41:1–3 The plan of Ishmael to sabotage Gedaliah’s colonial administration comes to fruition some seven months after the fall of Jerusalem. As the action begins, it is striking that the narrator mentions that Ishmael is “of the royal family, one of the chief officers of the king” (v. 1). That is, he is a doubly intimate associate of the deposed King Zedekiah. Sinister motives thus lie behind his arrival in Mizpah for table fellowship with Gedaliah, for this meal is staged as an ambush that results in the murder of the latter (v. 2). Following this, the Judean officials and Babylonian soldiers garrisoned in Mizpah with Gedaliah are quickly swept up in Ishmael’s conspiracy and die as a result of Ishmael’s desire to silence all witnesses (v. 3).

41:4–10 These verses describe a strange sequence of events in Jerusalem on the day following Gedaliah’s murder (v. 4). Perhaps in mourning for the destroyed temple of Yahweh, a group of bedraggled pilgrims arrives from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, three cities in the territory of the northern kingdom of Israel, in order to make offerings at the site of the temple in Jerusalem (v. 5). Ishmael comes over from Mizpah, pretends to join then in mourning, and summons them to Mizpah to meet with the already-dead Gedaliah, though the pilgrims do not know of his death (v. 6). This ruse succeeds when Ishmael slaughters most of them and dumps their corpses in a cistern, although some quick-thinking pilgrims bribe Ishmael into sparing their lives (v. 8).

Interestingly, the book of Jeremiah has already narrated an unseemly act involving a cistern (cf. 38:6–13). The narrator adds the poignant note that a cistern that once served the noble purpose of Judah’s national defense (41:9) has now become a symbol of national disgrace by concealing a serial murderer’s handiwork. As if this evil were not enough, Ishmael proceeds to kidnap all Mizpah’s remaining inhabitants and make a dash toward Yehud’s border with Ammon (v. 10). The listing of everyone under Gedaliah’s jurisdiction indicates that Ishmael intends to kill or kidnap all witnesses of his deeds in Mizpah.

41:11–15 Ishmael’s conspiracy spurs into action his former compatriots, Johanan and the military leaders of Judah (v. 11; cf. 40:8). They catch up with Ishmael at Gibeon (41:12), a Benjamite town not far from Mizpah, and their superior numbers force him to leave behind the people of Mizpah he had kidnapped (vv. 13–14). Nevertheless, Ishmael escapes their grasp and goes over to Ammon (v. 15), the home of his patron, King Baalis, who had sent him to assassinate Gedaliah (cf. 40:15).

41:16–18 These verses narrate Johanan’s futile attempt to contain a worsening crisis. He and those with him leave behind the Benjamite towns of Mizpah and Gibeon and move southward (v. 16), away from the Babylonian centers of power. They settle briefly in the Judean town of Geruth Chimham as preparation for a further migration southwest to Egypt (v. 17). In the eyes of Babylon, Johanan and the other military leaders of Judah have all become guilty of sedition due to their previous association with Ishmael (v. 18). It makes no difference that they sought to prevent rather than accomplish the death of Gedaliah, since Babylon would view any form of Judean infighting as a threat to its power. This suspicion is not exactly misplaced, for the reappearance of the prophet Jeremiah in the next chapter will reveal that Johanan and those with him are far from innocent victims. They may have become refugees as a result of Jerusalem’s fall, but their outlook is basically identical to the apostate people of Judah in viewing Babylon’s victory over them as a theological impossibility.