This chapter has many similarities to 2 Kings 24:18-25:30 with the exception of 25:22-26, the story of Gedaliah's assassination (cf. chs. 40-41). This chapter forms a fitting conclusion to the book since it records the fulfillment of many of Jeremiah's prophecies of Jerusalem's destruction, the Exile, and the hope of restoration. Time proved Jeremiah right and the false prophets wrong.
Two unusual features mark this chapter. First, the material seems to have been borrowed from 2 Kings. A similar phenomenon appears in Isaiah 36-39 that retells the events recorded in 2 Kings 18-20 with little variation. Second, Jeremiah does not appear in this chapter. However, Jeremiah does not appear in several other chapters in this book (e.g., ch. 41). The main character in this book is not Jeremiah but God.
This is one of four accounts of the fall of Jerusalem in the Old Testament (cf. 2 Kings 25; 2 Chron. 36:11-21; Jer. 39:1-14). The repetition underlines the importance of the event.
52:1 Zedekiah (Mattaniah, 2 Kings 24:17) was the last king of the Davidic dynasty to rule over Judah from Jerusalem. He was 21 years old when he began reigning in 597 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar selected him to rule after his nephew Jehoiachin proved unfaithful (2 Kings 24:17). Zedekiah ruled as Nebuchadnezzar's vassal for 11 years until the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. His mother, the queen mother, was Hamutal, the daughter of a certain Jeremiah of Libnah. The queen mother exercised considerable authority and enjoyed great prestige, which accounts for her mention here (cf. 13:18).
52:2 Zedekiah was one of Judah's evil kings in Yahweh's estimation like Jehoiakim (609-598 B.C.). Jehoiachin, Jehoiakim's immediate successor, was also a wicked king, but the writer probably did not mention Jehoiachin because he only ruled for three months (cf. 22:24-30).
52:3 The Lord brought hardships on Judah and Jerusalem during Jehoiakim's evil reign because of Judah's iniquity until He sent the king out of His presence into Babylon (cf. 2 Chron. 36:3). To compound Judah's troubles further, Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar sometime before 588 B.C., the ninth year of his reign (2 Kings 24:29). Because God wanted Zedekiah to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah's rebellion was more significantly against Yahweh.
52:4-5 Consequently, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem with his army in 588 B.C. (32:24; 39:1; 2 Kings 25:1-7; Ezek. 24:1). The siege lasted until 586 B.C.
52:6 The people in Jerusalem ran out of food on the ninth day of the fourth month of 586 B.C. (38:9; 39:2; 2 Kings 25:3).
52:7 Shortly after that the Chaldeans broke into Jerusalem (39:2). The soldiers tried to flee by night by way of a concealed gate near the king's garden. They headed east for the Arabah (39:4-7).
52:8 However, the Chaldeans caught up with Zedekiah and his soldiers in the plains of Jericho, and the soldiers abandoned their king either deliberately or out of necessity (21:7; 32:4; 34:21; 37:17; 38:23; Lam. 4:19-20).
52:9 The Chaldeans took Zedekiah captive to Riblah, north of Damascus, where Nebuchadnezzar sentenced him (39:5-7; 2 Kings 25:5-7).
52:10-11 Nebuchadnezzar executed Zedekiah's sons as he watched as well as Zedekiah's officials who were present (cf. 39:6; 41:1). He then blinded Zedekiah, bound him with bronze shackles, and brought him to Babylon where Zedekiah spent the rest of his life in prison.
52:12-14 In 586 B.C. Nebuzaradan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar's bodyguard, came to Jerusalem and burned down the temple, the royal palace, and every sizable building.622The soldiers with Nebuzaradan also broke down the wall of the city to make it indefensible (cf. 1:10; 18:7; 31:28).
"The people of Judah had been guilty of the unthinkable, rebellion against their Babylonian suzerain, and thus suffered the consequences of their foolishness."623
52:15-16 Nebuzaradan then took some of the poorest Judahites, the rest of the residents of Jerusalem, the deserters who had defected to the Babylonians, and the remaining craftsmen captive to Babylon. However, he left some of the poorest Judahites in the land to take care of the vineyards and fields.
This section reprises the destruction of the temple just described. Before the Babylonians burned the temple, they looted it. This was the second time they had done this, the first being in 597 B.C. (27:16; 2 Kings 24:13; cf. Jer. 27:19-22).
52:17-18 The Chaldeans broke up and took to Babylon the bronze pillars at the entrance to the temple (1 Kings 7:15-22), the wheeled stands for the priests to wash their tools in (1 Kings 7:27-36), the sea (reservoir) for the water in the courtyard with which the priest washed themselves (1 Kings 7:23-26; 2 Chron. 4:6), and the utensils used in the temple service (1 Kings 7:40, 45). The sea was about 15 feet in diameter, seven and a half feet high, and three inches thick. The wheeled stands and their bowls carried about 104 gallons of water each. Thus the amount of bronze in these items was considerable.
