52:4 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside it. 1 They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah. 2 52:5 The city remained under siege until Zedekiah’s eleventh year.
52:6 By the ninth day of the fourth month 3 the famine in the city was so severe the residents 4 had no food.
1 tn Or “against.”
2 sn This would have been January 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).
3 sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.