What does Ishmael do with the bodies of those he has killed and with the people who remain in Mizpah?
As if to emphasize the extent of Ishmael’s brutality, the writer describes how large the cistern is that is now full of those killed in a matter of two days. The cistern is well-known. It was the large cistern that King Asa had made for defence against Baasha king of Israel.
This cistern had been at the centre of conflict before and now Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with the slain.
Ishmael than takes captive those of the remnant who were still alive in Mizpah. These are the people who had been placed under the care of Gedaliah by the Babylonians (see Jeremiah 40:7) and among them are some of the king’s daughters. These are probably women born to the royal family as a whole who had survived the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem. The Babylonians may have left them with Gedaliah so that he could continue the royal line of Judah.1
Ishmael and his men take their captives and set out to cross over to the Ammonites.
Possibly anticipating a strong response from his assassination of Gedaliah, especially from the Babylonians, Johanan looks to retreat to the relative safety of his co-conspirators in Amon.
9 La citerne dans laquelle Ismaël jeta tous les cadavres des hommes qu'il tua près de Guedalia est celle qu'avait construite le roi Asa, lorsqu'il craignait Baescha, roi d'Israël; c'est cette citerne qu'Ismaël, fils de Nethania, remplit de cadavres.