52:19 Nebuzaradan also took to Babylon the gold and silver utensils that remained in the temple (1 Kings 7:49-50).
Jeremiah had predicted that the Babylonians would take the remaining furnishings in the temple to Babylon (27:19-22), but the false prophet Hananiah had promised that the furnishings already taken would be returned (28:3). Jeremiah was right.
52:20-23 The bronze articles, including the twelve bulls that formed a base for the sea, were so heavy their weight was beyond calculating. The hollow pillars were 27 feet high, 12 feet in circumference, and about three inches thick. The capitals on top of each pillar were an additional seven and a half feet tall, and each capital had 200 bronze pomegranates (symbols of fertility) carved on it in two rows (1 Kings 7:20, 42).624
The number of exiles who went into captivity was important because it was with this group that the future of Israel lay. Their deportation also validated many of Jeremiah's prophecies that the people would go into captivity in Babylon.
52:24 Nebuzaradan took captive Seraiah, the chief priest, Zephaniah (29:24-32; 37:3), the priest who was second in authority, and three other temple officials. Seraiah's grandfather, Hilkiah, was King Josiah's chief priest (1 Chron. 6:13-15). Seraiah's son was Ezra the reformer (Ezra 7:1). Seraiah's grandson, Joshua, by another son, Jehozadak, was the chief priest after the Exile when the returned Israelites rebuilt the temple (Ezra 5:2; Hag. 1:1).
"The other priest name here, Zephaniah, seems by his high position to have been the one who had passed on a threat of the stocks and collar' to Jeremiah over this very question of the temple vessels a few years earlier [cf. 29:24-29]. On two subsequent occasions he had been part of a deputation from the king to consult the prophet over the siege of Jerusalem [21:1-2; 37:3-5]. But Jeremiah's call to surrender had seemed too radical, and now the city's leaders had to pay the price that Babylon put on their refusal."625
52:25 Nebuzaradan also took the minister of defense, seven of Zedekiah's advisors who had not escaped, another high-ranking army officer, and 60 other men in the city who were evidently important political prisoners.
52:26-27 Nebuzaradan took all these prisoners to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, and the king executed them there. This completed the deportation of the Judahites from their land.
52:28 Nebuchadnezzar carried three groups of Judahites into captivity. In 597 B.C. he deported 3,023 Jews. This number may be only the adult males, or only the adult males from Jerusalem, since in 2 Kings 14 and 16 the number taken is 10, 800.
52:29 Then in 586 B.C. he took an additional 832 Jews to Babylon. Again, adult males are probably in view.
52:30 The third group of 745 people (adult males) went to Babylon under Nebuzaradan's authority in 581 B.C.626This may have happened as the result of a punitive raid conducted after the assassination of Gedaliah. The total number of exiles counted here was 4,600 persons. This was a very small number of people.
"Perhaps the editor wanted to make the point that Yahweh could build a new future out of a mere handful of people."627
This section is an almost verbatim repetition of 2 Kings 25:27-30. It closes the book on a note of hope.
52:31 In 562 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar's son Evilmerodach (Awel-Marduk, lit. man of Marduk; 562-560 B.C.), who succeeded his father on the throne, favored King Jehoiachin. Jehoiachin had been in prison in Babylon since 597 B.C. Evilmerodach favored Jehoiachin by bringing him out of prison. Evilmerodach may have done this in his accession year since a new king often granted favors when he assumed his throne.
52:32 Evilmerodach was kind to Jehoiachin and gave him a special position among the other kings that the Babylonians had imprisoned. Evilmerodach regarded Jehoiachin as Judah's king.628Evidently many of the Judean exiles did as well (cf. 22:24-30).
52:33-34 Jehoiachin left prison. He even took his meals with Evilmerodach and received a daily allowance for the rest of his life, probably to support his family. His personal experience was a foreview of the national experience of the Israelites.
"There is considerable theological significance in these four verses. The fact that Jehoiachin lived on long after the exile and that he was finally released from prison may have seemed like the first signs of the fulfilment [sic] of Jeremiah's promise of a day of restoration. To the last, the future of Israel is seen as lying with the exiles in Babylon and not with those in Egypt or in their old homeland."629
However, Jeremiah had prophesied that none of Jehoiachin's sons would rule over Judah (22:24-30). So while Evilmerodach's treatment of Jehoiachin was encouraging, the future would require a supernatural act of God to perpetuate the Davidic dynasty and produce Messiah.
"In its present context the chapter seems to say: the divine word both has been fulfilled--and will be fulfilled!"630
