Jeremiah 52: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This closing chapter of Jeremiah retells the fall of Jerusalem. Zedekiah rebels against Babylon, the city is besieged and starved, and he is captured, blinded, and imprisoned; the temple and the city are burned, the walls torn down, and the temple's bronze, gold, and silver objects hauled off to Babylon. Officials and priests are executed at Riblah, and the chapter lists the numbers of people carried away in three deportations. It ends years later, when King Evil-merodach of Babylon releases Jehoiachin from prison and gives him a place at his table and a daily food allowance for the rest of his life.

Claim by Claim

1. 52:1
   • Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign.
   • Zedekiah reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.
   • Zedekiah's mother was named Hamutal.
   • Hamutal was the daughter of Jeremiah.
   • Hamutal was from Libnah.
2. 52:2
   • Zedekiah did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD.
   • Zedekiah did evil according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
3. 52:3
   • What happened in Jerusalem and Judah came about because of the anger of the LORD.
   • The LORD's anger continued until he cast Jerusalem and Judah out from his presence.
   • Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
4. 52:4
   • In the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against Jerusalem.
   • Nebuchadnezzar came with all his army.
   • They encamped against Jerusalem.
   • They built siege works against Jerusalem all around.
5. 52:5
   • The city was under siege until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
6. 52:6
   • In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city.
   • There was no bread for the people of the land.
7. 52:7
   • The city was breached.
   • All the men of war fled.
   • They went out of the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden.
   • The Chaldeans were around the city.
   • They went by the way of the Arabah.
8. 52:8
   • The army of the Chaldeans pursued the king.
   • They overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho.
   • All of Zedekiah's army was scattered from him.
9. 52:9
   • They captured the king.
   • They brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath.
   • The king of Babylon pronounced sentence upon Zedekiah.
10. 52:10
    • The king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before Zedekiah's eyes.
    • The king of Babylon also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah.
11. 52:11
    • He blinded Zedekiah's eyes.
    • The king of Babylon bound Zedekiah with bronze fetters.
    • The king of Babylon brought Zedekiah to Babylon.
    • The king of Babylon put Zedekiah in prison until the day of his death.
12. 52:12
    • In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan came to Jerusalem.
    • Nebuzaradan was captain of the guard.
    • Nebuzaradan served the king of Babylon.
13. 52:13
    • He burned the house of the LORD.
    • He burned the king's house.
    • He burned all the houses of Jerusalem.
    • He burned every great house with fire.
14. 52:14
    • The whole army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem.
15. 52:15
    • Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest of the people.
    • He carried into exile the rest of the people who remained in the city.
    • He carried into exile the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon.
    • He carried into exile the rest of the multitude, which may mean the remaining craftsmen.
16. 52:16
    • Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left behind some of the poorest of the land.
    • Those left behind were left to be vinedressers and field workers.
17. 52:17
    • The Chaldeans broke up the bronze pillars that belonged to the house of the LORD.
    • The Chaldeans broke up the stands.
    • The Chaldeans broke up the bronze sea that was in the house of the LORD.
    • They carried all the bronze of these to Babylon.
18. 52:18
    • They took away the pots.
    • They took away the shovels.
    • They took away the wick trimmers.
    • They took away the sprinkling bowls.
    • They took away the dishes.
    • They took away all the bronze vessels used in the temple service.
19. 52:19
    • The captain of the guard took away the basins.
    • The captain of the guard took away the firepans.
    • The captain of the guard took away the sprinkling bowls.
    • The captain of the guard took away the pots.
    • The captain of the guard took away the lampstands.
    • The captain of the guard took away the pans.
    • The captain of the guard took away the cups.
    • He took what was of gold as gold and what was of silver as silver.
20. 52:20
    • There were two pillars.
    • There was one sea.
    • There were twelve bronze bulls under the stands.
    • King Solomon had made these for the house of the LORD.
    • The bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing.
21. 52:21
    • The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits.
    • A cord of twelve cubits went around the pillar.
    • The thickness of the pillar was four fingers.
    • The pillar was hollow.
22. 52:22
    • A capital of bronze was upon the pillar.
    • The height of one capital was five cubits.
    • There was a network with pomegranates on the capital all around.
    • The whole capital was of bronze.
    • The second pillar was the same, with pomegranates.
23. 52:23
    • There were ninety-six pomegranates on a side.
    • All the pomegranates on the network round about were one hundred.
24. 52:24
    • The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest.
    • The captain of the guard took Zephaniah the second priest.
    • The captain of the guard took the three keepers of the threshold.
25. 52:25
    • From the city he took one officer who was in charge of the men of war.
    • He took seven men who saw the king's face, who were found in the city.
    • He took the scribe of the commander of the army, who mustered the people of the land.
    • He took sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the midst of the city.
26. 52:26
    • Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them.
    • He brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.
27. 52:27
    • The king of Babylon struck them down.
    • The king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath.
    • Judah was carried away into exile out of its own land.
28. 52:28
    • This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile.
    • In the seventh year he carried away three thousand and twenty-three Jews.
29. 52:29
    • In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred thirty-two persons were carried away from Jerusalem.
30. 52:30
    • In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away seven hundred forty-five Jews.
    • The total number of persons was four thousand six hundred.
31. 52:31
    • In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah.
    • This was in the first year of Evil-merodach's reign.
    • Evil-merodach brought Jehoiachin out of prison.
32. 52:32
    • Evil-merodach spoke kindly to Jehoiachin.
    • Evil-merodach set Jehoiachin's throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon.
33. 52:33
    • Jehoiachin changed his prison garments.
    • Jehoiachin ate bread before the king continually all the days of his life.
34. 52:34
    • A continual allowance was given to Jehoiachin by the king of Babylon.
    • The allowance was a portion for each day.
    • The allowance continued until the day of Jehoiachin's death.
    • The allowance continued all the days of his life.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

