2 Kings 25:7

25:7 Zedekiah’s sons were executed while Zedekiah was forced to watch. ¹  The king of Babylon ²  then had Zedekiah’s eyes put out, bound him in bronze chains, and carried him off to Babylon.

2 Kings 25:18-21

25:18 The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest and Zephaniah, the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers. 25:19 From the city he took a eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, five ³  of the king’s advisers ⁴  who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens ⁵  for military service, and sixty citizens from the people of the land who were discovered in the city. 25:20 Nebuzaradan, captain of the royal guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 25:21 The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed ⁶  at Riblah in the territory ⁷  of Hamath. So Judah was deported from its land.

2 Kings 25:25-26

25:25 But in the seventh month ⁸  Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, ⁹  came with ten of his men and murdered Gedaliah, ¹⁰  as well as the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah. 25:26 Then all the people, from the youngest to the oldest, as well as the army officers, left for ¹¹  Egypt, because they were afraid of what the Babylonians might do.

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¹ tn Heb “were killed before his eyes.”

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king of Babylon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn The parallel passage in Jer 52:25 has “seven.”

⁴ tn Heb “five seers of the king’s face.”

⁵ tn Heb “the people of the land.”

⁶ tn Heb “struck them down and killed them.”

⁷ tn Heb “land.”

⁸ sn It is not altogether clear whether this is in the same year that Jerusalem fell or not. The wall was breached in the fourth month (= early July; Jer 39:2) and Nebuzaradan came and burned the palace, the temple, and many of the houses and tore down the wall in the fifth month (= early August; Jer 52:12). That would have left time between the fifth month and the seventh month (October) to gather in the harvest of grapes, dates and figs, and olives (Jer 40:12). However, many commentators feel that too much activity takes place in too short a time for this to have been in the same year and posit that it happened the following year or even five years later when a further deportation took place, possibly in retaliation for the murder of Gedaliah and the Babylonian garrison at Mizpah (Jer 52:30). The assassination of Gedaliah had momentous consequences and was commemorated in one of the post exilic fast days lamenting the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 8:19).

⁹ tn Heb “[was] from the seed of the kingdom.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “and they struck down Gedaliah and he died.”

¹¹ tn Heb “arose and went to.”