2 Kings 25:1-4

25:1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside¹ 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 month³ the famine in the city was so severe the residents⁴ had no food. 25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls,⁵ and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night.⁶ They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden.⁷ (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley.⁸

¹tn Or “against.”

²sn 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).

³tn 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.

⁴tn Heb “the people of the land.”

⁵tn Heb “the city was breached.”

⁶tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

⁷sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

⁸sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.