52:24 The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers. 8 52:25 From the city he took an official who was in charge of the soldiers, seven of the king’s advisers who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens 9 for military service, and sixty citizens who were discovered in the middle of the city. 52:26 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 52:27 The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed 10 at Riblah in the territory of Hamath.
So Judah was taken into exile away from its land. 52:28 Here is the official record of the number of people 11 Nebuchadnezzar carried into exile: In the seventh year, 12 3,023 Jews; 52:29 in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 13 832 people from Jerusalem; 52:30 in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, 14 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, carried into exile 745 Judeans. In all 4,600 people went into exile.
52:31 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth 15 day of the twelfth month, 16 Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned 17 King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison. 52:32 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than 18 the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 52:33 Jehoiachin 19 took off his prison clothes and ate daily in the king’s presence for the rest of his life. 52:34 He was given daily provisions by the king of Babylon for the rest of his life until the day he died.
1 sn The censers held the embers used for the incense offerings.
2 sn These vessels were used for drink offerings.
3 tc The translation follows the LXX (Greek version), which reflects the description in 1 Kgs 7:25-26. The Hebrew text reads, “the twelve bronze bulls under the movable stands.” הַיָּם (hayyam, “The Sea”) has been accidentally omitted by homoioarcton; note that the following form, הַמְּכֹנוֹת (hammÿkhonot, “the movable stands”), also begins with the article.
4 tn Heb “eighteen cubits.” A “cubit” was a unit of measure, approximately equivalent to a foot and a half.
5 tn Heb “twelve cubits.” A “cubit” was a unit of measure, approximately equivalent to a foot and a half.
6 tn Heb “four fingers.”
7 tn Heb “five cubits.” A “cubit” was a unit of measure, approximately equivalent to a foot and a half.
8 sn See the note at Jer 35:4.
9 tn Heb “men, from the people of the land” (also later in this verse).
10 tn Heb “struck them down and killed them.”
11 tn Heb “these are the people.”
12 sn This would be 597
13 sn This would be 586
14 sn This would be 581
15 sn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:28 has “twenty-seventh.”
16 sn The twenty-fifth day would be March 20, 561
17 tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”
18 tn Heb “made his throne above the throne of
19 tn The subject is unstated in the Hebrew text, but Jehoiachin is clearly the subject of the following verb.