Chapter Twenty-Five

The fall of the kingdom of Judah. 1–3. The siege of Jerusalem and famine in the city. 4–7. The taking of the city, Zedekiah’s flight, the slaying of his sons and his captivity to Babylon. 8–17. The invasion of Nebuzaradan, the burning of Jerusalem, the plundering of the temple, and the captivity of the people to Babylon. 18–21. The execution of Judean officials at Riblah. 22–26. The population remaining in Judea; the murder of Gedaliah and the mass flight of Jews to Egypt. 27–30. A notice of Jehoiachin’s liberation in the 37th year of his captivity, under Evil-merodach.

2 Kings 25:1. In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came with all his army against Jerusalem, and besieged it, and built siege works around it. 2 Kings 25:2. And the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 2 Kings 25:3. On the ninth day of the month the famine was severe in the city, and there was no food for the people of the land. Angered by Zedekiah’s oath-breaking and the rebellion of other peoples, Nebuchadnezzar (according to Ezek 21:18 and following, after first casting lots, which fell on Jerusalem) invaded Judea again and besieged Jerusalem (“in accordance with all the rules of the art,” as Josephus Flavius remarks) in the 9th year of reign (not of Nebuchadnezzar, as the Russian Synodal translation has “his,” but of Zedekiah; LXX: αὺτοῦ, Slavonic: “his”) in the 10th month, on the 10th day of the month. Such precision in the date of the beginning of Jerusalem’s siege, as well as other memorable moments of this event so grievous to Jewish national feeling (cf. v. 3, 8), is explained by the fact that the Jews in captivity, in remembrance of this and other days of sad memory, established and observed specific fasts (Zech 8:19; cf. 2 Kgs 7:3). The 10th month, which subsequently acquired the name in the Babylonian reckoning of months used by the Hebrews in captivity, was called Tevet (Esth 2:16). From v. 6 it is evident that Nebuchadnezzar did not personally conduct the siege of Jerusalem, since his headquarters and residence were in the city of Riblah, but through one of his military commanders. From the verse (4Цар.34:7) it is evident that the Babylonians were besieging other Judean cities as well, such as Lachish and Azekah. The siege as a whole lasted about a year and a half (except for a brief pause when, hearing of the approach of the Egyptians to aid the Jews, the Chaldeans briefly lifted the siege of Jerusalem, (Jer 37:5-8)), namely 1 year, 5 months, 27 days; the extreme worsening of famine in the city and the first breach of the city wall occurred on the 9th day of the fourth month (as is directly stated in Jer 39:2) (“Tammuz,” corresponding to most of our July) in the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign (v. 2–3). How great were the sufferings of famine and others which the besieged endured can be seen from (Jer 2:11-12), cf. (Ezek 4) and other places.

2 Kings 25:4. And the city was broken through, and all the soldiers fled at night by the way of the gate between the two walls, near the king’s garden; the Chaldeans were around the city, and the king went by the way toward the Jordan Valley. 2 Kings 25:5. And the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. 2 Kings 25:6. And they took the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they passed sentence upon him: 2 Kings 25:7. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and then put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with bronze fetters, and took him to Babylon. The breach of the wall and the invasion of the Chaldeans into Jerusalem occurred on the north side, at the “middle gate” (Jer 39:3), ordinarily identified with the Ephraim Gate on the north of Jerusalem (Neh 8:16; 2 Kgs 14:13). Learning of this, Zedekiah and his army fled by night toward the east through the so-called “gate between the two walls, near the king’s garden,” presumably identical with the “Gate of the Fountain” (Neh 2:14) (the royal gardens were on the south-eastern side beyond the walls of the city by the Pool of Siloam) on the eastern side of the city, and were heading toward Jericho and beyond the Jordan, but on the way Zedekiah was seized by the Chaldeans, after which his army scattered, and he was taken to Riblah to Nebuchadnezzar, who passed a cruel military judgment upon him. The last thing he saw with his eyes was the execution of his sons (perhaps they seemed to the Babylonians to be instigators of rebellion, and their killing may have been intended to exterminate the entire ruling dynasty of Judah. However, according to Jer 39:6, along with Zedekiah’s sons some Judean nobles were also killed); then Zedekiah was blinded—an ancient Chaldean and Persian punishment (Herodotus, History VII, 18), still used in Persia and Turkey for throne pretenders. Then Zedekiah was taken in fetters to Babylon.

2 Kings 25:8. In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—that is, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guard, servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem 2 Kings 25:9. and he burned the house of the Lord, and the king’s house, and all the houses in Jerusalem, and every great house he burned with fire; 2 Kings 25:10. and all the walls around Jerusalem the army of the Chaldeans, under the chief of the guard, demolished. 2 Kings 25:11. And the rest of the people who remained in the city, and the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guard, carried into captivity. 2 Kings 25:12. But from the poor of the land Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guard, left some to work in the vineyards and fields. In (Jer 52:12) the date of Nebuzaradan’s arrival (his office in Hebrew is called rab-tab-bachim—“chief of executioners”: cf. (Gen 37:36), that is, of the bodyguard: “those who carried out executions always made up the immediate guard,” Prof. Gulyaev, p. 384) is given not as the seventh, as here, but as the 10th; the latter is also indicated by Josephus Flavius (“The Jewish War” 6:4,8; in “Jewish Antiquities” 10:8,5 he, however, considers the date of the burning of the temple to be the 1st of the 5th month). The fifth month, Ab, corresponds to most of our August. According to Josephus Flavius (“The Jewish War,” cited passage) the Temple of Solomon was burned by the Babylonians on the very same day of the fifth month (Ab, “loose” in Josephus Flavius) on which subsequently (70 AD) the Temple of Herod was burned by the Romans. Talmudic tradition refers the destruction of both temples to the ninth of Ab (Taanit, 29a), and a fast was established on this day. Besides the temple and the royal palace, Nebuzaradan burned all the somewhat significant palaces of the city, and the walls of the city, which constituted its stronghold, were demolished (see 2 Chr 32:5). Having expelled from Judea the last remnants of the somewhat wealthy people, in Judea Nebuzaradan left only the very poorest inhabitants—farmers and gardeners.