52:1

This closing chapter is a historical appendix, not words of Jeremiah; it repeats almost word for word the account in 2 Kings 24:18–25:30. Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar after the previous king, Jehoiachin, was deported in 597 BC. The Jeremiah named here as Zedekiah's grandfather is a man of Libnah, a town in southern Judah, not the prophet whose book this is.

52:2

Jehoiakim ruled Judah from 609 to 598 BC. Comparing one king to another this way is the standard formula the books of Kings use to sum up a reign.

52:3

Zedekiah ruled as a vassal: Babylon had installed him and he had sworn loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar. To "rebel" was to break that oath and stop paying tribute, which under the conventions of the time invited a punitive invasion.

52:4

Nebuchadrezzar is an alternative spelling of Nebuchadnezzar, and is in fact closer to the Babylonian form of the name. The Hebrew year began in spring, so the tenth month falls in December–January; this dates the start of the siege to January 588 BC. "Siege works" were earth ramps and walls thrown up around a city to cut it off and to raise attackers level with its defenses.

52:5

An army surrounding a city like this is called a siege. Nobody could go in or out, and the attackers simply waited for the food inside to run out. This siege lasted about a year and a half.

52:6

The fourth month is June–July, so the city had been cut off for about eighteen months by this point.

52:7

"Chaldeans" was a name for the ruling people of southern Babylonia and is used throughout this chapter simply to mean the Babylonians. The Hebrew word rendered "Jordan Valley" is the Arabah, the deep rift valley running south from the Sea of Galilee through the Dead Sea, the escape route led east and downhill toward Jericho.

52:8

Jericho was a very old city near the Jordan River, east of Jerusalem.

52:9

Riblah, in the land of Hamath, lay far to the north in what is now Syria, roughly two hundred miles from Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar had made it his field headquarters for the whole campaign, which is why the captured king had to be "brought up" to him there.

52:10

Killing a rebel king's sons in front of him was not only cruelty; it wiped out the direct royal line, so no heir remained for a future revolt to rally around.

52:11

Blinding a defeated rebel was a recognized Babylonian and Assyrian punishment: it left the man alive as a public example but permanently unfit to rule or to lead an army.

52:12

The fifth month is July–August, dating the burning of the city to 586 BC, about a month after the walls were breached. The title behind "commander of the guard" is literally "chief of the slaughterers" or "chief butcher"; by this period it named a senior officer of the royal bodyguard, comparable to a general.

