Jeremiah 41:6
And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and it came to pass, as he met them, he said unto them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah went forth from Mizpah to meet them, weeping all along as he went: and it came to pass, as he met them, he said unto them, Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.
Jeremiah 41:6 lies in chapters 32 to 45, which give the history of the two years before the fall of Jerusalem, in the part of the book containing the prophecies uttered during the time of Gedaliah. It belongs to the account of events following the fall of Jerusalem, during the period when Gedaliah governed the remnant at Mizpah, and its placement after Jeremiah 40 reflects that chronological order. After the king of Babylon took the nation into captivity and destroyed Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar left Gedaliah as the Jewish viceroy to govern the remnant that had gathered in Judah at Mizpah.
The verse is part of the account of Gedaliah's assassination and murder at Mizpah and the scattering and dispersing of that remaining remnant through the king of Ammon. It shows Ishmael the son of Nethaniah going out from Mizpah weeping to meet eighty men coming to see Gedaliah the son of Ahikam and calling them to come to Gedaliah, though Gedaliah had already been slain by Ishmael, so that seventy of the eighty were mercilessly slain by Ishmael instead of seeing Gedaliah. Gedaliah's death was commemorated by a fast in the seventh month, observed for seventy years. It is the Fast of Gedaliah on Tisri 3, one of four fasts commemorating events connected with the fall of Jerusalem, and the fast begins at daybreak.