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. All this happened in the miserable year 588, and
Jerusalem remained utterly waste, the land enjoying a long sabbath of
desolation, What became of Jeremiah afterwards is not known; he is said
to have been stoned in Egypt, but this is not at all certain. He left
behind him the promise that a Deliverer should come--the Lord our
Righteousness--and that the former redemption out of bondage in Egypt
should be as nothing in comparison with the ingathering of the New
Covenant from the north country and from all countries; also that the
New Covenant should be within, written upon the hearts and minds of the
faithful.