The fall of Jerusalem again recorded
52
📚Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, who was the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2 📚And he did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD, in accordance with all that Jehoiakim had done. 3 📚For through the anger of the LORD this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out of his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4 📚And it came about in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem and encamped against it and built siege works against it all around. 5 So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
6 📚And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. 7 📚Then the city walls were breached, and all the warriors fled, and went out of the city at night by way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were surrounding the city, and went away on the road to the plain. 8 📚But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army scattered from him.
9 📚Then they took the king, and led him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath. There he gave judgment on him. 10 📚And the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah in front of his eyes. Also at Riblah he killed all the officials of Judah. 11 📚Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah. And the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and took him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.
12 📚Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, serving the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, 13 📚and burned the house of the LORD, and the king’s house. And he burned with fire all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men. 14 📚And all the army of the Chaldeans that was with the commander of the guard, broke down all the surrounding walls of Jerusalem. 15 📚Then Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard took away captive some of the poor people and the rest of the people who remained in the city, and those who had defected, who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. 16 📚But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left some of the poor of the land as vineyard workers and farmers.
17 📚Also the Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars that were at the house of the LORD, and the stands and the bronze sea that were at the house of the LORD, and carried away all their bronze to Babylon. 18 📚They also took away the pots and the shovels and the snuffers and the bowls and the spoons, and all the bronze articles with which the priests ministered. 19 📚And the commander of the guard took away the basins and the fire-pans and the bowls and the pots and the lampstands and the spoons and the cups, what had been made of gold as gold, and what had been made of silver as silver, 20 📚and the two pillars, one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the stands, which King Solomon had made at the house of the LORD. The bronze of all these articles was beyond weighing. 21 📚And concerning the pillars: the height of each pillar was eighteen cubits, and its circumference was twelve cubits 📖, and its thickness was four fingers; it was hollow. 22 📚And a capital of bronze was on it, and the height of one capital was five cubits, with a network and pomegranates all around the capitals, all of bronze. The second pillar also and the pomegranates were like these. 23 📚And there were ninety-six pomegranates on each side; and all the pomegranates all around on the network were a hundred.
24 📚And the commander of the guard took away Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers. 25 📚He also took away from the city an officer in charge of the warriors, and seven of the king’s advisors who were found in the city, and the principal scribe of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty of the people of the land who were found in the midst of the city. 26 So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 27 📚And the king of Babylon struck them and put them to death in Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive from his own land.
52:1-27 This is found almost word for word in 2 Kings 24:18—25:21. See notes there. The Jeremiah in verse 1 here is not, of course, Jeremiah the prophet.⚜
28 📚These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand and twenty-three Jews; 29 📚in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he carried away captive eight hundred and thirty-two persons from Jerusalem; 30 📚in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried away captive seven hundred and forty-five of the Jews; altogether these people were four thousand six hundred.
Jehoiachin’s liberation in Babylon
31 📚And it happened in the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the twenty-fifth day of the month, that Evil-Merodach 📖 king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him out of prison, 32 📚and spoke kindly to him, and appointed his throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon, 33 📚and changed his prison garments; and Jehoiachin ate food regularly in his presence all the days of his life. 34 📚And as for his provisions, there was a permanent ration given him by the king of Babylon, a portion each day until the day of his death, all the days of his life.
52:31-34 This is found almost word for word in 2 Kings 25:27-30.⚜