Jeremiah 52:7-11

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. ¹  (The Babylonians had the city surrounded.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ²  52:8 But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, ³  and his entire army deserted him. 52:9 They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah ⁴  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. ⁵  Then the king of Babylon had him led off to Babylon and he was imprisoned there until the day he died.

Jeremiah 52:2

52:2 He did what displeased the Lord ⁶  just as Jehoiakim had done.

Jeremiah 32:5

32:5 Zedekiah will be carried off to Babylon and will remain there until I have fully dealt with him. ⁷  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁸  Even if you ⁹  continue to fight against the Babylonians, ¹⁰  you cannot win.’”

¹ 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.

² 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.

³ map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.

⁴ 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.

⁵ tn Heb “fetters of bronze.” The more generic “chains” is used in the translation because “fetters” is a word unfamiliar to most modern readers.

⁶ tn Heb “what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

⁷ tn This is the verb (פָּקַד, paqad) that has been met with several times in the book of Jeremiah, most often in the ominous sense of “punish” (e.g., 6:15; 11:22; 23:24) but also in the good sense of “resume concern for” (e.g., 27:22; 29:10). Here it is obviously in the ominous sense referring to his imprisonment and ultimate death (52:11).

⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

⁹ sn The pronouns are plural here, referring to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Jeremiah had counseled that they surrender (cf. 27:12; 21:8-10) because they couldn’t succeed against the Babylonian army even under the most favorable circumstances (37:3-10).

¹⁰ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.