Jeremiah 52
52
The Destruction of Jerusalem and Exile of Judah
1Zedekiah 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.
2As far as God was concerned, Zedekiah was just one more evil king, a carbon copy of Jehoiakim.
3-5The 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).
6-8By 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.
9-11The 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.
12-16In 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.
17-19The 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.
20-23The 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.
24-27The 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.
* * *
283,023 men of Judah were taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar in the seventh year of his reign.
29832 from Jerusalem were taken in the eighteenth year of his reign.
30745 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.
* * *
31-34When 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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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 52
52
1Tsiḏqiyahu was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Yerushalayim. And his mother’s name was Ḥamutal the daughter of Yirmeyahu of Liḇnah.
2And he did evil in the eyes of יהוה, according to all that Yehoyaqim had done.
3For through the displeasure of יהוה this came to be against Yerushalayim and Yehuḏah, until He had cast them out from His presence. And Tsiḏqiyahu rebelled against the sovereign of Baḇel.
4And it came to be in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth new moon, on the tenth of the new moon, that Neḇuḵaḏretstsar sovereign of Baḇel and all his army came against Yerushalayim and encamped against it. And they built a siege wall against it all around.
5And the city was under siege until the eleventh year of Sovereign Tsiḏqiyahu.
6On the ninth of the fourth new moon the scarcity of food was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
7Then the city wall was breached, and all the men of battle fled and went out of the city at night by way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the sovereign’s garden, while the Kasdim were near the city all around. And they went by way of the desert plain.
8But the army of the Kasdim pursued the sovereign, and they overtook Tsiḏqiyahu in the desert plains of Yeriḥo, and his entire army was scattered from him.
9Then they captured the sovereign and brought him up to the sovereign of Baḇel at Riḇlah in the land of Ḥamath, and he pronounced judgments on him.
10And the sovereign of Baḇel slew the sons of Tsiḏqiyahu before his eyes, and he also slew all the heads of Yehuḏah in Riḇlah.
11And he put out the eyes of Tsiḏqiyahu. And the sovereign of Baḇel bound him in bronze shackles, and took him to Baḇel, and put him in prison till the day of his death.
12And on the tenth of the fifth new moon, which was the nineteenth year of sovereign Neḇuḵaḏretstsar sovereign of Baḇel, Neḇuzaraḏan, chief of the guard, who served the sovereign of Baḇel, came to Yerushalayim,
13and he burned the House of יהוה, and the sovereign’s house, and all the houses of Yerushalayim, and all the houses of the great men, he burned with fire.
14And all the army of the Kasdim who were with the chief of the guard broke down all the walls of Yerushalayim all around.
15And Neḇuzaraḏan, chief of the guard, exiled some of the poor people, and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and the defectors who had gone over to the sovereign of Baḇel, and the rest of the craftsmen.
16But Neḇuzaraḏan, chief of the guard, left some of the poor of the land as vinedressers and farmers.
17And the Kasdim broke the bronze columns that were in the House of יהוה, and the stands and the bronze Sea that were in the House of יהוה, and brought all their bronze to Baḇel.
18They also took away the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the bowls, and the ladles, and all the bronze utensils with which they served,
19and the basins, and the fire holders, and the bowls, and the pots, and the lampstands, and the ladles, and the cups, whatever was of solid gold and whatever was of solid silver, the chief of the guard took.
20The two columns, one Sea, the twelve bronze bulls which were under it, and the stands, which Sovereign Shelomoh had made for the House of יהוה – the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing.
21As for the columns, the height of one column was eighteen cubits, and its circumference was twelve cubits, and its thickness was four fingers, hollow.
22And a capital of bronze was on it. And the height of one capital was five cubits, with a network and pomegranates all around the capital, all of bronze. And the second column, with pomegranates was the same.
23And there were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides. All the pomegranates on the network were one hundred, all around.
24And the chief of the guard took Serayah the chief priest, and Tsephanyah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers.
25And from the city he took one eunuch who was in charge of the men of battle, and seven men who saw the sovereign’s face, who were found in the city, and the scribe of the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.
26And Neḇuzaraḏan, chief of the guard, took these and brought them to the sovereign of Baḇel at Riḇlah,
27and the sovereign of Baḇel struck them and put them to death at Riḇlah in the land of Ḥamath. Thus Yehuḏah was exiled from its own land.
28These are the people whom Neḇuḵaḏretstsar exiled: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Yehuḏim;
29in the eighteenth year of Neḇuḵaḏretstsar he exiled from Yerushalayim eight hundred and thirty-two beings;
30in the twenty-third year of Neḇuḵaḏretstsar, Neḇuzaraḏan, chief of the guard, exiled of the Yehuḏim seven hundred and forty-five beings. All the beings were four thousand six hundred.
31And it came to be in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Yehoyaḵin sovereign of Yehuḏah, in the twelfth new moon, on the twenty-fifth of the new moon, that Ewil-Meroḏaḵ sovereign of Baḇel, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Yehoyaḵin sovereign of Yehuḏah and brought him out of prison,
32and spoke kindly to him and set his throne above those of the sovereigns who were with him in Baḇel.
33So he changed his prison garments, and he ate bread continually before the sovereign all the days of his life.
34And as for his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him by the sovereign of Baḇel, a portion for each day until the day of his death, all the days of his life.
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