NOTES for Jer 40:1-41:18
How bitter it must have been for Jeremiah to go home from captivity with gifts and a Babylonian escort. But a new stage of life's journey is beginning, and it must be passed through as worthily as the previous one. And how complicated everything is, and how impossible it is to reduce it to a simple scheme!
Gedaliah, appointed by the occupiers over Judah, looks like a collaborator, while Ishmael and his companions look like patriots seeking to liberate the country and punish the occupiers' servant. Yet it is not hard to see that Gedaliah intends to preserve and strengthen the little that the invaders left to the Jews. More than that, he intends not merely to govern the conquered province on behalf of Babylon, but also to intercede with the conquerors for his compatriots. Ishmael, however, having begun what at first looked like a liberation uprising, very quickly turns to murdering innocent people and robbery. He not only exposes the people to the threat of another Babylonian military invasion, but also drives his own compatriots into captivity among the Ammonites.
Well, this kind of thing will happen more than once: history will again and again produce insurgent movements that speak in slogans of liberation and at first draw the oppressed to their side. But with time it will become clear that instead of liberators, another set of enslavers is coming; and for many, that understanding comes too late.