2 Raja-raja 24:18--25:1

Zedekiah’s Reign over Judah

24:18 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹  His mother ²  was Hamutal, ³  the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 24:19 He did evil in the sight of ⁴  the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done. ⁵ 

24:20 What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger; he finally threw them out of his presence. ⁶  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 25:1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside ⁷  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. ⁸ 

[24:18]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[24:18]  ² tn Heb “the name of his mother.”

[24:18]  ³ tc Some textual witnesses support the consonantal text (Kethib) in reading “Hamital.”

[24:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[24:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “according to all which Jehoiakim had done.”

[24:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “Surely [or, ‘for’] because of the anger of the Lord this happened in Jerusalem and Judah until he threw them out from upon his face.”

[25:1]  ⁷ tn Or “against.”

[25:1]  ⁸ sn 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).