After the Babylonians had captured Jerusalem, they took away as slaves most every able-bodied person; and they appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam as governor over the scattering of people, mostly elderly, left behind (Jeremiah 40:7). But there were a few warriors left, who had been hiding in the wilderness, and some of their leaders had come to Gedaliah, and he had urged them to stay in the land and serve the king of Babylon (40:9).

The chief of these soldiers was Johanan son of Kereah. He had heard about a plot against Gedaliah: the Ammonites wanted Gedaliah dead, and they had hired a man named Ishmael son of Nethaniah to assassinate him. Gedaliah did not believe it (40:13-16). Ishmael did indeed murder Gedaliah, along with the Judeans and the Babylonians who were there at the time. Ishmael then kidnapped some other people, and made his escape (41:1-10).

Johanan and his soldiers pursued Ishmael, and successfully freed the prisoners whom Ishmael had kidnapped (41:11-16). Yet Johanan and his followers were afraid to stay in the land, because they feared that the Babylonians would blame them for the death of Gedaliah the governor (41:17-18). They asked Jeremiah to pray for them to discover God’s will, promising to obey it (42:1-6). God responded to Jeremiah, and he gave them God’s message: stay here, and God will bless you; or go to Egypt, where you will all die from hunger, disease, and war (42:7-22).

They did not like God’s answer. So they decided they did not believe Jeremiah: they would go to Egypt anyway, taking Jeremiah along with them (43:1-7). As it turned out, once they got to Egypt the people gloated in their idolatry (44:15-19). And Jeremiah could only despair over the disaster they were bringing upon themselves, and report to them God’s planned judgment: “I am going to watch over them for harm and not for good; all the people of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall perish by the sword and by famine, until not one is left” (44:27).

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We often ask to know your will, O Lord, and we promise to obey you: yet it turns out we really wanted you to affirm what we have already decided. When you tell us something different, we decide that answer must be wrong. Grant us grace and courage, O God, to follow you: especially when you call us to do something other than what we picked for ourselves.