The end of chapter 25 in Melachim Bet tells us briefly about the appointment of Gedalyahu ben Achikam over the remnant of the people who remained in the land, about his murder at the hands of Yishmael ben Netanyah, and about the people's flight to Egypt. The matters are written with extreme brevity, and in order to have before us a complete picture of the dispute surrounding Gedalyah and of the situation of Israel after his death, we will go over several chapters in Sefer Yirmeyahu (40-44) which describe those events at length. We will explain these chapters with minimal explanation only, not in depth study, but rather in order to obtain an overall picture.
וְהָעָם הַנִּשְׁאָר בְּאֶרֶץ יְהוּדָה אֲשֶׁר הִשְׁאִיר נְבוּכַדְנֶאצַּר מֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל וַיַּפְקֵד עֲלֵיהֶם אֶת־גְּדַלְיָהוּ בֶּן־אֲחִיקָם בֶּן־שָׁפָן׃ - And the people who remained in the land of Yehudah, whom Nevuchadnetzar king of Bavel had left, he appointed over them Gedalyahu ben Achikam ben Shafan.
וַיִּשְׁמְעוּ כׇל־שָׂרֵי הַחֲיָלִים הֵמָּה וְהָאֲנָשִׁים כִּי־הִפְקִיד מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל אֶת־גְּדַלְיָהוּ וַיָּבֹאוּ אֶל־גְּדַלְיָהוּ הַמִּצְפָּה וְיִשְׁמָעֵאל בֶּן־נְתַנְיָה וְיוֹחָנָן בֶּן־קָרֵחַ וּשְׂרָיָה בֶן־תַּנְחֻמֶת הַנְּטֹפָתִי וְיַאֲזַנְיָהוּ בֶּן־הַמַּעֲכָתִי הֵמָּה וְאַנְשֵׁיהֶם׃ - And all the officers of the forces, they and their men, heard that the king of Bavel had appointed Gedalyahu, and they came to Gedalyahu at Mitzpah: Yishmael ben Netanyah, and Yochanan ben Kareach, and Serayah ben Tanchumet the Netofati, and Yaazanyahu ben HaMaachati, they and their men.
וַיִּשָּׁבַע לָהֶם גְּדַלְיָהוּ וּלְאַנְשֵׁיהֶם וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם אַל־תִּירְאוּ מֵעַבְדֵי הַכַּשְׂדִּים שְׁבוּ בָאָרֶץ וְעִבְדוּ אֶת־מֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל וְיִטַב לָכֶם׃ - And Gedalyahu swore to them and to their men, and said to them: Do not fear the servants of the Kasdim; dwell in the land and serve the king of Bavel, and it will be well with you.
Yirmeyahu prophesied very harsh prophecies, the prophecies of the destruction. The people did not listen to him, and in the end Nevuchadnetzar and Nevuzaradan came and exiled Israel. Yirmeyahu was in great grief, placed chains upon himself like all the exiles, and came to go with them into exile. Nevuzaradan the chief of the executioners took him from the Ramah, set his eye upon him, and spoke to him words of rebuke: Hashem your God spoke this evil against this place, and He brought it and did as He had spoken, for you sinned against Hashem and did not listen to His voice, and this matter has come upon you.
But since Nevuzaradan knew that Yirmeyahu had not sinned, and on the contrary had constantly warned against the path that led to the exile, he said to him: Behold, I have freed you this day from the chains that are on your hands. If it is good in your eyes to come with me to Bavel, come, and I will set my eye upon you - that is, not as a prisoner but as an honored man, and I will provide for all your needs. And if it is bad in your eyes to come with me to Bavel, refrain; see, all the land is before you, to whatever is good and right in your eyes to go - go there. And he even offered him: Return to Gedalyah ben Achikam ben Shafan, whom the king of Bavel appointed over the cities of Yehudah, and dwell with him among the people. And the chief of the executioners gave him a portion of food and a gift and sent him away.
Yirmeyahu preferred, in accordance with a prophecy that came to him from Hashem, to remain with the people who remained in the land, for they too needed him no less than those descending into exile. And Yirmeyahu came to Gedalyahu ben Achikam at Mitzpah, and dwelt with him among the people who remained in the land. And later we will see that he even went down with them to Egypt.
