Jeremiah 5:10

5:10 The Lord commanded the enemy, ¹ 

“March through the vineyards of Israel and Judah and ruin them. ² 

But do not destroy them completely.

Strip off their branches

for these people do not belong to the Lord. ³ 

Jeremiah 39:2-3

39:2 It lasted until the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year. ⁴  On that day they broke through the city walls. 39:3 Then Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekim, who was a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer, who was a high official, ⁵  and all the other officers of the king of Babylon came and set up quarters ⁶  in the Middle Gate. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 52:6-11

52:6 By the ninth day of the fourth month ⁸  the famine in the city was so severe the residents ⁹  had no food. 52:7 They broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ¹⁰  (The Babylonians had the city surrounded.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ¹¹  52:8 But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, ¹²  and his entire army deserted him. 52:9 They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah ¹³  in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there. 52:10 The king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. He also had all the nobles of Judah put to death there at Riblah. 52:11 He had Zedekiah’s eyes put out and had him bound in chains. ¹⁴  Then the king of Babylon had him led off to Babylon and he was imprisoned there until the day he died.

Ezekiel 33:21

The Fall of Jerusalem

33:21 In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, ¹⁵  a refugee came to me from Jerusalem ¹⁶  saying, “The city has been defeated!” ¹⁷ 

¹ tn These words to not appear in the Hebrew text but have been added in the translation for the sake of clarity to identify the implied addressee.

² tn Heb “through her vine rows and destroy.” No object is given but “vines” must be implicit. The word for “vineyards” (or “vine rows”) is a hapax legomenon and its derivation is debated. BDB 1004 s.v. שּׁוּרָה repoints שָׁרוֹתֶיהָ (sharoteha) to שֻׁרוֹתֶיהָ (shuroteha) and relates it to a Mishnaic Hebrew and Palestinian Aramaic word meaning “row.” HALOT 1348 s.v. שּׁוּרָה also repoints to שֻׁרוֹתֶיהָ and relates it to a noun meaning “wall,” preferring to see the reference here to the walled terraces on which the vineyards were planted. The difference in meaning is minimal.

³ tn Heb “for they do not belong to the Lord.” In the light of the context and Jeremiah’s identification of Israel as a vine (cf., e.g., 2:21) and a vineyard (cf., e.g., 12:10), it is likely that this verse has a totally metaphorical significance. The enemy is to go through the vineyard that is Israel and Judah and destroy all those who have been unfaithful to the Lord. It is not impossible, however, that the verse has a double meaning, a literal one and a figurative one: the enemy is not only to destroy Israel and Judah’s vines but to destroy Israel and Judah, lopping off the wicked Israelites who, because of their covenant unfaithfulness, the Lord has disowned. If the verse is totally metaphorical one might translate: “Pass through my vineyard, Israel and Judah, wreaking destruction. But do not destroy all of the people. Cut down like branches those unfaithful people because they no longer belong to the Lord.”

⁴ sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

⁵ tn English versions and commentaries differ on the number of officials named here and the exact spelling of their names. For a good discussion of the options see F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations (NAC), 341, n. 71. Most commentaries follow the general lead of J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 243) as the present translation has done here. However, the second name is not emended on the basis of v. 13 as Bright does, nor is the second Nergal-Sharezer regarded as the same man as the first and the information on the two combined as he does. The first Nergal-Sharezer is generally identified on the basis of Babylonian records as the man who usurped the throne from Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Awel-Marduk or Evil-Merodach as he is known in the OT (Jer 52:31; 2 Kgs 25:27). The present translation renders the two technical Babylonian terms “Rab-Saris” (only in Jer 39:3, 13; 2 Kgs 18:17) and “Rab-Mag” (only in Jer 39:3, 13) as “chief officer” and “high official” without knowing precisely what offices they held. This has been done to give the modern reader some feeling of their high position without specifying exactly what their precise positions were (i.e., the generic has been used for the [unknown] specific).

⁶ tn Heb “sat.” The precise meaning of this phrase is not altogether clear, but J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 243) is undoubtedly correct in assuming that it had to do with setting up a provisional military government over the city.

⁷ tn The Hebrew style here is typically full or redundant, giving a general subject first and then listing the specifics. The Hebrew text reads: “Then all the officers of the king of Babylon came and sat in the Middle Gate, Nergal-Sharezer…and all the rest of the officers of the king of Babylon.” In the translation the general subject has been eliminated and the list of the “real” subjects used instead; this eliminates the dashes or commas typical of some modern English versions.

⁸ sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

⁹ tn Heb “the people of the land.”

¹⁰ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

¹¹ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.

¹² map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.

¹³ sn Riblah was a strategic town on the Orontes River in Syria. It was at a crossing of the major roads between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pharaoh Necho had earlier received Jehoahaz there and put him in chains (2 Kgs 23:33) prior to taking him captive to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had set up his base camp for conducting his campaigns against the Palestinian states there and was now sitting in judgment on prisoners brought to him.

¹⁴ tn Heb “fetters of bronze.” The more generic “chains” is used in the translation because “fetters” is a word unfamiliar to most modern readers.

¹⁵ tn January 19, 585 b.c.

¹⁶ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁷ tn Heb “smitten.”