Jeremiah 52
New American Standard Bible
The Fall of Jerusalem
52 (A)Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was [a](B)Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of (C)Libnah. 2 He did (D)evil in the sight of the Lord, in accordance with everything that (E)Jehoiakim had done. 3 For because of the (F)anger of the Lord this came about in Jerusalem and Judah, until He drove them out from His presence. And Zedekiah (G)revolted against the king of Babylon. 4 (H)Now it came about in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it, and built a [b](I)bulwark all around [c]it. 5 (J)So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6 On the ninth day of the (K)fourth month the (L)famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 7 Then the city was (M)breached, and all the (N)warriors fled and left the city at night by way of the gate between the two walls which was by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were [d](O)all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah. 8 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and (P)overtook Zedekiah in the [e]desert plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him. 9 Then they captured the king and (Q)brought him up to the king of Babylon at (R)Riblah in the land of (S)Hamath, and he [f]passed sentence on him. 10 And the king of Babylon (T)slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also slaughtered all the commanders of Judah in Riblah. 11 Then he (U)blinded the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him with bronze shackles and brought him to Babylon and put him in prison until the day of his death.
12 (V)Now on the tenth day of the fifth month, which was the (W)nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, (X)Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, who [g]was in the service of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 13 And he (Y)burned the house of the Lord, the (Z)king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every large house he burned with fire. 14 So the entire army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard (AA)tore down all the walls around Jerusalem. 15 Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard (AB)took into exile some of the poorest of the people, the rest of the people who were left in the city, the (AC)deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. 16 But (AD)Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and farmers.
17 Now the bronze (AE)pillars which belonged to the house of the Lord and the (AF)stands and the bronze [h](AG)sea, which were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans smashed to pieces and carried all their bronze to Babylon. 18 They also took the (AH)pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the [i]pans, and all the bronze vessels which were used in temple service. 19 The captain of the guard also took the (AI)bowls, the firepans, the basins, the pots, the lampstands, the [j]pans, and the drink offering bowls, whatever was fine gold, and whatever was fine silver. 20 The two pillars, the one [k]sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under [l]the sea, and the stands, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord—the bronze of all these vessels was (AJ)beyond weight. 21 As for the pillars, the (AK)height of each pillar was [m]eighteen cubits, and [n]it was twelve cubits in (AL)circumference and four fingers in thickness, and hollow. 22 Also, a (AM)capital of bronze was on top of it; and the height of each capital was [o]five cubits, with latticework and (AN)pomegranates on the capital all around, all of bronze. And the second pillar was like these, including pomegranates. 23 There were ninety-six [p]exposed pomegranates; all (AO)the pomegranates numbered a hundred on the latticework all around.
24 Then the captain of the guard took (AP)Seraiah the chief priest and (AQ)Zephaniah the second priest, with the three [q](AR)officers of the temple. 25 He also took from the city one official who was overseer of the warriors, seven [r]of the (AS)king’s advisers who were found in the city, the scribe of the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men from the people of the land who were found inside the city. 26 Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguards took them and (AT)brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 27 Then the king of Babylon (AU)struck them and put them to death in Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was (AV)led into exile from its land.
28 These are the people whom (AW)Nebuchadnezzar took into exile: in the [s]seventh year 3,023 Jews; 29 in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar 832 persons from Jerusalem; 30 in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, (AX)Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took into exile 745 Jewish people; there were 4,600 people in all.
31 (AY)Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth of the month, that [t]Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, [u](AZ)showed favor to Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison. 32 (BA)Then he spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon. 33 So [v]Jehoiachin (BB)changed his prison clothes, and [w](BC)had his meals in [x]the king’s presence regularly all the days of his life. 34 And as his allowance, a (BD)regular allowance was given to him by the king of Babylon, a portion for each day, all the days of his life until the day of his death.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 52:1 Another reading is Hamital
- Jeremiah 52:4 I.e., a defensive wall
- Jeremiah 52:4 Lit against it
- Jeremiah 52:7 Lit against the city on every side
- Jeremiah 52:8 Heb Arabah
- Jeremiah 52:9 Lit spoke judgments with
- Jeremiah 52:12 Lit stood before the king
- Jeremiah 52:17 I.e., large basin
- Jeremiah 52:18 Or spoons for incense
- Jeremiah 52:19 Or spoons for incense
- Jeremiah 52:20 As in LXX and Syriac; MT omits the sea; i.e., large basin
- Jeremiah 52:20 As in LXX and Syriac; MT omits the sea; i.e., large basin
- Jeremiah 52:21 About 27 ft. high and 18 ft. in circumference or 8 m and 5.4 m
- Jeremiah 52:21 Lit a thread of 12 cubits would encircle it
- Jeremiah 52:22 About 7.5 ft. or 2.3 m
- Jeremiah 52:23 Lit windward
- Jeremiah 52:24 Lit keepers of the door
- Jeremiah 52:25 Lit men of those seeing the king’s face
- Jeremiah 52:28 Or possibly seventeenth
- Jeremiah 52:31 Or Awil-Marduk (“Man of Marduk”)
- Jeremiah 52:31 Lit lifted up the head of
- Jeremiah 52:33 Lit he
- Jeremiah 52:33 Lit ate bread
- Jeremiah 52:33 Lit his presence
Jeremiah 52
The Message
The Destruction of Jerusalem and Exile of Judah
52 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he started out as king. He was king in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah. Her hometown was Libnah.
