The Fall of Jerusalem Recorded
1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign. He reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2 He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. 3 For through Yahweh’s anger this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4 In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about. 5 So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6 In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. 7 Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden. Now the Chaldeans were against the city all around. The men of war went toward the Arabah, 8 but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. 9 Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgment on him. 10 The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. He also killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah. 11 He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death. 12 Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem. 13 He burned Yahweh’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire. 14 All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around. 15 Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude. 16 But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poorest of the land to be vineyard keepers and farmers. 17 The Chaldeans broke the pillars of bronze that were in Yahweh’s house and the bases and the bronze sea that were in Yahweh’s house in pieces, and carried all of their bronze to Babylon. 18 They also took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered. 19 The captain of the guard took away the cups, the fire pans, the basins, the pots, the lamp stands, the spoons, and the bowls; that which was of gold, as gold, and that which was of silver, as silver. 20 They took the two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which King Solomon had made for Yahweh’s house. The bronze of all these vessels was without weight. 21 As for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits encircled it; and its thickness was four fingers. It was hollow. 22 A capital of bronze was on it; and the height of the one capital was five cubits, with network and pomegranates on the capital all around, all of bronze. The second pillar also had the same, with pomegranates. 23 There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides; all the pomegranates were one hundred on the network all around. 24 The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold, 25 and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and seven men of those who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the middle of the city. 26 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah. 27 The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land. 28 This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year, three thousand twenty-three Jews; 29 in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two persons; 30 in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty-five people. All the people numbered four thousand six hundred. 31 In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and released him from prison. 32 He spoke kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon, 33 and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life. 34 For his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life.
An appendix in another hand reports what happened, counts the temple bronze and the deported, and ends with a Davidic king out of prison and eating at a table.
The chapter is set apart by the line before it, which ended the words of Jeremiah. It does what the prophet could not do for himself. It verifies him. A man's claim that a city will fall carries more weight when the account of the fall is written by somebody else, and this chapter runs closely parallel to the record in Kings 2 Kings 25:1–21. Its function is documentary, and its tone matches: dates, measurements, inventories, numbers.
The siege is given by the calendar. The tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year; the ninth day of the fourth month in the eleventh. Between them stands one sentence about what filled the eighteen months: the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. Then the flight through the garden gate, the capture in the plains of Jericho, the sons killed at Riblah before their father's eyes, the blinding, the fetters, and a king in a Babylonian prison until the day of his death.
What follows is an unusual kind of grief. The bronze is itemized: pillars, bases, the sea, the pots and shovels and snuffers and basins. Then the pillars are measured. Eighteen cubits high, a twelve-cubit line around, four fingers thick, hollow. A capital of five cubits, network and pomegranates, ninety-six on the sides and a hundred in all. Somebody stood and counted the pomegranates on a temple pillar, and wrote the number down, for a building that no longer existed. It is an inventory of a loss, and it is the most affecting passage in the chapter precisely because it is only a list.
The deportation figures are the other surprise, and they are strikingly small: 3,023 in one year, 832 in another, 745 in a third, all the people numbered four thousand six hundred. The oracles spoke of a full end, a desolation, no inhabitant. The appendix gives an accountant's total that would fill a large village. Both are true. The nation ended, the ending is measurable, and the chapter declines to inflate it.
And then the last four verses, which have no business being in a book about ruin. In the thirty-seventh year of his captivity, Jehoiachin is brought out of prison by a new king of Babylon. He is spoken to kindly and given a seat above the other captive kings. His prison clothes are changed. He eats bread before the king continually all the days of his life, with a daily allowance until his death. He is not restored to a throne, and no promise is attached to him. A descendant of David is simply alive, out of the dark, wearing different clothes, and eating at a table. The book began with a boy told that he was appointed before he was born. It ends with an old man being given supper. That is the smallest possible sign that the line was not extinguished, and it is offered without a word of interpretation, which is the honest way to offer it.
settled What this mark means