2 Kings 25:26-30

25:26 Then all the people, from the youngest to the oldest, as well as the army officers, left for ¹  Egypt, because they were afraid of what the Babylonians might do.

Jehoiachin in Babylon

25:27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh ²  day of the twelfth month, ³  King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ⁴  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him ⁵  from prison. 25:28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than ⁶  the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 25:29 Jehoiachin ⁷  took off his prison clothes and ate daily in the king’s presence for the rest of his life. 25:30 He was given daily provisions by the king for the rest of his life until the day he died. ⁸ 

[25:26]  ¹ tn Heb “arose and went to.”

[25:27]  ² sn The parallel account in Jer 52:31 has “twenty-fifth.”

[25:27]  ³ sn The twenty-seventh day would be March 22, 561 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[25:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”

[25:27]  ⁵ tn The words “released him” are supplied in the translation on the basis of Jer 52:31.

[25:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “made his throne above the throne of.”

[25:29]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoiachin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:30]  ⁸ tc The words “until the day he died” do not appear in the MT, but they are included in the parallel passage in Jer 52:34. Probably they have been accidentally omitted by homoioteleuton. A scribe’s eye jumped from the final vav (ו) on בְּיוֹמוֹ (bÿyomo), “in his day,” to the final vav (ו) on מוֹתוֹ (moto), “his death,” leaving out the intervening words.