Lives of Scripture

After Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC, he appointed Gedaliah governor over the poor who remained in the land, and a fragile peace began to take hold at Mizpah (Jeremiah 40:1-12). Baalis, king of the Ammonites across the Jordan, worked to unravel it. Jeremiah 40:14 records that Johanan son of Kareah and the army commanders warned Gedaliah directly: "Are you well aware that Baalis the king of the sons of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?" Baalis's motive is not stated -- perhaps hostility toward Judah, perhaps opportunism against a client governor of Babylon, perhaps resentment that Ishmael, a member of Judah's royal line, had found refuge at his court. Gedaliah refused to believe the report and would not let Johanan act preemptively (40:15-16). The warning proved true: Ishmael assassinated Gedaliah and the Judeans and Chaldean soldiers with him at Mizpah (Jeremiah 41:1-3), and the resulting panic drove the remaining Judean survivors to flee to Egypt against Jeremiah's explicit word from the LORD (Jeremiah 42-43). Baalis never appears again in Scripture, but his one recorded act -- inciting a murder that scattered Judah's last remnant in the land -- shows how quickly outside hostility can compound a people's grief when they are already at their lowest.