1Twenty-one years old was Zedekiah when he became king, and his mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. 2And he did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD as all that Jehoiakim had done. 3For because of the LORD’s wrath, it was against Jerusalem and Judah, till He flung them from His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylonia. 4And it happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia came—he and all his forces—against Jerusalem and camped against it and built siege-towers all around it. 5And the city came under siege till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6In the fourth month on the ninth of the month the famine was severe in the city and there was no bread for the people of the land. 7And the city was breached, and all the men of war fled and went out of the city by night through the gate between the double walls which is by the king’s garden, and the Chaldeans were upon the city all around. And they went through the Arabah. 8And the Chaldean force pursued the king and overtook him on the plain of Jericho, and all his forces scattered from around him. 9And they seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylonia at Riblah, and he pronounced judgment against him. 10And the king of Babylonia slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, and also all the nobles of Judah he slaughtered in Riblah. 11And the eyes of Zedekiah he blinded, and he bound him in bronze fetters, and the king of Babylonia brought him to Babylonia and put him in the house of detention. 12And in the fifth month on the seventh of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain stood in attendance before the king of Babylonia in Jerusalem. 13And he burned the house of the LORD and the house of the king and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great house he burned in fire. 14And all the walls of Jerusalem all around did the Chaldean force that was with the high chamberlain shatter. 15And some of the poorest of the people and the rest of the people remaining in the city and the turncoats who had gone over to the king of Babylonia and the rest of the artisans Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain exiled. 16And of the poorest of the land Nebuzaradan left to be vine-dressers and field workers. 17And the bronze pillars that were in the house of the LORD and the stands and the bronze sea that was in the house of the LORD the Chaldeans smashed and bore off their bronze to Babylonia. 18And the pails and the scrapers and the snuffers and the ladles and the bronze vessels with which one ministered they took. 19And the fire-pans and the sprinkling bowls and the snuffers and the pails and the lampstands and the ladles and the scrapers, whatever was of gold and whatever was of silver, the high chamberlain took. 20The two pillars, the sea, the twelve bronze bulls that were under the stands that King Solomon had made for the house of the LORD—all these vessels were beyond measure in their bronze. 21And the pillars were eighteen cubits high each pillar, and a thread of twelve cubits encircled it, and its thickness four fingers, hollow. 22And there was a bronze capital on it, and the height of a single capital was five cubits, with meshwork and pomegranates on the capital all around. Everything was bronze, and like these were the second pillar and the pomegranates. 23And there were ninety-six pomegranates to a side, a hundred all the pomegranates over the meshwork all around. 24And the high chamberlain took Seraiah the head priest and Zephaniah the assistant priest and the three guards of the threshold. 25And from the city he took one eunuch who was the official over the men of war and seven men who attended in the king’s presence, who were in the city, and the scribe of the army commander who mustered the people of the land who were in the city. 26And Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain took them to the king of Babylonia at Riblah. 27And the king of Babylonia struck them down and put them to death in Riblah in the land of Hammath. And he exiled Judah from its land. 28This was the people that Nebuchadrezzar exiled in the seventh year—three thousand twenty-three Judahites. 29In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar—from Jerusalem, eight hundred thirty-two persons. 30In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain exiled seven hundred forty-five Judahites; all the persons were four thousand six hundred. 31And it happened in the twenty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiakim king of Judah in the twelfth month on the twenty-seventh of the month, that Evil-Merodach in the year he became king lifted up the head of Jehoiakim king of Judah and brought him out from the prison house. 32And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylonia. 33And he changed his prison garments, and Jehoiakim ate bread perpetually before him all the days of his life. 34And his provision was a perpetual provision given him by the king of Babylonia day after day till his dying day, all the days of his life.
CHAPTER 52 NOTES
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1. Twenty-one years old was Zedekiah. The conclusion of the Book of Jeremiah, as noted above, largely replicates the conclusion of the Book of Kings, beginning with 2 Kings 24:18. The obvious rationale is that the principal burden of Jeremiah’s prophecies has been the imminent destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Judahites, which is now presented as a historical report. Some of this material also appears in 39:1–10.
3. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylonia. As usual, the writer provides no political explanation—in this case, for the fact that Zedekiah, having been installed by Nebuchadrezzar in 597 B.C.E. as vassal king, now decides to rebel. We have seen earlier in the book that there were sharp divisions within the kingdom of Judah between a pro-Egyptian faction and one advocating accommodation with Babylonia. Zedekiah at this moment, counting on Egyptian support, joined an alliance of trans-Jordanian kingdoms plotting to overthrow Babylonian rule in the west. Egypt did not provide support, and the rebellion failed to materialize. The consequence was Nebuchadrezzar’s assault on Jerusalem and the destruction of the kingdom of Judah in 586 B.C.E.
6. bread. As elsewhere, this word is a synecdoche for food in general.
9. he pronounced judgment against him. This would scarcely have been a proper trial but summary judgment of a vassal king who had proved himself a traitor.
11. the house of detention. The Hebrew beyt hapequdot is an unusual term for a prison or place of confinement, but the meaning is clear.
13. every great house. These are the houses of the nobility, as the Aramaic translation, batey revavaia, properly registers.
14. And all the walls of Jerusalem all around did the Chaldean force . . . shatter. Destroying the walls rendered the city totally indefensible, eradicating any possibility that it could continue to be the capital of an independent state.
15. the turncoats. Literally, “those who fell,” a term that occurs earlier in Jeremiah. One should recall that there was a strong group among the Judahites (including Jeremiah) who thought that the rebellion was ill-advised, and so it is not surprising that some of these should defect to the Babylonians.
the artisans. The Hebrew heʾamon appears to be a collective noun for “artisans.” The parallel text in Kings reads hehamon, “the masses.”
17. And the bronze pillars. This catalogue of precious vessels seized by the Babylonians reverses everything reported in 1 Kings 6–7 about the splendid furnishings for the Temple and palace that Solomon caused to be fashioned. Everything that the grand first king after David built or made is either reduced to rubble or taken off by the enemy.
the bronze sea. This is a large cast-metal pool mentioned in 1 Kings 7:23 and elsewhere.
20. beyond measure. More literally, “beyond weighing.”
24. And the high chamberlain took Seraiah the head priest and Zephaniah the assistant priest. The obvious intention is to prevent a renewal of the cult. The usual term for high priest (in the Hebrew, “great priest”) is not used but rather “head priest,” kohen haroʾsh.
27. And the king of Babylonia struck them down and put them to death. No Geneva convention obtains for these ancient prisoners of war, and since they constitute the nation’s military and sacerdotal elite, Nebuchadrezzar wants to eliminate them entirely.
28. This was the people that Nebuchadrezzar exiled. This enumeration of the exiles does not appear in the parallel passage in Kings.
in the seventh year. This is Nebuchadrezzar’s seventh reignal year, 597 B.C.E., when he put down the Judahite rebellion, made King Jehoiakim a captive and exile, and installed Zedekiah as vassal king.
29. In the eighteenth year. This would be 587 or 586 B.C.E., a one-year discrepancy evident between this and the mention of “the nineteenth year” in verse 12.
30. In the twenty-third year. This would be 582 B.C.E., the year of the assassination of Gedaliah (not mentioned in this chapter), an act of insurrection that provoked an additional deportation of Judahites.
all the persons were four thousand six hundred. This amounts to a rather small number of exiles, even if the general population of Judah was not large.
31. lifted up the head. This idiom is borrowed from the Joseph story, where it is applied to the release from prison of Pharaoh’s vizier. The change of garments in verse 33 recalls Joseph’s change of garments after Pharaoh takes him from prison to occupy a high place in the royal court.
32. gave him a throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him. This is probably a nationalistic flourish of the writer’s because it is unlikely that Jehoiakim would have been granted a higher status than other kings held in Babylonian captivity.
33. Jehoiakim. The Hebrew says merely “he,” and the proper noun has been added in order to avoid confusion of pronominal reference.
34. And his provision was a perpetual provision . . . day after day. This verse is also the last verse of the Book of Kings. Its editorial inclusion here is an attempt to mitigate the national catastrophe that Jeremiah has repeatedly predicted and that is reported in this chapter. The concluding image intimates a hopeful possibility of future restoration: a Davidic king is recognized as king, even in captivity, and is given a daily provision appropriate to his royal status. As he sits on his throne elevated above the thrones of the other captive kings, the audience of the story is invited to imagine a scion of David again sitting on his throne in Jerusalem.