Captive Judah Before the King of BabylonBibleWorld
25:22 Kings 25:2
And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
The verse stands in the third great division of the history of the kings, the history of the remaining kingdom of Judah after the ten tribes were swept away, covering 2 Kings 18-25 within the whole span from the accession of Solomon to the Babylonian captivity. The two books of Kings form one whole and are counted as one book in the Hebrew canon, the division into two having been introduced in the old versions which reckoned Samuel and Kings as a continuous series called the four books of the Kingdoms or Kings, a title retained in the Authorized Version. The name Kings is fitting because the books relate the history of the kings.
It belongs to the close of the history of the kingdom of Judah and the record of its final fall, when Babylon took the people captive, overthrew the kingdom, and scattered them. It records the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the rebellion of Zedekiah leading to the final capture of the Jewish nation, with the laying waste of the city, the despoiling of the temple, the slaying of the captives at Riblah, the capture of Zedekiah the last king, and the carrying into captivity of many. Afterward a little company was left in the land under Gedaliah as governor, who was slain through treachery, and the remnant went to Egypt contrary to Jeremiah's counsel, and the account ends with the kind treatment shown to Jehoiachin by the king of Babylon.
The siege began in Zedekiah's ninth year after eight years as Nebuchadnezzar's vassal, when Zedekiah revolted and sent ambassadors to Pharaoh Uaphris in Egypt for foot soldiers and horsemen to win independence for Judah between Babylon and Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar came in person with all his hosts against Jerusalem, overcame and pillaged the open country, and built forts and besieged the city. When Uaphris marched out of Egypt to relieve his ally, the Babylonian army raised the siege to go after the Egyptians, who were defeated or retreated without relieving Jerusalem, and the siege was then renewed as a complete blockade until the city fell in Zedekiah's eleventh year, about a year and a half after the second investment.
The Babylonian army kept Jerusalem under siege until the eleventh year of Zedekiah, when on the ninth day of the fourth month famine prevailed in the city and there was no bread for the people of the land. Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the gate between the two walls by the king's garden while the Chaldeans were around the city, and the king went toward the plain but his army scattered from him and the Chaldeans overtook him in the plains of Jericho. They took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah where judgment was given upon him, slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, put out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon where he died in captivity. This marks the close of independent government in Judah, after which whatever self-rule Judah had was only as a province subservient to the great world kingdoms, with the diadem removed and the crown taken off to be no more until he come whose right it is.
The siege and fall of Jerusalem marks the destruction and captivity of the Israelite state under Nebuchadnezzar, and its setting illustrates the judgment that followed Israel's adoption of slavery and disobedience to laws meant to protect servants' freedom and affirm equality. The siege unto the eleventh year of Zedekiah as part of the Babylonian captivity and final destruction of Jerusalem is typical of events to transpire either under the gospel or at the close of this dispensation. What applied primarily and typically to the Jews was molded to also represent events under the gospel, so those living in the Christian dispensation have a special interest in it and can improve on what emphatically applies in this age.
The verse stands in the third great division of the history of the kings, the history of the remaining kingdom of Judah after the ten tribes were swept away, covering 2 Kings 18-25 within the whole span from the accession of Solomon to the Babylonian captivity. The two books of Kings form one whole and are counted as one book in the Hebrew canon, the division into two having been introduced in the old versions which reckoned Samuel and Kings as a continuous series called the four books of the Kingdoms or Kings, a title retained in the Authorized Version. The name Kings is fitting because the books relate the history of the kings.
It belongs to the close of the history of the kingdom of Judah and the record of its final fall, when Babylon took the people captive, overthrew the kingdom, and scattered them. It records the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the rebellion of Zedekiah leading to the final capture of the Jewish nation, with the laying waste of the city, the despoiling of the temple, the slaying of the captives at Riblah, the capture of Zedekiah the last king, and the carrying into captivity of many. Afterward a little company was left in the land under Gedaliah as governor, who was slain through treachery, and the remnant went to Egypt contrary to Jeremiah's counsel, and the account ends with the kind treatment shown to Jehoiachin by the king of Babylon.
The siege began in Zedekiah's ninth year after eight years as Nebuchadnezzar's vassal, when Zedekiah revolted and sent ambassadors to Pharaoh Uaphris in Egypt for foot soldiers and horsemen to win independence for Judah between Babylon and Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar came in person with all his hosts against Jerusalem, overcame and pillaged the open country, and built forts and besieged the city. When Uaphris marched out of Egypt to relieve his ally, the Babylonian army raised the siege to go after the Egyptians, who were defeated or retreated without relieving Jerusalem, and the siege was then renewed as a complete blockade until the city fell in Zedekiah's eleventh year, about a year and a half after the second investment.
The Babylonian army kept Jerusalem under siege until the eleventh year of Zedekiah, when on the ninth day of the fourth month famine prevailed in the city and there was no bread for the people of the land. Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the gate between the two walls by the king's garden while the Chaldeans were around the city, and the king went toward the plain but his army scattered from him and the Chaldeans overtook him in the plains of Jericho. They took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah where judgment was given upon him, slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, put out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon where he died in captivity. This marks the close of independent government in Judah, after which whatever self-rule Judah had was only as a province subservient to the great world kingdoms, with the diadem removed and the crown taken off to be no more until he come whose right it is.
The siege and fall of Jerusalem marks the destruction and captivity of the Israelite state under Nebuchadnezzar, and its setting illustrates the judgment that followed Israel's adoption of slavery and disobedience to laws meant to protect servants' freedom and affirm equality. The siege unto the eleventh year of Zedekiah as part of the Babylonian captivity and final destruction of Jerusalem is typical of events to transpire either under the gospel or at the close of this dispensation. What applied primarily and typically to the Jews was molded to also represent events under the gospel, so those living in the Christian dispensation have a special interest in it and can improve on what emphatically applies in this age.