The officers of the forces who were in the field heard that the king of Bavel had appointed Gedalyahu ben Achikam over the land, and had appointed with him men and women and children and of the poorest of the land, of those who were not exiled to Bavel, and they came to him at Mitzpah: Yishmael ben Netanyahu, Yochanan and Yonatan the sons of Kareach, Serayah ben Tanchumet, the sons of Eifai the Netofati, and Yezanyahu ben HaMaachati. Gedalyahu swore to them: Do not fear serving the Kasdim; dwell in the land and serve the king of Bavel, and it will be well with you. And I, behold, I dwell in Mitzpah to stand before the Kasdim who will come to us - that is, I will represent you before them. And as for you, gather wine and summer fruit and oil and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that you have seized; you will be able to eat and drink and live here in freedom.
All the Yehudim too who were in Moav and among the children of Amon and in Edom and in all the lands heard that the king of Bavel had left a remnant to Yehudah and that he had appointed over them Gedalyahu, and they returned from all the places to which they had been driven. For they had fled before the conquest of Nevuchadnetzar, and now when they heard that he was leaving a remnant in the land, they returned and gathered under the umbrella of Gedalyah. And they gathered very much wine and summer fruit - and the reason is self evident: all the owners of the fields and vineyards had gone down into exile, and for the small number of people who remained there was left a very large quantity of produce, wine and summer fruit.
Yochanan ben Kareach and all the army commanders who were in the field came to Gedalyahu at Mitzpah and said to him: Do you surely know that Baalis king of the children of Ammon has sent Yishmael ben Netanyah to strike you down? Baalis opposed the appointment that Nevuchadnetzar had made. It did not sit well with him that the government in the Land of Israel was not of his own doing, and so he sent Yishmael ben Netanyah, a bitter man quick to anger, to kill Gedalyahu, so that a puppet of his own would rule here rather than an official of Nevuchadnetzar.
But Gedalyahu ben Achikam did not believe them. He was unwilling to accept their words, and claimed that they were slandering an innocent man. Yochanan ben Kareach approached him privately at Mitzpah and proposed: Let me go and strike down Yishmael ben Netanyah, and no one will know; why should he strike you down so that all Yehudah who are gathered to you are scattered and the remnant of Yehudah perishes? In other words, if you fear that killing him would spark a rebellion against you, let me do it in secret, without war, and no one will know that it came from you. And Gedalyahu said to Yochanan ben Kareach: Do not do this thing, for you are speaking falsely about Yishmael.
From here we learn an important principle: when someone warns another about danger, there is no prohibition of lashon hara and no prohibition of rechilut, and you are obligated to act according to what you were warned about. Perhaps not to kill that person, but certainly to prepare and take all the proper precautions in order to save yourself: honor him and suspect him. And as we will immediately see, Gedalyahu had no fear at all of the testimony that was given to him.
וַיְהִי בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי בָּא יִשְׁמָעֵאל בֶּן־נְתַנְיָה בֶּן־אֱלִישָׁמָע מִזֶּרַע הַמְּלוּכָה וַעֲשָׂרָה אֲנָשִׁים אִתּוֹ וַיַּכּוּ אֶת־גְּדַלְיָהוּ וַיָּמֹת וְאֶת־הַיְּהוּדִים וְאֶת־הַכַּשְׂדִּים אֲשֶׁר־הָיוּ אִתּוֹ בַּמִּצְפָּה׃ - And it came to pass in the seventh month that Yishmael ben Netanyah ben Elishama, of the royal seed, came with ten men with him, and they struck down Gedalyahu so that he died, along with the Jews and the Kasdim who were with him at Mitzpah.
In Yirmiyahu the matter is described in greater detail: Yishmael ben Netanyah, of the royal seed and one of the king's officers, came with ten men to Gedalyahu at Mitzpah, and they ate bread there together at Mitzpah. On Rosh Hashanah they are sitting and dining together. So completely did Gedalyahu reject the words of Yochanan ben Kareach and his warnings that he sits and dines with Yishmael without any concern that he might be in danger. And then Yishmael and the ten men who were with him rose up and struck Gedalyahu ben Achikam ben Shafan with the sword, and killed him whom the king of Bavel had appointed over the land: he put him to death because the king of Bavel had appointed him over the land. And also all the Jews who were with him at Mitzpah, and the Kasdim, the men of war who were found there, Yishmael struck down.
