2 Raja-raja 25:25-30

25:25 But in the seventh month ¹  Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, who was a member of the royal family, ²  came with ten of his men and murdered Gedaliah, ³  as well as the Judeans and Babylonians who were with him at Mizpah. 25:26 Then all the people, from the youngest to the oldest, as well as the army officers, left for ⁴  Egypt, because they were afraid of what the Babylonians might do.

Jehoiachin in Babylon

25:27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh ⁵  day of the twelfth month, ⁶  King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ⁷  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him ⁸  from prison. 25:28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than ⁹  the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 25:29 Jehoiachin ¹⁰  took off his prison clothes and ate daily in the king’s presence for the rest of his life. 25:30 He was given daily provisions by the king for the rest of his life until the day he died. ¹¹ 

[25:25]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “[was] from the seed of the kingdom.”

[25:25]  ³ tn Heb “and they struck down Gedaliah and he died.”

[25:26]  ⁴ tn Heb “arose and went to.”

[25:27]  ⁵ sn The parallel account in Jer 52:31 has “twenty-fifth.”

[25:27]  ⁶ sn The twenty-seventh day would be March 22, 561 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[25:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”

[25:27]  ⁸ tn The words “released him” are supplied in the translation on the basis of Jer 52:31.

[25:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “made his throne above the throne of.”

[25:29]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jehoiachin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:30]  ¹¹ tc The words “until the day he died” do not appear in the MT, but they are included in the parallel passage in Jer 52:34. Probably they have been accidentally omitted by homoioteleuton. A scribe’s eye jumped from the final vav (ו) on בְּיוֹמוֹ (bÿyomo), “in his day,” to the final vav (ו) on מוֹתוֹ (moto), “his death,” leaving out the intervening words.