Tzom Gedaliah: The Fast of the Seventh Month

The story in the Prophets

The remnant after the fall

In 586 BCE the Babylonian army burned the Beit HaMikdash, broke down Jerusalem’s walls and carried most of the nobility into exile. Nebuchadnezzar left behind “the poor of the land” to tend vineyards and fields (2 Kings 25:12), and over them he appointed a Judean governor:

And as for the people that remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left, even over them he made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ruler.

Gedaliah came from a distinguished family. His grandfather Shaphan was the scribe who read the newly found Torah scroll to King Yoshiyahu (2 Kings 22:8–10). His father Achikam had protected Jeremiah when the princes wanted to put the prophet to death: “the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people” (Jeremiah 26:24). When Jerusalem fell, the Babylonians entrusted Jeremiah to Gedaliah (Jeremiah 39:14), and the prophet chose to stay with him at Mizpah, north of Jerusalem, rather than go to Babylon (Jeremiah 40:6).

Gedaliah’s policy was the one Jeremiah had preached for years: accept Babylonian rule, stay in the land and live.

Fear not to serve the Chaldeans: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.

At first it worked. Judeans who had fled to Moab, Ammon and Edom came back, “and gathered wine and summer fruits very much” (Jeremiah 40:12).

The warning ignored

Then Yochanan son of Kareach and the other army officers came to Gedaliah with a warning: Baalis, king of the Ammonites, had sent Yishmael son of Netaniah to kill him. Yochanan even offered to kill Yishmael secretly first, “wherefore should he slay you, that all the Jews which are gathered unto you should be scattered, and the remnant in Judah perish?” (Jeremiah 40:15). Gedaliah refused to believe it:

But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said unto Johanan the son of Kareah, You shall not do this thing: for you speak falsely of Ishmael.

Yishmael was “of the seed royal” (2 Kings 25:25), of the house of David; the Bible does not fully explain his motives.

The murder at Mizpah

Now it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah the son of Elishama, of the seed royal, and the princes of the king, even ten men with him, came unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah; and there they did eat bread together in Mizpah. Then arose Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote Gedaliah.

The killers also murdered the Judeans and Babylonian soldiers with Gedaliah. The next day they killed seventy of eighty pilgrims who had come from Shechem, Shiloh and Samaria with offerings “to bring them to the house of Hashem,” and threw the bodies into a cistern (Jeremiah 41:4–9). Yishmael took the rest of the people captive and headed for Ammon. Yochanan’s forces freed the captives, but Yishmael escaped (Jeremiah 41:11–15).

The flight to Egypt

The survivors were afraid that Babylon would punish them all for the governor’s death. They asked Jeremiah to pray for guidance and promised to obey whatever Hashem said. Ten days later the answer came:

If you will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up.

Jeremiah warned that if they went down to Egypt, the sword they feared would follow them there. The leaders accused the prophet of lying, and Yochanan led “all the remnant of Judah,” including Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch, down to Tahpanhes in Egypt (Jeremiah 43:1–7). Jeremiah’s last recorded prophecies were spoken there, among Jews who had turned their backs on the land (Jeremiah 44). With Gedaliah’s death, the last Jewish community under Jewish leadership in the Land after the destruction came to an end.

History and archaeology

Scripture says only “in the seventh month” and gives no year. Some scholars place the murder within months of Jerusalem’s fall; others place it several years later, connecting it with a further Babylonian deportation in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year (Jeremiah 52:30), around 582 BCE.¹ A clay seal impression from Lachish reads “belonging to Gedalyahu who is over the house.” It is often identified with this Gedaliah, but the identification is uncertain because the name was common.² Mizpah in Benjamin is usually identified with Tell en-Nasbeh, a site that shows signs of activity during the Babylonian period, which fits its role as the seat of government after Jerusalem’s destruction.

Why a fast for a governor?

The fast of the seventh month

The prophet Zechariah, a generation after the return, already knew a fast in the seventh month. When people from Bethel asked whether they should keep mourning the Temple’s destruction now that a new Temple was being built, the word of Hashem answered:

When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did you at all fast unto Me, even to Me?

A chapter later comes the promise:

Thus says Hashem of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace.

The Talmud identifies the four fasts: the fourth month is 17 Tammuz (the city’s walls breached), the fifth is 9 Av (the Temple burned), the tenth is 10 Tevet (the siege began), and “the fast of the seventh is the third of Tishrei, on which Gedaliah son of Achikam was killed.” It then draws a famous lesson:

Who killed him? Yishmael son of Netaniah killed him. This teaches that the death of the righteous is equivalent to the burning of the House of our God.

Gedaliah’s death is set beside the destruction of the Temple because it destroyed what remained after the Temple fell: Jewish life in the land, the hope of rebuilding, and the protection the prophet had found there.³ Rambam explains that his death “extinguished the remaining ember of Israel and caused their exile to be complete.”⁴

Third of Tishrei or first?

The Talmud places the murder on 3 Tishrei. Some medieval authorities suggested that Gedaliah was actually killed on 1 Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, and that the fast was postponed because one does not fast on a festival.⁵ The fixed date of the fast is 3 Tishrei either way.

A lesson about warnings

The rabbis did not treat Gedaliah as a simple hero. A passage in tractate Niddah notes that the Hebrew of Jeremiah 41:9 speaks of the men slain “by the hand of Gedaliah” (beyad Gedalyahu; the King James Version has “because of Gedaliah”) as if he had killed them himself. It explains that he is held responsible because he should have heeded Yochanan ben Kareach’s warning. The Talmud teaches that although one may not accept malicious gossip as true, one must take a warning seriously enough to protect oneself and others.⁶

Gedaliah’s goodness was real: he trusted his fellow Jews and refused to authorize a pre-emptive killing. But a leader is responsible for those in his care, and his trust became negligence when he took no precautions. The tradition holds both together: Gedaliah was righteous, and his naivety cost many lives.

