Jeremiah 41:4-5

Two days after Gedaliah’s murder, before the news of it had spread, 80 religious pilgrims came down from the old towns of Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria in northern Israel on their way to Jerusalem. Their dress and other signs of mourning (cf. Jeremiah 16:6; Jeremiah 48:37) demonstrated grief over the effects of the Babylonian invasion (cf. Psalms 74; Psalms 79; Isaiah 63:7 to Isaiah 64:12). They may also have been fulfilling a vow. However, cutting their flesh was a pagan practice that the Mosaic Law condemned (Leviticus 19:28; Leviticus 21:5; Deuteronomy 14:1; cf. Jeremiah 16:6). They came with grain and incense to offer to Yahweh in worship. It was probably impossible to make animal sacrifices at the temple site at this time. Evidently there was some continuation of worship in the ruined capital after the temple fell.

"Even the ruins were held to be sacred, just as the Western [Wailing] Wall of the temple in Jerusalem is sacred to this day. Also, a token shrine might have been built." [Note: Feinberg, "Jeremiah," p. 631.]

Since it was the seventh month (September-October, Jeremiah 41:1), the pilgrims probably came to celebrate one or more of the fall festivals. The Jews celebrated the Feast of Trumpets on the first day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the month, and the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths, Ingathering) on the fifteenth through the twenty-second of the month (Leviticus 23:23-44). The first two events were optional for Israelites males to attend, and the third was required by the Law. The first and third events were feasts, and the second was a fast.

There were some people left in the territory of the old Northern Kingdom who still accepted and remained faithful to Josiah’s reforms of 622 B.C. (cf. Deuteronomy 12:5-6; 2 Kings 23:15-20; 2 Chronicles 34:9; 2 Chronicles 34:33). These pilgrims apparently made a stop in Mizpah to pay their respects to Gedaliah. [Note: Keown, p. 244.]