appointed governor (or possibly ruling as a puppet king). On hearing of the appointment, the Jews that had taken refuge in surrounding countries returned to Judah. However, Gedaliah was assassinated by Ishmael ben Nethaniah, a member of the former royal house, and the Babylonian garrison killed, triggering a mass movement of refugees to Egypt. A minor fast day of the Fast of Gedaliah commemorates this event. In Egypt, the refugees settled in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, and Pathros, and Jeremiah went with them as moral guardian. Although the dates are not clear from the Bible, this probably happened about 582/1 BCE, some four to five years and three months after the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple in 586 BCE. Transfer to Persian rule Demographics The numbers deported to Babylon or who made their way to Egypt, and the remnant that remained in Yehud province and in surrounding countries, is subject to academic debate. The Book of Jeremiah reports that a total of 4,600 were exiled to Babylon. To these numbers must be added those deported by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE following the first siege to Jerusalem, when he deported the king of Judah, Jeconiah, and his court and other prominent citizens and craftsmen, along with a sizable portion of the Jewish population of Judah, numbering about 10,000. The Book of Kings also suggests that it was eight thousand. Israel Finkelstein, a prominent archaeologist, suggests that the 4,600 represented the heads of households and 8,000 was the total, whilst 10,000 is a rounding upwards of the second number. Jeremiah also hints that an equivalent number may have fled to Egypt. Given these figures, Finkelstein suggests that 3/4 of the population of Judah had remained. In his examination of the archaeological evidence for the demography of Yehud during the 6th century BCE, archaeologist Avraham Faust states that between the deportations and executions caused by the Babylonians, plus the famines and epidemics that occurred during the war, the population of Judah was reduced to barely a 10% of what it had been in the time before the Exile. References Autonomous administrative divisions Ancient Israel and Judah States and territories established in the 6th century BC 586 BC Political entities in the Land of Israel Jewish Babylonian history