2 Kings 25:27-30

Jehoiachin in Babylon

25:27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh ¹  day of the twelfth month, ²  King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him ⁴  from prison. 25:28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than ⁵  the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 25:29 Jehoiachin ⁶  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. ⁷ 

[25:27]  ¹ sn The parallel account in Jer 52:31 has “twenty-fifth.”

[25:27]  ² sn The twenty-seventh day would be March 22, 561 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[25:27]  ³ tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”

[25:27]  ⁴ tn The words “released him” are supplied in the translation on the basis of Jer 52:31.

[25:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “made his throne above the throne of.”

[25:29]  ⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoiachin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:30]  ⁷ 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.