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Gedaliah ben Achikam

Gedaliah ben Achikam

d. c. 586 BCE · Biblical era · Jerusalem

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Gedaliah son of Achikam son of Shafan came from a family of royal officials. His father Achikam had protected Yirmiyahu from execution (Jeremiah 26:24). After the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, Nevuchadnetzar appointed Gedaliah to govern the people who remained in Judah (2 Kings 25:22). The Babylonians placed Yirmiyahu in his care (Jeremiah 39:14; 40:5-6). From Mitzpah he urged the scattered Judean officers to serve Babylon, return to their towns and gather the harvest (40:9-10). Yochanan son of Kareach warned him that Yishmael son of Netanyah, a man of royal descent, had been sent by the king of Ammon to kill him, but Gedaliah refused to believe it (40:13-16). In the seventh month Yishmael and ten men dined with him at Mitzpah and murdered him, along with the Judeans and Babylonian soldiers there (41:1-3). Fearing Babylonian reprisal, the survivors fled toward Egypt (41:17-18). Zechariah mentions a 'fast of the seventh month' (Zechariah 8:19). The Talmud identifies it as the fast for Gedaliah, held on the third of Tishrei, and teaches that the death of the righteous is equal to the burning of the Temple (Rosh Hashanah 18b). It is still observed as Tzom Gedaliah.

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Stop 1 of 2586 BCE

JerusalemירושליםJudea

What they did here

He was the son of Achikam son of Shafan, a family of royal officials (2 Kings 22:12; Jeremiah 26:24). After the city fell, the Babylonians handed Yirmiyahu over to his care (Jeremiah 39:14).

Jerusalem in this era

In the Hebrew Bible, David takes Jerusalem from the Jebusites and makes it his capital, Solomon builds the First Temple there, and Nehemiah rebuilds its walls after the return from Babylon; in 164 BCE Judah Maccabee rededicated the Temple, the origin of Hanukkah. Archaeologists debate how large the city was in the 10th century BCE; it is well attested as the capital of Judah by the 8th century BCE, and Babylon destroyed it in 586 BCE.

About Jerusalem

Jerusalem, in the Judean hills, is a sacred city for Jews, Christians and Muslims. In the Hebrew Bible it is King David's capital and the site of Solomon's Temple; the First Temple was destroyed by Babylon in 586 BCE and the Second Temple, rebuilt from about 516 BCE, by Rome in 70 CE. Christians revere it as the place of Jesus's crucifixion and, in their faith, his resurrection; in Islamic tradition it is the destination of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey and the first direction of prayer, marked by the Dome of the Rock (691-92) and al-Aqsa Mosque. It was ruled in turn by Rome and Byzantium, by Muslim dynasties from 638, by Crusaders (1099-1187), Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans (1517-1917), and by Britain. Divided between Israel and Jordan from 1948 to 1967, it has since been under Israeli control. Israel regards the city as its capital; Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state; most countries do not recognize sovereignty over the whole city.

In Jerusalem at the same time

King of Judah, Nachum HaNavi, Chuldah HaNeviah, Tzefaniah HaNavi, King of Judah, Chavakuk HaNavi

See other sages who lived in Jerusalem→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Gedaliah ben Achikam’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Gedaliah ben Achikam’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn from recorded birth and death years (reign years for rulers whose lives are undated); where only one end of a life is known, a span of about 70 years is assumed.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.