Discovery Box2 Kings 25:6-8 
Context25:6 They captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, 1 where he 2 passed sentence on him. 25:7 Zedekiah’s sons were executed while Zedekiah was forced to watch. 3 The king of Babylon 4 then had Zedekiah’s eyes put out, bound him in bronze chains, and carried him off to Babylon.
25:8 On the seventh 5 day of the fifth month, 6 in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard 7 who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem. 8
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 The Hebrew text has the plural form of the verb, but the parallel passage in Jer 52:9 has the singular.
3 tn Heb “were killed before his eyes.”
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king of Babylon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn The parallel account in Jer 52:12 has “tenth.”
6 sn The seventh day of the month would have been August 14, 586
7 tn For the meaning of this phrase see BDB 371 s.v. טַבָּח 2, and compare the usage in Gen 39:1.
8 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
