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King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside it.[a] They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah.[b] The city remained under siege until Zedekiah’s eleventh year. By the ninth day of the fourth month[c] the famine in the city was so severe the residents[d] had no food. They broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden.[e] (The Babylonians had the city surrounded.) Then they headed for the rift valley.[f] But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with Zedekiah in the plains[g] of Jericho, and his entire army deserted him. They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah[h] in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there. 10 The king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. He also had all the nobles of Judah put to death there at Riblah. 11 He had Zedekiah’s eyes put out and had him bound in chains.[i] Then the king of Babylon had him led off to Babylon and he was imprisoned there until the day he died.

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 52:4 tn Or “against it.”
  2. Jeremiah 52:4 sn This would have been January 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).
  3. Jeremiah 52:6 sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.
  4. Jeremiah 52:6 tn Heb “the people of the land.”
  5. Jeremiah 52:7 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.
  6. Jeremiah 52:7 sn The rift valley (עֲרָבָה, ʿaravah) extends from Galilee to the Gulf of Aqaba. In this context the portion that they head to is the Jordan Valley near Jericho, intending to escape across the river to Moab or Ammon. It appears from 40:14 and 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.
  7. Jeremiah 52:8 tn See the note at Jer 39:5.
  8. Jeremiah 52:9 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.
  9. Jeremiah 52:11 tn Heb “fetters of bronze.” The more generic “chains” is used in the translation because “fetters” is a word unfamiliar to most modern readers.

Now it came about in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem; and they camped against it and built moveable towers and siege mounds all around it.(A) So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.(B) In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then the city was broken into, and all the soldiers fled. They left the city at night [as Ezekiel prophesied] passing through the gate between the two walls by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They fled by way of the Arabah (the Jordan Valley).(C) But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and his entire army was scattered from him. Then they seized the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the [Syrian] land of Hamath [on the northern border of Israel], where he pronounced sentence on him. 10 The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; he also killed all the princes of Judah at Riblah. 11 Then the king of Babylon blinded Zedekiah, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon and there he put him in prison [a][in a mill] until the day of his death.(D)

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 52:11 The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) translates this word “mill.” This may imply that the Chaldeans treated Zedekiah in his old age to the same fate Samson suffered when he was a Philistine captive (Judg 16:21).