1. Gedaliah made governor (22-24)

2. Gedaliah appointed over the land (7-12)

3. Also of interest is a clay seal impression found that refers to “Gedaliah, who is over the house.”

4. Likely King Baalis of the Ammonites to whom Ishmael had fled from before the Babylonians felt Ishmael a good one to hire to assassinate Gedaliah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar appointed to be the provincial governor of Judah.

5. The “seventy years” of observing fasts could not have begun after the first deportation of the Jews by the Babylonians in the year 617 B.C.E., for that would have been about nine years before King Nebuchadnezzar began the final siege of Jerusalem and also about eleven years before the breaching of the walls of the city (on Tammuz 9) and the destruction of the city (on Ab 10) and the assassination of Governor Gedaliah in the seventh month (Tishri), these mournful events being observed by the fast periods.