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2 Kings 24:20-25:7
New English Translation

20 What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger; he finally threw them out of his presence.[a] Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 25 1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside[b] it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign.[c] 2 The city remained under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. 3 By the ninth day of the fourth month[d] the famine in the city was so severe the residents[e] had no food. 4 The enemy broke through the city walls,[f] and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night.[g] They went through the gate between the two walls, which is near the king’s garden.[h] (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the rift valley.[i] 5 But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with him in the rift valley plains of Jericho,[j] and his entire army deserted him. 6 They captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah,[k] where he[l] passed sentence on him. 7 Zedekiah’s sons were executed while Zedekiah was forced to watch.[m] The king of Babylon[n] then had Zedekiah’s eyes put out, bound him in bronze chains, and carried him off to Babylon.

Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 24:20 tn Heb “Surely [or, ‘for’] because of the anger of the Lord this happened in Jerusalem and Judah until he threw them out from upon his face.”
  2. 2 Kings 25:1 tn Or “against.”
  3. 2 Kings 25:1 sn This would have been Jan 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).
  4. 2 Kings 25:3 tn The MT has simply “of the month,” but the parallel passage in Jer 52:6 has “fourth month,” and this is followed by almost all English translations. The word “fourth,” however, is not actually present in the MT of 2 Kgs 25:3.sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.
  5. 2 Kings 25:3 tn Heb “the people of the land.”
  6. 2 Kings 25:4 tn Heb “the city was breached.”
  7. 2 Kings 25:4 tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.
  8. 2 Kings 25:4 sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the City of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.
  9. 2 Kings 25:4 sn The rift valley (עֲרָבָה, ʿarabah) extends northward of the Dead Sea past Galilee and southward to the Gulf of Aqaba. Here the southern part of the Jordan Valley is in view with the intention to escape across the Jordan river to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.
  10. 2 Kings 25:5 sn The rift valley plains of Jericho refer to the parts of the Jordan Valley in the vicinity of Jericho (see HALOT 880 s.v. עֲרָבָה). There the terrain is fairly level and slopes gently down to the Jordan, a descent of about 450 feet over five miles. Many translations render this as “the plains of Jericho” (ESV, NASB, NIV, KJV). See the note at Num 22:1.
  11. 2 Kings 25:6 sn Riblah was a strategic town on the Orontes River in Syria. It was at a crossing of the major roads between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pharaoh Necho had earlier received Jehoahaz there and put him in chains (2 Kgs 23:33) prior to taking him captive to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had set up his base camp for conducting his campaigns against the Palestinian states there and was now sitting in judgment on prisoners brought to him.
  12. 2 Kings 25:6 tn The Hebrew text has the plural form of the verb, but the parallel passage in Jer 52:9 has the singular.
  13. 2 Kings 25:7 tn Heb “were killed before his eyes.”
  14. 2 Kings 25:7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king of Babylon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
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2 Kings 24:20-25:7
International Standard Version

20 because through the Lord’s anger these things happened[a] to Jerusalem and Judah until he threw them from his presence.

Nebuchadnezzar Captures Jerusalem

20 Zedekiah then rebelled against the king of Babylon, 25 1 so on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s[b] reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his entire army approached Jerusalem, attacked it, encamped against it, and built a siege wall that surrounded the city. 2 The city remained under siege until the eleventh year of the reign of[c] King Zedekiah. 3 By the ninth day of the fourth[d] month, the resulting[e] famine had become so severe in the city that no food remained for the people who lived in the land. 4 The city was breached, and the entire army left during the night through the gate that stood between the two walls beside the royal garden, even though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city. They escaped through the Arabah, 5 but the Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook him in the Jericho plains, where his entire army was scattered. 6 The Chaldeans captured the king and brought him to Riblah, where the king of Babylon determined his sentence. 7 They executed Zedekiah’s sons in his presence, blinded Zedekiah, bound him with bronze chains, and transported him to Babylon.

Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 24:20 The Heb. lacks these things
  2. 2 Kings 25:1 Lit. his; but cf. 25:3, which suggests it refers to Zedekiah
  3. 2 Kings 25:2 The Heb. lacks the reign of
  4. 2 Kings 25:3 The Heb. lacks fourth; but cf. Jer. 52:6
  5. 2 Kings 25:3 The Heb. lacks resulting
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