Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that [were] in Mizpah,.... All that were not slain by him, that remained after the slaughter he had made, chiefly the unarmed people; they being men of war who fell by his sword:

[even] the king's daughters; whether they were the daughters of Zedekiah, Jehoiakim, or Jehoiakim, says Kimchi, we know not; but it is most likely that they were the daughters of Zedekiah the last king, and who was just taken and carried captive; and so Josephus n expressly calls them; these the king of Babylon regarded not, because they could neither fight, nor claim the kingdom; only the sons of the king, whom he slew before his eyes; though it may be these were not his daughters by his lawful wife, but by his concubines, and so were not properly of the royal family, and less regarded:

and all the people that remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam; that were not slain, or carried captive by the Chaldeans; but were left at Mizpah, under the care and government of Gedaliah:

and Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive: so that those who escaped one captivity fell into another, and even by the hand of one of their own countrymen:

and departed to go over to the Ammonites; he went from Mizpah with these captives, in order to carry them to the king of Ammon, and make them his slaves; who had put him upon this enterprise out of hatred to the Jews, and to enrich himself with their spoils. Some render it, "to go over with the Ammonites" o; which they suppose the ten men to be that came along with him and the princes, to commit the barbarities they did.

n Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 10. c. 9. sect. 4.) o אל בני אמון "cum filiis Ammon", Schmidt.

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