Keeping the fast

The rules of a minor fast

Tzom Gedaliah is one of the “minor” public fasts. Its rules are those of the fasts of 10 Tevet and 17 Tammuz:⁷

• Duration: from dawn (alot hashachar) until nightfall (tzeit hakochavim). One may eat before dawn if one decided to do so before going to sleep.
• What is restricted: eating and drinking. Unlike Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, washing, anointing and wearing leather shoes are permitted.
• Who is exempt: the sick, and in common practice pregnant and nursing women. Anyone with a medical condition should consult a rabbi and a doctor; the Torah’s command to guard life comes first.
• When it falls on Shabbat: Rosh Hashanah falls on Thursday and Friday in some years, so 3 Tishrei is Shabbat. One does not fast on Shabbat (other than Yom Kippur), so the fast is postponed to Sunday, 4 Tishrei.⁸

Prayers and readings

The Ten Days of Repentance shape the prayers. Additions include:

• Selichot before or during Shacharit, as on every weekday of the Ten Days.
• Aneinu (“Answer us”) in the Amidah, said by those who are fasting.
• Avinu Malkeinu after Shacharit and Minchah.
• Torah reading at Shacharit and Minchah: Exodus 32:11–14 and 34:1–10. Moshe pleads for Israel after the golden calf, Hashem relents, and Moshe carves new tablets and hears the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy: “Hashem, Hashem God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). The congregation calls out these verses together.
• Haftarah at Minchah (Ashkenazi practice): Isaiah 55:6–56:8, “Seek you Hashem while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6). The Talmud reads that verse as referring to the Ten Days of Repentance, which makes it especially fitting here.⁹ Many Sephardi communities do not read a haftarah at Minchah on minor fasts.

For more detail on the readings, see the readings for the fast days.

The readings point the fast toward repentance: Moshe’s prayer once turned away a decree of destruction, and Israel takes up that prayer.

A Messianic reading: leaders, the remnant, and joy

Wise as serpents, harmless as doves

When Yeshua sent out his disciples, he warned them: “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Gedaliah was harmless as a dove, but not wise as a serpent. Yeshua was both. He welcomed sinners and ate with them, yet John notes that during his first Passover in Jerusalem he “did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men” (John 2:24). He knew Yehudah of Kerioth would betray him and did not pretend otherwise (John 13:21–27).

Gedaliah was killed at a shared meal by someone he trusted. Yeshua was betrayed at the Passover meal by “he that eats bread with me” (John 13:18, quoting Psalm 41:9). Gedaliah was surprised; Yeshua went knowingly, for others. The parallel is homiletical, not prophecy fulfilled. Communities still need leaders who are kind without being careless, who listen to warnings, and who protect the vulnerable.

The remnant

The story of Tzom Gedaliah is about a remnant, “the remnant in Judah” (Jeremiah 40:15), and about how fragile it was. The prophets never stopped believing that Hashem would preserve a remnant and rebuild through it: “the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward” (Isaiah 37:31). Paul uses the same idea about Israel in his own day: “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Romans 11:5), and he insists that this remnant is a pledge for all Israel, not a replacement for it: “God has not cast away His people which He foreknew” (Romans 11:2).

The flight to Egypt was an act of fear and disobedience. Hashem’s word at Mizpah was “abide in this land… I will plant you” (Jeremiah 42:10). The return to the land in later generations, and in our own time, stands as evidence that Hashem did not finally withdraw that promise (Amos 9:14–15).

The prophetic hope: fasts turned to feasts

Zechariah’s promise is the heart of this day’s hope: “the fast of the seventh… shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts” (Zechariah 8:19). The Talmud reads it carefully: when there is peace, these days are days of joy; when there is persecution, they are fasts; when there is neither, they are optional, though Israel has long kept them.¹⁰ The fasts exist because the redemption is incomplete. They will end when it is complete.

The Brit Hadashah shares this outlook. Asked why his disciples did not fast, Yeshua answered: “Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast” (Matthew 9:15). His disciples fast now, in the time between his first coming and his return. When the Son of David returns to gather Israel, rebuild what was destroyed and reign in Jerusalem, the mourning of the seventh month will give way to the joy of the seventh month, which also contains Sukkot, the feast Zechariah says all nations will keep (Zechariah 14:16).

Isaiah describes that reversal: Hashem sends His anointed “to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3). Zechariah’s condition still applies: “therefore love the truth and peace.” The way toward that day is truth and peace, and a fast kept “unto Me, even to Me” (Zechariah 7:5).

Keeping or remembering the day

See our calendar for this year’s date. Some general suggestions:

• Fast if you are able, from dawn to nightfall, and use the time for prayer. If you cannot fast for health reasons, mark the day in another way, such as giving to the poor or setting aside time for Scripture.
• Read the story in Jeremiah 40–43, and Zechariah 7–8.
• Pray the Thirteen Attributes of Exodus 34:6–7, and read Isaiah 55:6–56:8.
• Reflect on leadership and responsibility. Is there a warning you have ignored, or a person in your care whom you have failed to protect? Do you hold your trust and your caution in the right balance?
• Pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6) and for the remnant of Israel, and for the day when this fast becomes a feast.

Tzom Gedaliah falls between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, during the season of Shabbat Shuva. It reminds Israel that repentance belongs to whole communities as well as individuals.