2 Kings 25

2 Kings 25:1-7

In this chapter we have, 1. The utter defecation of Jerusalem by the Chaldrana, ver. 1—4, 8—10. 2. The king made a most miserable prisoner, and the seed repel destroyed, ver. 5—7. 3. The principal gifts to put to death, 18—21. 4. The journal vessels that remained are carried away to Babylon, ver. 13—17. 5. The defecation of them that were left under Gedekiah, ver. 22—26. 6. The kindness which was shown to Jehoiachin the captive king of Judah, ver. 27—30.

Robert Chall 1890.

1. AND it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his holy, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and they built forts against it round about. 2. And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. 3. And on the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. 4. ¶ And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night, by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden, (now the Chalders were against the city round about) and the king went the way toward the plain. 5. And the army of the Chalders pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him. 6. So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon, to Ribiab, and they gave judgment upon him. 7. And they flew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brah, and carried him to Babylon.

Zedekiah soon felt what an unequal match he was for the king he had by rebellion provoked; for how could he hope to refill, who had not only the powers of earth, but the arm of God against him?

1. Jerusalem is besieged, and, after suffering the greatest extremities of human, Read. v. 10. Jer. 16. 6. taken by Slaton. How terrible is war! What thanks do we owe for peace in our borders!

2. The king is taken prisoner as he attempted to escape, forsaken of his guards, and brought back with shame to the camp of the Chaldrana, to behold those miseries, which, had he followed Jeremiah’s advice, chap. xxxviii. 17. he might have escaped. He is condemned to suffer the reward of his deeds; first, to behold the tormenting fight of his sons all murdered before his eyes, and then for ever to close them upon this mournful scene, as left in misery to cominace on the cause; whiff, languishing in fetters of iron, he passed his wretched days, a miserable spectacle, and monument of the wages of sin. Note, (1.) They who reside God’s counsel to escape, will find the vanity of their own contrivances. (2.) The impenitent sinner’s doom is to be bound in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

3. Cf. 1a.

4. ¶ And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon) came Nebuzar-adan captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: 9. And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man’s house burnt he with fire. 10. And all the army of the Chalders that were with the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about. 11. Now the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard carry away. 12. But the captain of the guard left the poor of the land, to be vine-dressers, and hushandmen. 13. And the pillars of brah that were in the house of the LORD, and the

5 R bases, Before I said 150. Heb. Laws, p. 16. and have lives. v. Chion.