King
Nebuchadnezzar II of
Babylon took the last of
Solomon's accumulated masses of gold and silver () as he burned
Solomon's Temple, palace and much of the city of
Jerusalem (). The fall of Jerusalem parallels the fall of Samaria: • Both cities were besieged three times, from two different enemies. Samaria was twice besieged by the
Arameans (; ) and once by the Assyrians (), whereas Jerusalem was besieged once by the Assyrians (
2 Kings 18–
19) and twice by the Babylonians (; ). Each city was ultimately destroyed in its third siege. • The attacks happened after the kings of Israel and Judah revolted against powerful neighbouring regional states. The last siege of Jerusalem lasted nineteen months (,
8), until 'the people of the land' being overcome by hunger (, ; , ). Zedekiah tried to escape the city, but was captured and heavily punished (). Thereafter, Jerusalem and its remaining inhabitants suffered destruction, burning, plundering, deportation and executions (
verses 8).
Verse 4 :''And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about:) and the king went the way toward the plain.'' • Cross references:
Jeremiah 39:4;
Jeremiah 52:7;
Ezekiel 12:12 • "The city was broken up": in Hebrew: "the city was breached". • "The king’s garden": mentioned in
Nehemiah 3:15 in conjunction with the
pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the
City of David, which is in the southern part of the city near the
Tyropoeon Valley (supported by the reference to the "two walls", that refers to the walls on the eastern and western hills). • "Plain" or "Arabah" (), the
Jordan Valley; also called "the rift valley", extending northward of the
Dead Sea past
Galilee and southward to the
Gulf of Aqaba, here the "plain" specifically refers to the southern part of the Jordan Valley, which has access to cross the
Jordan River to Moab or Ammon (Jeremiah 40:14; 41:15 mention that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians).
Verse 7 :
And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon. • Cross references:
Jeremiah 39:7;
Jeremiah 52:11 • Huey notes the fulfillment of two prophecies in this verse: •
Zedekiah would see the king of Babylon and then be taken to Babylon (the prophecy recorded in
Jeremiah 32:4–
5;
Jeremiah 34:3) • Zedekiah would die in Babylon without being able to see that country (the prophecy recorded in
Ezekiel 12:13)
Verse 8 :
And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: • "The fifth month, on seventh day": or the 7th of
Av, was the start of the destruction of Jerusalem. According to the
Talmud, the actual destruction of the
First Temple built by
King Solomon began on the
Ninth of Av (''Tisha B'Av''), and it continued to burn throughout the Tenth of Av (
Jeremiah 52:12). Gill interprets that Nebuzaradan departed from
Riblah on the 7th and entered Jerusalem on the 10th. • "
Nebuzaradan" (
2 Kings 25:8, , ; ; ,, , ): mentioned (as Nabuzeriddinam or Nabû-zēr-iddin) in a Babylonian cuneiform inscription known as
Nebuchadnezzar II's Prism (column 3, line 36 of prism EŞ 7834, in the
Istanbul Archaeological Museum). ==Governorship of Gedaliah (25:22–26)==