The Assassination of Gedaliah: The narration of the immediate postdestruction period in Judah continues. While the leaders of Judah are being carted off to Babylon, the narrator stays with Jeremiah in Judah. The focus shifts momentarily from the prophet to the new Babylonian-appointed governor of the Persian province of Judah, Gedaliah (see commentary on 39:11–14), who is ruling from the town of Mizpah. The story that follows is the first part of an account of an episode that will explain why a significant postexilic group of Jewish people ends up living in Egypt. It also shows that matters can still get worse for the Jewish people and specifically for Jeremiah. G. Yates (“New Exodus and No Exodus in Jeremiah 26–45”) has uncovered the use of exodus imagery in chapters 40–43 that shows that…