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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 41:16 - 41:16
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After the escape of Ishmael, it was to be feared that the Chaldeans would avenge the murder of the governor, and make the Jews who remained atone for the escape of the murderer by executing them or carrying them away to Babylon. Accordingly, Johanan and the other captains determined to withdraw to Egypt with the men, women, and children that had been carried off by Ishmael; these they conducted first to Bethlehem, where they encamped for the purpose of deliberating as to the rest of the journey, and taking due precautions. The account given in Jer 41:16 is clumsily expressed, especially the middle portion, between "whom he had brought back" and "the son of Ahikam;" and in this part the words "from Mizpah" are particularly troublesome in breaking the connection: "whom he (Johanan) had brought back from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after he (Ishmael) had slain Gedaliah," while it is more correctly stated in the second relative clause, "whom he had brought back from Gibeon." Hitzig and Graf accordingly suppose that, originally, instead of אֲשֶׁר הֵשִׁיב מֵאֵת, there stood in the text אֲשֶׁר שָׁבָה, "whom he (Ishmael) had led captive from Mizpah, after he had slain Gedaliah." Thus the whole becomes clear. Against this conjecture there only stands the fact that the lxx translate οὕς ἀπέστρεψεν ἀπὸ ̓Ισμαήλ; they must thus have read אֲשֶׁר הֵשִׁיב מֵאֵת, and omitted merely הַמִּצְפָּה as unsuited to the passage. However, the error may be even older than the lxx, and הֵשִׁיב מֵאֵת may easily have arisen through a scribe having glanced at the words אֲשֶׁר הֵשִׁיב of the last clause. The words from "men" to "chamberlains" form the more exact specification of the general expression "all the remnant of the people:" "men, viz., men of war, women (including the king's daughters, Jer 40:10), and children and chamberlains" (סָרִיסִים, guardians and servants of the female members of the royal family).