2 Kings 25:1-3
25:1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside 1 it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign. 2
25:2 The city remained under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year.
25:3 By the ninth day of the fourth month 3 the famine in the city was so severe the residents 4 had no food.
1 tn Or “against.”
2 sn This would have been Jan 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).
3 tn The MT has simply “of the month,” but the parallel passage in Jer 52:6 has “fourth month,” and this is followed by almost all English translations. The word “fourth,” however, is not actually present in the MT of 2 Kgs 25:3.
sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.
4 tn Heb “the people of the land.”