Jer 41:4-5 | KD | STEP | On the next day after the murder of Gedaliah, "when no man knew it," i.e., before the deed had become known beyond Mizpah, "there came eighty men from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria," having all the tokens of mourning, "with their beards shaven, their clothes rent, and with cuts and scratches on their bodies (מתגּדדים, see on ), and a meat-offering and frankincense in their hand, to bring them into the house of Jahveh." The order in which the towns are named is not geographical; for Shiloh lay south from Shechem, and a little to the side from the straight road leading from Shechem to Jerusalem. Instead of שׁלו, the lxx ( Cod. Vat. ) have Σαλήμ; they use the same word as the name of a place in , although the Hebrew שׁלם is there an adjective, meaning safe , in good condition . According to Robinson ( Bibl. Res . iii. 102), there is a village named Sâlim three miles east from Nablûs (Shechem); Hitzig and Graf, on the strength of this, prefer the reading of the lxx, to preserve the order of the names in the text. But Hitzig has renounced this conjecture in the second edition of his Commentary, "because Sâlim in Hebrew would be שׁולם, not שׁלם." There is absolutely no foundation for the view in the lxx and in ; the supposition, moreover, that the three towns are given in their topographical order, and must have stood near each other, is also unfounded. Shechem may have been named first because the greater number of these men came from that city, and other men from Shiloh and Samaria accompanied them. These men were pious descendants of the Israelites who belonged to the kingdom of Israel; they dwelt among the heathen colonists who had been settled in the country under Esarhaddon (2Ki 17:24.), but, from the days of Hezekiah or Josiah, had continued to serve Jahveh in Jerusalem, where they used to attend the feasts ( , cf. ). Nay, even after the destruction of Jerusalem, at the seasons of the sacred feasts, they were still content to bring at least unbloody offerings - meat-offerings and incense - on the still sacred spot where these things used to be offered to Jahveh; but just because this could now be done only on the ruins of what had once been the sanctuary, they appeared there with all the signs of deep sorrow for the destruction of this holy place and the cessation of sacrificial worship. In illustration of this, Grotius has adduced a passage from Papinian’s instit. de rerum divis. § sacrae: "Locus in quo aedes sacrae sunt aedificatae, etiam diruto aedificio, sacer adhuc manet."

‏ Jeremiah 41:4-5

On the next day after the murder of Gedaliah, "when no man knew it," i.e., before the deed had become known beyond Mizpah, "there came eighty men from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria," having all the tokens of mourning, "with their beards shaven, their clothes rent, and with cuts and scratches on their bodies (מתגּדדים, see on Jer 16:6), and a meat-offering and frankincense in their hand, to bring them into the house of Jahveh." The order in which the towns are named is not geographical; for Shiloh lay south from Shechem, and a little to the side from the straight road leading from Shechem to Jerusalem. Instead of שׁלו, the lxx (Cod. Vat.) have Σαλήμ; they use the same word as the name of a place in Gen 33:18, although the Hebrew שׁלם is there an adjective, meaning safe, in good condition. According to Robinson (Bibl. Res. iii. 102), there is a village named Sâlim three miles east from Nablûs (Shechem); Hitzig and Graf, on the strength of this, prefer the reading of the lxx, to preserve the order of the names in the text. But Hitzig has renounced this conjecture in the second edition of his Commentary, "because Sâlim in Hebrew would be שׁולם, not שׁלם." There is absolutely no foundation for the view in the lxx and in Gen 33:18; the supposition, moreover, that the three towns are given in their topographical order, and must have stood near each other, is also unfounded. Shechem may have been named first because the greater number of these men came from that city, and other men from Shiloh and Samaria accompanied them. These men were pious descendants of the Israelites who belonged to the kingdom of Israel; they dwelt among the heathen colonists who had been settled in the country under Esarhaddon (2Ki 17:24.), but, from the days of Hezekiah or Josiah, had continued to serve Jahveh in Jerusalem, where they used to attend the feasts (2Ch 34:9, cf. Jer 30:11). Nay, even after the destruction of Jerusalem, at the seasons of the sacred feasts, they were still content to bring at least unbloody offerings - meat-offerings and incense - on the still sacred spot where these things used to be offered to Jahveh; but just because this could now be done only on the ruins of what had once been the sanctuary, they appeared there with all the signs of deep sorrow for the destruction of this holy place and the cessation of sacrificial worship. In illustration of this, Grotius has adduced a passage from Papinian’s instit. de rerum divis. § sacrae: "Locus in quo aedes sacrae sunt aedificatae, etiam diruto aedificio, sacer adhuc manet."