Jeremiah 41:4-10 – Be watchful of the depravity of sin

Killing Gedaliah was not enough for Ishmael. While the assassination of Gedaliah was still not known Jeremiah 41:4-5 tell us that 80 pilgrims from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria came to Jerusalem. These men came to Jerusalem to mourn the destruction of the temple. Hence, they were said to have their “beards shaved off and their clothes torn, and their bodies gashed, having grain offerings and incense in their hands to bring to the house of the Lord.” Although Ishmael knew that Gedaliah was dead because he had assassinated him, he pretended as if the latter was still alive. So he went deceptively with hypocritical tears to receive the pilgrims on Gedaliah’s behalf.

Wanting to prevent the news of the assassination of Gedaliah from leaking, he cruelly wanted to kill the 80 pilgrims as well. He managed to kill seventy of them and threw them into the cistern that King Asa had built in the past. Ishmael had filled that cistern with all those he had killed. Ten of the 80 managed to escape death by negotiating with him. To save themselves, they revealed to him that they had stores of wheat, barley, oil, and honey in the field. So they were spared when they told him where to find the supplies.

The cruelty of Ishmael was without bound. He was wicked and vicious and had no qualms about his senseless murder of the innocent. He killed the governor as well as the pilgrims and threw them into the cistern which he had filled with corpses that he slain. He was a man with no conscience and hence had no regard for the sanctity of lives.  To him nothing was sacred hence nothing was off-limit. That’s the extent and depravity of man’s unredeemed nature. Knowing that the news of the murder of Gedaliah and those pilgrims could not be contained for long. Jeremiah 41:10 said that Ishmael took the remnant and the whole population of Mizpah, including the princesses,  with him to Ammon. It looked like this was his last-ditch effort to suppress the evidence of his crime.  

If anything, these verses reveal, it is the utter depravity of the fallen sinful man. The clear manifestation of man’s sinful nature is deception, hypocrisy, and violence. We thank God for Christ Jesus. Through Him, we need no longer be dominated by depravity. For we are told that if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old had passed away and he has a new start to life. Hence, we must keep Romans 12:2 at the forefront of our walk. We must no longer be conformed to the pattern of this world but instead be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we may test and know not only the good and acceptable will of God but His perfect one.