And it came to pass on the second day after Gedalyahu was killed, and no one knew of it: the matter was still unknown to anyone. And then men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Shomron, eighty men with shaven beards and torn garments, cutting themselves, with a meal offering and frankincense in their hand to bring to the House of Hashem. These men had no connection at all to the killing of Gedalyahu. It was their custom to grow beards, and shaving the beard was for them a sign of mourning and grief, as if their beards had been torn out. And over what was their great grief? Over the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash.
And Yishmael ben Netanyah went out to meet them from Mitzpah, weeping as he went, and he said to them: Come to Gedalyahu ben Achikam. And when they came into the midst of the city, Yishmael slaughtered them into the pit, he and the men who were with him. And ten men were found among them who said to Yishmael: Do not put us to death, for we have hidden stores in the field, wheat and barley and oil and honey; so he refrained and did not put them to death among their brethren. And the pit into which Yishmael cast all the corpses of the men whom he struck down by the hand of Gedalyahu, this was the one that King Asa had made because of Baasha king of Israel; Yishmael ben Netanyahu filled it with slain men.
These verses are very puzzling. First, what does Yishmael ben Netanyah want from eighty men who are weeping over the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, that he murders them one by one? Second, what is the meaning of "weeping as he went"? Third, why do the men say to him "we have hidden stores, do not put us to death": what difference does that make to him? He is about to go to the king of Ammon, and he has no need at all for hidden stores in the field. And fourth, what is the meaning of "whom he struck down by the hand of Gedalyahu"? Gedalyahu was already dead, so how can the verse say that Yishmael struck them down by the hand of Gedalyahu?
The Malbim explains: Yishmael ben Netanyah wanted to justify in the eyes of the people the deed he had done, and so he presented the matter in this way. Here come eighty men to weep over the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, and he presents himself as an agent of Gedalyahu ben Achikam who was sent to kill them. So he told the people, and that is why he went along weeping: what a dreadful mission they have imposed upon me, to go and kill innocent men. And why, supposedly, did Gedalyahu want to kill them? Because it greatly disturbed him that people were weeping over the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash: after all, I am already the ruler here, there is nothing to weep over and nothing to grieve about. And therefore he sent me, and I had no choice but to carry out his word.
In this way Yishmael wanted the people to justify, after the fact, the murder of Gedalyah: after he does such a deed and sends people to kill innocent men, you will understand that his killing was a good thing, since we deserve a more worthy leader. And to those ten who told him they had hidden stores in the field, he in effect replied that with this money he would bribe Gedalyah to leave them alone and do them no harm, and therefore he left them alive. It was all part of a cover story, so that the people would understand: I saved you from a tyrannical, wicked, corrupt man who kills innocent people, and I, having no choice, was forced to carry out his word.
Yishmael took captive all the remnant of the people who were in Mitzpah, the daughters of the king and all the people who remained in Mitzpah, whom Nevuzaradan the chief of the guard had entrusted to Gedalyah ben Achikam, and he set out to cross over to the Ammonites. After taking captive all who remained, he goes to his boss. Now Yochanan ben Kareach and all the officers of the forces who were with him heard of all the evil that Yishmael had done, and they took all the men and went to fight him, and they found him by the great waters that are in Givon. Yochanan, the one who had warned Gedalyah and whose warning was not heeded, heard that the warning had come true and that Gedalyah had been murdered, and so he went out to fight Yishmael.
And it was, when all the people who were with Yishmael saw Yochanan ben Kareach and all the officers of the forces who were with him, that they rejoiced. They understood that he was their redeemer. And all the people whom Yishmael had taken captive from Mitzpah turned about and came back and went over to Yochanan ben Kareach, fleeing from their captor to their rescuer. And Yishmael ben Netanyah escaped with eight men from before Yochanan and went to the Ammonites. He returned to Baalis his boss with only eight men, and had to leave behind all the captives.
וַיָּקֻמוּ כׇל־הָעָם מִקָּטֹן וְעַד־גָּדוֹל וְשָׂרֵי הַחֲיָלִים וַיָּבֹאוּ מִצְרָיִם כִּי יָרְאוּ מִפְּנֵי כַשְׂדִּים׃ - And all the people, from small to great, and the officers of the forces arose and came to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.
