Specters of Conflicts Past
Specters of Conflicts Past
Chapter 4 focuses on Jer 41:9–15, events that unfold following the massacre at Mizpah. Ishmael destroys Gedaliah and others in the city and hides the bodies in the cistern reportedly built by King Asa as part of his defensive measures against Baasha of Israel. Is there symbolic meaning to this structure, referring as it does to an earlier period of civil conflict between north and south? Ishmael also kidnaps a group of citizens and departs for Ammonite territory presumably to return to King Baalis. Ishmael is intercepted when he makes an odd detour to Gibeon. It is in Gibeon that David’s soldiers clashed with Saul’s at the outset of Israel’s monarchic history: now, Gibeon is where the last figure of royal seed, Ishmael, is defeated by Johanan, who reappears in the story and rescues the hostages. Ishmael flees, never to be heard from again.
Keywords: King Asa of Judah, Baasha of Israel, cistern, the city of Gibeon, civil war, David, Saul
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