2 Kings 25:13. And the pillars of bronze that belonged to the house of the Lord, and the stands, and the bronze sea that was in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the bronze to Babylon; 2 Kings 25:14. and the pots, and the shovels, and the knives, and the spoons, and all the bronze vessels that were used in the service, they took; 2 Kings 25:15. and the firepans, and the bowls, whatever was made of gold and whatever was made of silver, the chief of the guard took: 2 Kings 25:16. The pillars, numbering two, the sea, one, and the stands, which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord—the bronze in all these vessels was beyond weight. 2 Kings 25:17. Eighteen cubits was the height of one pillar; a capital of bronze upon it, and the height of the capital was three cubits, with a network and pomegranates all around the capital, all of bronze. And the second pillar had the same, with the network. There are enumerated the furnishings of the temple vessels taken by Nebuzaradan to Babylon, beginning with the largest and most important: the “pillars of bronze,” that is, the well-known columns Jachin and Boaz in front of the temple’s front; the “bronze sea” with “stands” and so forth, cf. (1 Kgs 7:15-39).

2 Kings 25:18. And the chief of the guard took Seraiah the high priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three guardians of the threshold. 2 Kings 25:19. And from the city he took one officer who was in command of the soldiers, and five men of those who saw the king’s face, who were in the city, and the chief secretary of the army, who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were in the city. 2 Kings 25:20. And Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 2 Kings 25:21. And the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah, in the land of Hamath. And Judah was carried away out of its land. After the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuzaradan took from there the chief officials of the church and state, and, like Zedekiah, sent them to Riblah, where, brought before Nebuchadnezzar, all of them were executed. With that the expulsions of the Jews to Babylon were concluded. The land, of course, did not remain completely empty (cf. in E. Blagonravov, The Babylonian Captivity, p. 128 ff.), but the sparse and impoverished population remaining in it did not prevent the terrible desolation of Judea (2 Chr 36:21), in complete accordance with the prophecy of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 25:11). The prophet himself was given freedom by the Chaldeans, by command of their king, to go to Babylon or remain in his homeland. The prophet chose the latter (Jer 39:11). After v. 21 in the parallel account of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 52:28-30) there is a list of those taken into captivity to Babylon.

2 Kings 25:22. And over the people that remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had left, he appointed Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, as governor. 2 Kings 25:23. And when all the captains of the forces heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah—namely, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth of Netophah, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite, they and their men. 2 Kings 25:24. And Gedaliah swore to them and their men, saying, “Do not be afraid of the Chaldeans; dwell in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. 2 Kings 25:25. But in the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men, and struck down Gedaliah so that he died, and also the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. 2 Kings 25:26. And all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces arose and went to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans. A condensed account of the narrative which is contained at length in the book of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 39:11-43:7). Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, was the most prominent among the prudent citizens of the kingdom of Judah who believed and were ready to follow the advice of the prophet Jeremiah to Zedekiah—to voluntarily surrender to the Babylonian king (Jer 38:17). As a man of noble spirit (Jer 40:16), Gedaliah received the commission to free Jeremiah (Jer 39:14) and was invested with the title of Babylonian governor over the remaining population of Judea (Jer 40:7). Making Mizpah his residence (a city in the territory of Benjamin (Josh 13:26) northwest of Jerusalem), Gedaliah formed around himself a guard of Jews and Chaldeans, and with the support of the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch attempted to organize the poor population of Judea into a settled community (Jer 40:6), but was wickedly assassinated two months later (v. 26; Jer 41:2 and following). Netophah was a town in the territory of the tribe of Judah, near Bethlehem (Neh 7:26; Ezra 2:22; 1 Chr 2:54), identified with the present Bett-Nitiz (Onomasticon, 747). The region of Maacah lay in the north of the Transjordan land at the foot of Mount Hermon (Deut 13:14; Josh 13:13).

2 Kings 25:27. In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the year of his accession, released Jehoiachin, king of Judah, from prison; 2 Kings 25:28. and he spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the thrones of the other kings who were with him in Babylon; 2 Kings 25:29. and changed his prison clothes. And Jehoiachin ate bread regularly before him all the days of his life. 2 Kings 25:30. And his allowance, a regular allowance, was given him by the king, day by day, all the days of his life. See (Jer 52:31-34). Jehoiachin’s release fell in 561 BC. The reign of Evil-merodach spans 561–559 BC. Josephus Flavius (Against Apion I, 20), basing himself on Berossus, gives an unfavorable account of this king. The event of Jehoiachin’s release is the last recorded in 4 Kings, and the writing of 3 and 4 Kings took place, probably, soon after this event. * * * According to Josephus Flavius (“Jewish Antiquities” 10:8,5), the Temple of Solomon was burned 470 years 6 months and 10 days after its construction. According to accepted chronology, this figure should be reduced: the construction of the temple is placed in 1012 BC, and its destruction in 586 BC, consequently the temple existed 426–425 years (cf. I. Spassky, “An Inquiry into Biblical Chronology,” p. 131).