2 Raja-raja 25:4

25:4 The enemy broke through the city walls, ¹  and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. ²  They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ³  (The Babylonians were all around the city.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ⁴ 

2 Raja-raja 25:10

25:10 The whole Babylonian army that came with the captain of the royal guard tore down the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.

Yeremia 39:1-2

39:1 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. The siege began in the tenth month of the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah. ⁵  39:2 It lasted until the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year. ⁶  On that day they broke through the city walls.

[25:4]  ¹ tn Heb “the city was breached.”

[25:4]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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.

[39:1]  ⁵ sn 2 Kgs 25:1 and Jer 52:4 give the more precise date of the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year which 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).

[39:2]  ⁶ sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.