Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Kings 25:8
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. The people carried away to Babel (cf. Jer 52:12-27, and Jer 39:8-10). \- In this section we have first a general account of the destruction of the temple and city ( Kg2 25:8-10), and of the carrying away of the people ( Kg2 25:11 and Kg2 25:12), and then a more particular description of what was done with the metal vessels of the temple ( Kg2 25:13-17), and how the spiritual and secular leaders of the people who had been taken prisoners were treated ( Kg2 25:18-21). Kg2 25:8-10 The destruction of Jerusalem, by the burning of the temple, of the king's palace, and of all the larger buildings, and by throwing down the walls, was effected by Nebuzaradan, the chief of the body-guard of Nebuchadnezzar, on the seventh day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Instead of the seventh day we have the tenth in Jer 52:12. This difference might be reconciled, as proposed by earlier commentators, on the assumption that the burning of the city lasted several days, commencing on the seventh and ending on the tenth. But since there are similar differences met with afterwards ( Kg2 25:17, Kg2 25:19) in the statement of numbers, which can only be accounted for from the substitution of similar numeral letters, we must assume that there is a change of this kind here. Which of the two dates is the correct one it is impossible to determine. The circumstance that the later Jews kept the ninth as a fast-day cannot be regarded as decisive evidence in favour of the date given in Jeremiah, as Thenius supposes; for in Zac 7:3 and Zac 8:19 the fasting of the fifth month is mentioned, but no day is given; and though in the Talmudic times the ninth day of the month began to be kept as a fast-day, this was not merely in remembrance of the Chaldaean destruction of Jerusalem, but of the Roman also, and of three other calamities which had befallen the nation (see the statement of the Gemara on this subject in Lightfoot, Opp. ii. p. 139, ed. Leusden, and in Khler on Zac 7:3), from which we see that the Gemarists in the most unhistorical manner grouped together different calamitous events in one single day. The nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar corresponds to the eleventh of Zedekiah (see at Kg2 24:12). Nebuzaradan is not mentioned in Jer 39:3 among the Chaldaean generals who forced their way into the city, so that he must have been ordered to Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar after the taking of the city and the condemnation of Zedekiah, to carry out the destruction of the city, the carrying away of the people, and the appointment of a deputy-governor over those who were left behind in the land. This explains in a very simple manner how a month could intervene between their forcing their way into the city, at all events into the lower city, and the burning of it to the ground, without there being any necessity to assume, with Thenius, that the city of Zion held out for a month, which is by no means probable, for the simple reason that the fighting men had fled with Zedekiah and had been scattered in their flight. רב־תבּחים = הטּבּחים שׂר in Gen 37:36; Gen 39:1, was with the Babylonians, as with the Egyptians, the chief of the king's body-guard, whose duty it was to execute the sentences of death (see at Gen 37:36). הטּבּחים answers to the הכּרתי of the Israelites ( Sa2 8:18, etc.). In Jer 52:12 we have מלך לפני עמד instead of מלך עבד, without the אשׁר, which is rarely omitted in prose, and בּירוּשׁלם…
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