Jeremiahchapter 52
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Speaks with:2 Kings 25×11Jeremiah 39×71 Kings 7×52 Kings 24×42 Chronicles 36×3Jeremiah 52×3
Summary
Chapter summary
A historical appendix, largely parallel to 2 Kings 24-25. Zedekiah's rebellion, the siege from the ninth year to the eleventh, the famine so severe there was no bread for the people of the land, the breach, the flight to the Arabah, the capture near Jericho, the sons slain at Riblah, the eyes put out, prison in Babylon till death. Nebuzaradan burns the house of Jehovah and the king's house, and the bronze is inventoried down to the pillars and their capitals and ninety and six pomegranates. Three deportations total four thousand six hundred souls. And then the last paragraph lifts: Evil-merodach frees Jehoiachin, changes his prison garments, seats him above the other kings, and gives him bread continually all the days of his life.
Context
Prophecy · Jeremiah — Jeremiah overview
- A. 1–11 Zedekiah's Rebellion and the Fall of Jerusalem
- B. 12–23 The House of the LORD Burned and the Pillars Broken Up
- C. 24–30 Priests Slain at Riblah; the Captives Numbered
- D. 31–34 Jehoiachin Lifted from Prison to the King's Table
The outline
A.Zedekiah's Rebellion and the Fall of Jerusalemvv. 1 to 11
Read vv. 1 to 11 →B.The House of the LORD Burned and the Pillars Broken Upvv. 12 to 23
Read vv. 12 to 23 →C.Priests Slain at Riblah; the Captives Numberedvv. 24 to 30
Read vv. 24 to 30 →D.Jehoiachin Lifted from Prison to the King's Tablevv. 31 to 34
Read vv. 31 to 34 →
The world behind this chapter
Jeremiah 52The history
This closing chapter is an appendix rather than a sermon, and it runs almost parallel to the end of 2 Kings. It reads like an official record: dates, the length of the siege, the day the food ran out, the breach in the wall, the burning of the temple, the palace and every great house.
The temple inventory is the work of a man with a list. The two bronze pillars are measured — eighteen cubits high, twelve cubits around, hollow, with bronze capitals — and the network of pomegranates is counted: ninety-six on the sides, a hundred on the network all round. Bronze was valuable and the pillars, the great basin called the sea, and the stands were broken up and carried off as metal.
The deportation figures are given in three groups totalling four thousand six hundred, and they differ from the numbers in 2 Kings. The likeliest reason is that these count adult men from a particular reckoning while the other figures count differently, but the text does not explain itself, and it is more honest to note the difference than to smooth it over.
The last paragraph jumps twenty-five years. In the thirty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's exile, Evil-merodach — Amel-Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar's successor — released him from prison, spoke kindly to him, gave him a seat above the other kings, changed his prison clothes, and gave him a daily allowance for the rest of his life. Cuneiform ration tablets excavated in Babylon, listing oil and barley issued to Yaukin king of Judah and his sons, record the same man being fed at the same court.
What it meant to them
For readers in exile the inventory mattered. Somebody counted the pomegranates. The loss was not a rumour or a blur; it was written down item by item, which is how a people keeps from either forgetting or exaggerating what happened to them.
And then the book ends on a man eating at a king's table. David's heir is out of prison, in ordinary clothes, with a daily allowance. It is not a restoration, and the writer does not pretend otherwise — but the line is not extinct, and after fifty-two chapters of judgment that is where the record stops.
Sources cited
- The Jehoiachin ration tablets, in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament
- Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Jeremiah 52. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 31 · What the spade turned up
Babylonian ration tablets name Jehoiachin king of Judah and his sons - the flagged tree node is a documented historical person (exile + later maintenance).
2 Kings 24:6→And Jehoiakim rested with his fathers, and his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.
Weidner (1939); ANET; Mykytiuk BAR 2014
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.