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 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ²  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ³  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ⁴  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ⁵ 

2 Raja-raja 25:25

25:25 But in the seventh month ⁶  Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, ⁷  came with ten of his men and murdered Gedaliah, ⁸  as well as the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah.

[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.”

[25:4]  ² tn Heb “the city was breached.”

[25:4]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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.

[25:25]  ⁶ sn It is not altogether clear whether this is in the same year that Jerusalem fell or not. The wall was breached in the fourth month (= early July; Jer 39:2) and Nebuzaradan came and burned the palace, the temple, and many of the houses and tore down the wall in the fifth month (= early August; Jer 52:12). That would have left time between the fifth month and the seventh month (October) to gather in the harvest of grapes, dates and figs, and olives (Jer 40:12). However, many commentators feel that too much activity takes place in too short a time for this to have been in the same year and posit that it happened the following year or even five years later when a further deportation took place, possibly in retaliation for the murder of Gedaliah and the Babylonian garrison at Mizpah (Jer 52:30). The assassination of Gedaliah had momentous consequences and was commemorated in one of the post exilic fast days lamenting the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 8:19).

[25:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “[was] from the seed of the kingdom.”

[25:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “and they struck down Gedaliah and he died.”