Yochanan ben Kareach and all the officers of the forces took all the remnant of the people whom he had brought back from Yishmael from Mitzpah, the men of war, the women and children and the officials whom he had brought back from Givon, and they went and stayed at Geruth Kimham, which is near Beit Lechem, in order to go on to Egypt. They stayed temporarily in the place of a man named Kimham, who was the son of Barzilai the Gileadite, with the intention of going down to Egypt. And why? Because of the Chaldeans, for they were afraid of them, since Yishmael had struck down Gedalyah whom the king of Bavel had appointed over the land. After the appointee of Nevuchadnetzar had been murdered, they understood that Nevuchadnetzar and Nevuzaradan would come with a large army to take revenge on them, and so they sought a country that had no "extradition agreement" with Bavel, a country whose relations with the king of the Chaldeans were not warm, and that was Egypt.
And all the officers of the forces, and Yochanan ben Kareach and Yezanyah ben Hoshayah and all the people from small to great drew near, and they said to Yirmiyahu the prophet: Let our plea fall before you, and pray for us to Hashem your God, for all this remnant, for we are left few out of many, as your eyes see us; and let Hashem your God tell us the way in which we should go and the thing we should do. Notice the wording: they are not asking where to go, that they have already decided, they are going down to Egypt. They ask only that He tell them by which way to go, and what to do in order to be saved from the king of Bavel.
And Yirmiyahu the prophet said to them: I have heard, behold I am praying to Hashem your God according to your words, that is, concerning what you asked. And it will be that every word that Hashem answers you I will tell you, I will withhold nothing from you. He warns them in advance: take into account that the answer may not please you, for you have already decided to go down, and the answer may be not to go down, and I will not hide anything from you. And they said to Yirmiyahu: May Hashem be a true and faithful witness against us, if we do not act according to every word that Hashem your God sends you to us, even if He tells us not to go down to Egypt. Whether good or bad, that is, even if it is bad in our eyes, God forbid to say that Hashem would tell them something bad. We will obey the voice of Hashem our God to whom we are sending you, so that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of Hashem our God, for even if the matter is bad, it is bad only in our eyes, and whoever truly obeys the voice of Hashem, in the end it will turn out for the good.
And it was at the end of ten days that the word of Hashem came to Yirmiyahu. And he called to Yochanan ben Kareach and to all the officers of the forces who were with him, and to all the people from small to great, and he said to them: Thus says Hashem the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to lay your plea before Him: If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you, for I have relented of the evil that I did to you. That is: even though you rebelled against the one whom I made king, the king of Bavel, once in the days of Tzidkiyahu and now again in the days of Gedalyah, nevertheless I will not do you harm. Do not fear the king of Bavel of whom you are afraid, do not fear him, says Hashem, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you from his hand, and I will grant you mercy, and he will have compassion on you and return you to your land.
But if you say: We will not stay in this land, so as not to obey the voice of Hashem your God, saying, No, but we will come to the land of Egypt, where we will see no war and hear no sound of the shofar and hunger for no bread, and there we will stay - why should we remain in such a dangerous place? To this comes the answer: If you indeed set your faces to come to Egypt and you go to dwell there, then the sword that you fear will overtake you there in the land of Egypt. Nevuchadnetzar will in the end conquer the land of Egypt, and the sword that you fear will overtake you there. And the famine that you worry about there will cling to you in Egypt, and there you will die. And all the men who set their faces to come to Egypt to dwell there will die by the sword, by famine and by plague, and they will have no survivor or refugee. Just as My anger and My wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Yerushalayim, so will My wrath be poured out on you when you come to Egypt, and you will become an oath, an object of horror, a curse and a disgrace, and you will see this place no more.
Up to here were the words of Hashem, and from here the prophet adds of his own accord: Hashem has spoken concerning you, remnant of Yehudah, do not go to Egypt; know for certain that I have warned you this day - meaning, I hereby caution you explicitly. For you have led yourselves astray, since you sent me to Hashem your God saying, pray for us, and according to all that Hashem our God says, so tell us and we will do it, and I told you this day and you did not listen to the voice of Hashem. And now know for certain that by sword, by famine, and by plague you shall die in the place where you desired to go to dwell. In other words: had you not sent me to inquire of Hashem, you would have gone down to Egypt and the sword would have overtaken you, but without knowing. Now, after you sent me to inquire, I inform you in advance what will happen, and if you go down, you take it upon your own responsibility. And later we will see that they did indeed go down, and the matter did indeed come to pass upon them.
