either they have defected or, if Gedaliah’s people offered some resistance, they have been killed in the course of the slaughter.

16. and eunuchs. This is the first mention of their presence in this group. Their probable function is as attendants to the king’s daughters.

17. on the route down to Egypt. The literal sense is “to come to Egypt.” The people who sheltered at Mizpah now conclude that it is not safe for them to remain in Judah, and so they prepare to go to Egypt, Babylonia’s adversary. The second half of this sentence, which appears in the next verse, explains that because Gedaliah, appointed by the Babylonians, has been murdered (together with a contingent of Chaldean military men), they are afraid that they may be held accountable, perhaps suspected as survivors to be accomplices of Ishmael.