2 Raja-raja 24:2

24:2 The Lord sent against him Babylonian, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite raiding bands; he sent them to destroy Judah, as he had warned he would do through his servants the prophets. ¹ 

2 Raja-raja 24:10-12

24:10 At that time the generals ²  of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched to Jerusalem and besieged the city. ³  24:11 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city while his generals were besieging it. 24:12 King Jehoiachin of Judah, along with his mother, his servants, his officials, and his eunuchs surrendered ⁴  to the king of Babylon. The king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign, ⁵  took Jehoiachin ⁶  prisoner.

2 Raja-raja 25:1-4

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  25:2 The city remained under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. 25:3 By the ninth day of the fourth month ⁹  the famine in the city was so severe the residents ¹⁰  had no food. 25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ¹¹  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ¹²  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ¹³  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ¹⁴ 

[24:2]  ¹ tn Heb “he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by the hand of his servants the prophets.”

[24:10]  ² tn Heb “servants.”

[24:10]  ³ tn Heb “went up [to] Jerusalem and the city entered into siege.”

[24:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “came out.”

[24:12]  ⁵ sn That is, the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, 597 b.c.

[24:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Jehoiachin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[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).

[25:3]  ⁹ tn The MT has simply “of the month,” but the parallel passage in Jer 52:6 has “fourth month,” and this is followed by almost all English translations. The word “fourth,” however, is not actually present in the MT of 2 Kgs 25:3.

[25:3]  sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

[25:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the people of the land.”

[25:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

[25:4]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text is abrupt here: “And all the men of war by the night.” The translation attempts to capture the sense.

[25:4]  ¹³ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

[25:4]  ¹⁴ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from Jer 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.