A brief point to pause on: why do we fast on the Fast of Gedaliah? After all, Gedaliah ben Achikam himself endangered his life and he is the one who brought about his own death, and furthermore: we had figures greater and more righteous than he who were killed over the generations and we do not establish fasts for them. Rather, the fast was established because at that point the surviving remnant that remained in the land came to an end. This was in fact the end of the exile, this is what sealed the entire exile from the land. As long as Gedaliah ben Achikam lived, there remained here a small group that preserved a settlement in the Holy Land; the moment he died, that group came to an end, the settlement in the Land of Israel was over, and everyone fled to Egypt. This is what we mourn and grieve over, not the man himself, but the entire exile that was completed as a result of his death.
And it was, when Yirmiyahu finished speaking to all the people all the words of Hashem their God, that Azaryah ben Hoshayah and Yochanan ben Kareach and all the insolent men said to Yirmiyahu: You speak falsely, Hashem our God did not send you to say, do not go to Egypt to dwell there; for Baruch ben Neriyah incites you against us, in order to hand us over to the Chaldeans, to put us to death and to exile us to Babylon. According to their claim, it is Baruch ben Neriyah who wants us to return to the land so that we will be handed over to the Chaldeans and they will kill us.
And Yochanan ben Kareach and all the army commanders and all the people did not listen to the voice of Hashem to dwell in the land of Yehudah. And Yochanan took all the remnant of Yehudah who had returned from all the nations to which they had been driven, to dwell in the land of Yehudah, the men and the women and the children and the king's daughters and every soul that Nevuzaradan the chief executioner had left with Gedaliah - that is, together with Gedaliah ben Achikam ben Shafan - and Yirmiyahu the prophet and Baruch ben Neriyahu, and they came to the land of Egypt, for they did not listen to the voice of Hashem, and they came as far as Tachpanches. They are unwilling to accept the prophecy, and they all leave the place. And if you should ask: Yirmiyahu told them not to go, so why did he go with them? Because his fate is bound up with theirs; the Holy One, blessed be He, told him to be with them, and if they go down to Egypt he must be there in order to convey prophecies to them and to tell them the word of Hashem.
And the word of Hashem came to Yirmiyahu in Tachpanches saying: Take in your hand large stones and hide them in mortar in the brickwork at the entrance of Pharaoh's house in Tachpanches, in the sight of the men of Yehudah. And you shall say to them: Thus says Hashem of hosts, God of Israel, behold I am sending and I will take Nevuchadretzar king of Babylon My servant, and I will set his throne above these stones which I have hidden, and he will spread his canopy over them - "shefriro" is his tent, his beautiful tent, from the term "shapir" (beautiful). And he will come and strike the land of Egypt, those destined for death to death, those for captivity to captivity, and those for the sword to the sword. And I will kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he will burn them and take them captive, and he will wrap himself in the land of Egypt as a shepherd wraps himself in his garment, and he will go out from there in peace, and he will shatter the pillars of Beit Shemesh which is in the land of Egypt, and the temples of the gods of Egypt he will burn with fire.
The message is clear: you are fleeing to Egypt in order to be saved from Nevuchadnetzar - know that Nevuchadnetzar will come here and lay siege to the place. And with the sign of the brickwork, the very tool with which bricks are molded, Yirmiyahu tells them: in this very place, opposite Pharaoh's house, Nevuchadnetzar will set up his throne after he kills all who are here. It turns out that instead of being saved from him, you yourselves are running straight to him.
The word that came to Yirmiyahu to all the Jews dwelling in the land of Egypt, dwelling in Migdol and in Tachpanches and in Nof and in the land of Patros - at first they were in Tachpanches alone, and here we see that they had already spread out. Thus says Hashem of hosts, God of Israel: You have seen all the evil that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Yehudah, and behold they are a ruin this day with no inhabitant, because of their wickedness which they committed to provoke Me, going to offer incense to serve other gods whom neither they, you, nor your fathers knew. And I sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising early and sending, saying: Do not, I pray, commit this abominable thing that I hate. But they did not listen and did not incline their ear to turn back from their wickedness, and My fury and My anger poured out and burned in the cities of Yehudah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and they became a ruin and a desolation as at this day.
And now, why do you commit a great evil against your own souls, to cut off from among you man and woman, infant and suckling, from the midst of Yehudah, leaving yourselves no remnant, to provoke Me with the work of your hands, offering incense to other gods in the land of Egypt where you are coming to dwell? Was the exile not enough for you, was everything you went through not enough for you, and behold you have arrived all the way here and even here you continue in your corrupt ways and offer incense to the gods of the heavens? Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers and the wickedness of the kings of Yehudah and the wickedness of his wives and your own wickedness and the wickedness of your wives which they committed in the land of Yehudah and in the streets of Jerusalem? They were not crushed to this day, nor did they fear - all that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon them to chastise and crush them did not crush them, and they did not fear and did not walk in My Torah and in My statutes.
