Jeremiah 52:9-11

52:9 They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah ¹  in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there. 52:10 The king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. He also had all the nobles of Judah put to death there at Riblah. 52:11 He had Zedekiah’s eyes put out and had him bound in chains. ²  Then the king of Babylon had him led off to Babylon and he was imprisoned there until the day he died.

Jeremiah 52:31-34

Jehoiachin in Exile

52:31 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth ³  day of the twelfth month, ⁴  Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ⁵  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison. 52:32 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than ⁶  the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 52:33 Jehoiachin ⁷  took off his prison clothes and ate daily in the king’s presence for the rest of his life. 52:34 He was given daily provisions by the king of Babylon for the rest of his life until the day he died.

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¹ sn Riblah was a strategic town on the Orontes River in Syria. It was at a crossing of the major roads between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pharaoh Necho had earlier received Jehoahaz there and put him in chains (2 Kgs 23:33) prior to taking him captive to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had set up his base camp for conducting his campaigns against the Palestinian states there and was now sitting in judgment on prisoners brought to him.

² tn Heb “fetters of bronze.” The more generic “chains” is used in the translation because “fetters” is a word unfamiliar to most modern readers.

³ sn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:28 has “twenty-seventh.”

⁴ sn The twenty-fifth day would be March 20, 561 b.c. in modern reckoning.

⁵ tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”

⁶ tn Heb “made his throne above the throne of

⁷ tn The subject is unstated in the Hebrew text, but Jehoiachin is clearly the subject of the following verb.