2 As far as God was concerned, Zedekiah was just one more evil king, a carbon copy of Jehoiakim.
3-5 The source of all this doom to Jerusalem and Judah was God’s anger. God turned his back on them as an act of judgment.
Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar set out for Jerusalem with a full army. He set up camp and sealed off the city by building siege mounds around it. He arrived on the ninth year and tenth month of Zedekiah’s reign. The city was under siege for nineteen months (until the eleventh year of Zedekiah).
6-8 By the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so bad that there wasn’t so much as a crumb of bread for anyone. Then the Babylonians broke through the city walls. Under cover of the night darkness, the entire Judean army fled through an opening in the wall (it was the gate between the two walls above the King’s Garden). They slipped through the lines of the Babylonians who surrounded the city and headed for the Jordan into the Arabah Valley, but the Babylonians were in full pursuit. They caught up with them in the Plains of Jericho. But by then Zedekiah’s army had deserted and was scattered.
9-11 The Babylonians captured Zedekiah and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah in Hamath, who tried and sentenced him on the spot. The king of Babylon then killed Zedekiah’s sons right before his eyes. The summary murder of his sons was the last thing Zedekiah saw, for they then blinded him. The king of Babylon followed that up by killing all the officials of Judah. Securely handcuffed, Zedekiah was hauled off to Babylon. The king of Babylon threw him in prison, where he stayed until the day he died.
12-16 In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon’s chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned the Temple of God to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city. He burned the whole place down. He put the Babylonian troops he had with him to work knocking down the city walls. Finally, he rounded up everyone left in the city, including those who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon, and took them off into exile. He left a few poor dirt farmers behind to tend the vineyards and what was left of the fields.
17-19 The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the bronze washstands, and the huge bronze basin (the Sea) that were in the Temple of God, and hauled the bronze off to Babylon. They also took the various bronze-crafted liturgical accessories, as well as the gold and silver censers and sprinkling bowls, used in the services of Temple worship. The king’s deputy didn’t miss a thing. He took every scrap of precious metal he could find.
20-23 The amount of bronze they got from the two pillars, the Sea, the twelve bronze bulls that supported the Sea, and the ten washstands that Solomon had made for the Temple of God was enormous. They couldn’t weigh it all! Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high with a circumference of eighteen feet. The pillars were hollow, the bronze a little less than an inch thick. Each pillar was topped with an ornate capital of bronze pomegranates and filigree, which added another seven and a half feet to its height. There were ninety-six pomegranates evenly spaced—in all, a hundred pomegranates worked into the filigree.
24-27 The king’s deputy took a number of special prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the associate priest, three wardens, the chief remaining army officer, seven of the king’s counselors who happened to be in the city, the chief recruiting officer for the army, and sixty men of standing from among the people who were still there. Nebuzaradan the king’s deputy marched them all off to the king of Babylon at Riblah. And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon killed the lot of them in cold blood.
Judah went into exile, orphaned from her land.
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28 3,023 men of Judah were taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar in the seventh year of his reign.
29 832 from Jerusalem were taken in the eighteenth year of his reign.
30 745 men from Judah were taken off by Nebuzaradan, the king’s chief deputy, in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year.
The total number of exiles was 4,600.
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31-34 When Jehoiachin king of Judah had been in exile for thirty-seven years, Evil-Merodach became king in Babylon and let Jehoiachin out of prison. This release took place on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month. The king treated him most courteously and gave him preferential treatment beyond anything experienced by the political prisoners held in Babylon. Jehoiachin took off his prison garb and from then on ate his meals in company with the king. The king provided everything he needed to live comfortably for the rest of his life.
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