Text -- 2 Kings 25:1-3 (NET)

25:1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign. 25:2 The city remained under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. 25:3 By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city was so severe the residents had no food.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: 2Ki 25:1

¹ tn Or “against.”

² sn This would have been Jan 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).

NET Notes: 2Ki 25:3

¹ tn The MT has simply “of the month,” but the parallel passage in Jer 52:6 has “fourth month,” and this is followed by almost all English translations. The word “fourth,” however, is not actually present in the MT of 2 Kgs 25:3.

sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

² tn Heb “the people of the land.”