Therefore: I am setting My face against you for evil, to cut off all of Yehuda, and I will take the remnant of Yehuda who set their faces to come to the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they will all perish in the land of Egypt, they will fall by the sword and be consumed by famine, from the least to the greatest. And I will punish those dwelling in the land of Egypt as I punished Yerushalayim, with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence. And there will be no fugitive or survivor for the remnant of Yehuda who come to sojourn there in the land of Egypt, to return to the land of Yehuda, to which they long in their souls to return and dwell there, for they will not return except as a few fugitives. For this was their aim: right now Nevuchadnetzar rules and we have no possibility, we will hide in Egypt, and when he falls or dies and the situation changes, we will return to our land and our cities. Hashem says to them: know this, you will not return, only a few individuals, fugitives, will return.
See what brazen and insolent people they were then. And all the men who knew that their wives were offering incense to other gods answered Yirmiyahu. There were many who knew that their wives were offering incense to idolatry, and there were those who did not know because the women did it in secret. Therefore it also says: and all the women standing there, a great assembly. Even those whose husbands did not know answered on their own. And all the people dwelling in the land of Egypt, in Patros, saying: as for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of Hashem, we will not listen to you. For we will surely do everything that came out of our mouths, to offer incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her, as we did, we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Yehuda and in the streets of Yerushalayim.
And what was the logic of their claim? Then we had plenty of bread, we were well off and saw no misfortune. We are speaking facts. When we were offering incense to idolatry, in the days of Achaz, in the days of Menashe, in the days of Achav, who were idol worshiping kings and all the people followed them, it was good for us and we lacked nothing. And from the time we ceased offering incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, from when? From the days of Tzidkiyahu, when many of the people had already stopped worshiping idolatry, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine. We stopped worshiping idolatry, and immediately came exile, sword, and famine. The facts speak for themselves, you see that it is good to worship idolatry.
And what did they fail to understand? We saw explicit verses in which the Holy One, blessed be He, said: indeed, the people's situation improved somewhat, but the decree that had been issued from the time of Menashe was not annulled. It was the burning anger from the days of Menashe that ultimately brought them to exile. Had there been a fundamental change, a true revolution, perhaps the burning anger would have changed; but since the change was not so fundamental, that earlier decree came upon them at the end. And they interpreted it backwards: in the days of Menashe there was no exile, and when things became a little better the exile came. So there you have it, it is good to offer incense to the queen of heaven. And all of this, by the way, is part of the test: the Holy One, blessed be He, tests Yisrael by seemingly showing that there is benefit in idolatry, to see whether they will believe in Hashem or in idolatry.
And they continue: and when we offer incense to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, was it without our husbands that we made cakes for her in her image and poured out libations to her? The Malbim explains that their claim was that they do not worship the idolatry as a god and do not accept it upon themselves as a god, but rather they believe that they draw powers from the stars: by slaughtering and offering incense to the queen of heaven they draw down abundance. And the proof: when they wanted to ask what to do, to whom did they send Yirmiyahu? To Hashem. And even afterward they did not say "what Hashem says we do not accept," but rather "you are speaking falsely, Hashem our God did not send you" - there is Hashem, there is our God, and we accept Him upon ourselves as a god. It is only that they perform the idolatry as "cakes in her image," meaning not for the sake of the idolatry itself but in order to draw abundance through it with all kinds of intentions. "In her image" - from the language of atzabim, from the language of idolatry. And they even add: was it without our husbands - we have wise and understanding men who know by what path to draw down the abundance through those higher powers.
And as we find in the generation of the flood, who said: if Hashem brings a flood, we know how to adjure all the angels and thereby the flood will not come down. And what did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He changed their names. That is, they had spiritual knowledge, they were not simply talking. And therefore they came and said that this is not idolatry at all. But in truth this is a complete error: the moment you turn to another power and try to perform actions through it, what are you actually doing? Bypassing the Creator of the world. I will extract from the sun, I will extract from the celestial minister, without turning to the King, and even if the King does not agree, I will act forcefully through the minister and compel him to give me. This is heresy, and this is idolatry.
