and the Prophet Obadiah
spoke of vengeance in store for them likewise. All the Jews of high rank
were carried away, and none left but the poorer sort, who were to till
the ground under a ruler named Gedaliah. Jeremiah, who was offered his
choice of going to Babylon or remaining in Judea, preferred to continue
near the once glorious city, whose solitude and ruin he bewailed in the
mournful Book of Lamentations; and he did his utmost to persuade the
remaining Jews to rest quietly under the dominion of Assyria. Had they
done so, there would yet have been peace; but Ishmael, a prince of the
seed royal, who had fled to the Ammonites during the invasion, came
back, and in the hope of making himself king murdered Gedaliah at a
harvest feast, with many Jews and Chaldeans, and was on his way to his
friend, the King of Ammon, when Johanan, a friend of Gedaliah, came upon
him and slew many of his party, so that he escaped with only eight men
to the Ammonites. So shocked were the Jews at this murder of Gedaliah,
that they ever after kept a fast on the anniversary. Johanan now
asked counsel from Jeremiah, who still enjoined him to submit to the
Assyrians, but assured him that if he went to Egypt it would only be to
share the ruin of that country; but Johanan and his friends would not
listen, and carried all the remnant of Judah, and Jeremiah himself, off
by force into Egypt.
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