52:13

"The house of the LORD" is the temple in Jerusalem, built by Solomon some four centuries earlier; this is the building whose furnishings are itemised in verses 17–23.

52:14

Pulling down the walls was as decisive as the burning. An unwalled city could not defend itself, could not rebel again, and was no longer a city in the ancient sense at all.

52:15

"Those who had gone over to the side of the king of Babylon" are deserters, people who left the city during the siege and surrendered, a course Jeremiah had urged earlier in the book.

52:16

Leaving the poorest behind to work the land was practical policy, not mercy: vineyards and fields left untended produced no harvest and no revenue for the empire.

52:17

The two bronze pillars stood at the temple entrance and had names, Jachin and Boaz. The "Sea" was an enormous bronze basin holding water for the priests' ritual washing. The "stands" were wheeled bronze carts that carried smaller basins. Where older English says "brass," the metal meant is bronze, an alloy of copper and tin.

52:18

The King James "snuffers" are tools for trimming lamp wicks and "spoons" are small flat dishes; these are the working implements of the temple's daily routine, taken as plunder for their metal.

52:19

"Fire pans" (King James "firepans") carried live coals for burning incense. Drink offerings were measures of wine poured out as part of a sacrifice, so these bowls were the vessels used for that pouring.

52:20

That the bronze was "too heavy to weigh" is a stock expression for a quantity beyond reckoning, not a claim that anyone tried and failed.

52:21

A cubit was about eighteen inches, roughly the length of a forearm. So each pillar stood some twenty-seven feet high and measured about eighteen feet around, with a hollow shaft roughly three inches thick.

52:22

A "capital" (King James "chapiter") is the decorated block crowning a column; at five cubits it added another seven and a half feet. The pomegranate, a round red fruit, was a common decorative motif in the ancient Near East.

52:23

The two figures are not obviously consistent (ninety-six on the sides, a hundred in all) and the Hebrew leaves the relation unexplained. Readers have understood it either as ninety-six visible from the ground with four more at the corners, or as two different counts preserved side by side.

52:24

The chief priest was the temple's senior official; the "second" priest was his deputy. The doorkeepers controlled access to the temple courts and were officers of some standing, not menial porters. Taking these men was the removal of Judah's remaining religious leadership.

52:25

"Court official" translates a word that literally means eunuch, though by this period it had broadened to name a high royal officer whether or not he was castrated. The scribe who "signed up men for the army" kept the conscription lists. "Ordinary men" renders "people of the land," a phrase for the landholding free citizens of Judah as distinct from the court and the capital's officials.

52:27

Deporting the population but executing its leaders was standard imperial practice: exiles could be resettled and put to work, but the men who could organize a rebellion were killed outright.

52:28

These deportation figures appear only in Jeremiah, not in the parallel account in 2 Kings, and the totals are strikingly small, probably counting adult men only, or only heads of households. The regnal years are also counted differently here than elsewhere in the Bible: Jeremiah's "seventh year" and "eighteenth year" correspond to the "eighth" and "nineteenth" in 2 Kings, because the two books differ over whether to count a king's partial first year.

52:30

A third deportation in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year, about 582 BC, is recorded only here; nothing else in the Bible describes it.

52:31

Jehoiachin was king before Zedekiah and had been deported to Babylon in 597 BC as a young man; thirty-seven years later he was still alive in custody. The King James "lifted up the head" is a Hebrew idiom for granting favor or restoring someone's standing, the same phrase can mean simply to release a prisoner. Evil-merodach is the Babylonian king Amel-Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar's son, who reigned from 562 BC. The twelfth month falls in February–March.

52:32

The seating order at a royal table displayed rank publicly. Other captive or client kings were kept at the Babylonian court in the same way, and giving Jehoiachin the higher seat was a formal, visible act of favor.

52:33

Changing out of prison clothes marked a permanent change of legal status, not just a wash and a new outfit. Eating regularly at the king's table meant being kept as a member of the royal household: honored, provided for, and also conveniently watched.

52:34

A fixed daily ration from the royal stores was the standard arrangement for dependants of the Babylonian court. Clay tablets excavated at Babylon list rations of oil issued to "Yaukin, king of the land of Yahud" and his sons, which is this same man.