Seals of Jeremiah’s Captors Who Urged Imprisonment

In 005, Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem uncovered a bulla (seal impression in clay) at her excavations in the City of David, Jerusalem. Three years later in 2008, she discovered another bulla. Impressed on the bullae were the names Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Gedaliah son of Pashur.a These names are also recorded in Jeremiah 37:3 and 38:1. Gedaliah and Jehucal were Judahite officials, and, most notably, they were two of the four men who petitioned King Zedekiah of Judah to imprison the prophet Jeremiah when he was encouraging the inhabitants of Jerusalem to surrender […]