And Yirmiyahu said to all the people, to the men and to the women and to all the people who answered him with this reply, saying: was it not the incense that you burned in the cities of Yehuda and in the streets of Yerushalayim, you and your fathers, your kings and your officials and the people of the land, that Hashem remembered and it came to His mind? And Hashem could no longer bear it because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations that you committed, and your land became a ruin and a desolation and a curse without inhabitant, as it is this day. Because you offered incense and because you sinned against Hashem and did not listen to His voice, and did not walk in His Torah and in His statutes and in His testimonies, therefore this evil has befallen you as it is this day. That is: you are forgetting history. Everything that has happened to you until now came about because you offered incense to idolatry.
And Yirmiyahu said to all the people and to all the women: hear the word of Hashem, all Yehuda who are in the land of Egypt. You and your wives, you have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled it with your hands, saying: we will surely perform our vows that we vowed, to offer incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her. You will surely fulfill your vows and surely perform your vows. They claimed that they had vowed and obligated themselves to the queen of heaven, and since they had obligated themselves, then "he shall not break his word, according to all that comes out of his mouth he shall do," and they cannot violate their words. The prophet says to them: indeed, I know that you will fulfill and perform your vows and will offer incense to idolatry.
Therefore hear the word of Hashem, all Yehuda who dwell in the land of Egypt: behold, I have sworn by My great name, says Hashem, that My name shall no longer be invoked by the mouth of any man of Yehuda saying "as Hashem the Lord lives" in all the land of Egypt. That is: you will forget the name of Hashem until you become complete idol worshipers in every respect, and the name of Hashem will be erased from your mouths. And as happened to the ten tribes: where are they today? We do not know, scattered in Africa, in Afghanistan, in all kinds of places. Do they call upon the name of Hashem? No. The name of Hashem was forgotten from their mouths and they became like one of the peoples of the lands, like one of the nations. And regarding this the Holy One, blessed be He, swore that so it would be with them as well.
Behold, I am watching over them for evil and not for good, and all the men of Yehudah in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by sword and by famine until they are utterly destroyed. Those who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Yehudah, few in number. And all the remnant of Yehudah who came to the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall know whose word shall stand, Mine or theirs. You vowed to idolatry, and I have sworn by My great Name; we shall see which will stand, your vow or My oath.
And this shall be the sign to you, says Hashem, that I am about to punish you in this place, so that you may know that My words shall surely stand against you for evil. For a war could take place elsewhere, on the soil of Bavel; Hashem tells them: no, in this very place. So says Hashem: Behold, I am giving Pharaoh Chofra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, just as I gave Tzidkiyahu king of Yehudah into the hand of Nevuchadnetzar king of Bavel, his enemy who sought his life. Just as Nevuchadnetzar came to Yerushalayim, besieged it, captured Tzidkiyahu, and in consequence killed all the rebels, so it shall be here too: Nevuchadnetzar will come to Egypt, there will be a siege, and you are doomed to the sword. He will come and finish the work here, that which he did not complete in Yerushalayim.
Chapter 25 of Melachim B seals the destruction of the First Temple, ending with the appointment of Gedalyah ben Achikam and his murder. Chapters 40 to 44 of Yirmeyahu lay out the full picture: Yirmeyahu is freed from his chains and chooses to remain with the remnant of the people; the people gather around Gedalyah, and Gedalyah refuses to believe the warning of Yochanan ben Kareach, from which we derive the principle that such a warning is not lashon hara and a person is obligated to act upon it, honor him yet suspect him. Yishmael ben Netanyah, the agent of Baalis king of Ammon, murders him on Rosh Hashanah, and even constructs a sophisticated cover story in the killing of the eighty men in order to justify his deed, as the Malbim explains. With the death of Gedalyah the surviving remnant in the land came to an end, and therefore they established the Fast of Gedalyah, not over the man alone but over the completion of the exile. The people go down to Egypt in defiance of the explicit word of Hashem, insisting on the worship of the Queen of Heaven with claims of "we had plenty of bread and were well" and of drawing abundance from the stars, which is a denial in its very bypassing of the King, and their fate is sealed by Hashem's oath in His great Name. May it be His will that we merit to see the consolation of Tzion and Yerushalayim, the building of the Beit HaMikdash, the return of all the people of Israel to their land, and the complete redemption speedily in our days, amen.