41:1 But in the seventh month 1 Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama who was a member of the royal family and had been one of Zedekiah’s chief officers, came with ten of his men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah. While they were eating a meal together with him there at Mizpah,
52:31 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth 2 day of the twelfth month, 3 Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned 4 King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.
1 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; 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; 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 (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 (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).
2 sn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:28 has “twenty-seventh.”
3 sn The twenty-fifth day would be March 20, 561
4 tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”