Jeremiahchapter 52
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Key verse
And concerning the pillars, the height of one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a fillet of twelve cubits did compass it; and the thickness thereof was four fingers: it was hollow.
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 12 to 23.
The chapter
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
Where the chapter sits
Jeremiah 52 falls in Historical appendix (chapters 52). The fall of Jerusalem narrated again, closely paralleling 2 Kings 24–25.
Historical appendix. The fall narrated again; the note on Jehoiachin's release closing the book on a glimmer of hope.
Before it: Oracles against the nations, chapters 46–51.
The whole shape of Jeremiah→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 rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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
A. Zedekiah's Rebellion and the Fall of Jerusalem
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.Zedekiah was one and twenty years old: The chapter's opening formula, his age, his mother's name, the length of his reign, matches 2 Kings 24:18-20 almost word for word, a later hand appending the same royal record Kings already gives after 51:64 has already signed the book off, thus far are the words of Jeremiah. Hamutal's father is named Jeremiah of Libnah, a different man from the prophet, which the commentators flag so the two are never confused. Zedekiah's rebellion against Babylon (v3) is the very move chapters 27 to 29 warned against, the lying prophets' promise of a quick end to the yoke acted out to its finish.
Jeremiah 52:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 52:1
“Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign,.... Whose name was Mattaniah; and who was set on the throne by the king of Babylon, in the room of his brother's son Jehoiachin, 2Ki 24:17; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; so that he was thirty two years of age when he was taken and carried captive into Babylon: and his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah; see 2Ki 24:18.”
Jeremiah 52:1
“Jer. 52 is an historical appendix to the Book of Jeremiah, giving details of the capture of Babylon additional to those contained in Jer. 39: The last words of the foregoing chapter affirm that Jeremiah was not the author, and the view adopted by most commentators is, that this chapter is taken from the 2nd Book of Kings, but that the person who added it here had access to other valuable documents, and made several modifications in it, the principal being the substituation of the account of those led captive by Nebuchadnezzar Jer 52:28-30, for the narrative given in 2Ki 25:22-26, where see the notes.”
Jeremiah 52:2, 2 voices
Jeremiah 52:2
“And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord,.... Though we do not read of any idolatry he was guilty of; yet he was disobedient to the word of the Lord, and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet of the Lord, that spoke in his name; and particularly he rebelled against the king of Babylon, and violated the oath he made to him, 2Ch 36:12; according to all that Jehoiakim had done; an elder brother of his, who reigned after Josiah, and before Jehoiachin.”
Jeremiah 52:2
“Zedekiah - It is generally thought that this chapter was not penned by Jeremiah, who, it is not probable, would have so largely repeated what he had related before; and could not historically relate what happened after his time, as some things did which are mentioned towards the end of the chapter.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (vv. 4-7)
a.in the ninth year of his reign: The siege is dated to the day, the ninth year, tenth month, tenth day, the same years Ezekiel dates his own oracles by from among the exiles already in Babylon, the two books sharing one clock though written from opposite ends of the siege. Famine grows sore in the city by the eleventh year's fourth month (v6), roughly a year and a half of siege spelled out in the gap between the two dates. The flight by night through the two walls by the king's garden retraces the same escape chapter 39 has already narrated, this appendix repeating what the book's own narrative section already told in full.
Jeremiah 52:5, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:5
“So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. The siege continued about eighteen months; from the tenth day of the tenth month, in the ninth of Zedekiah's reign, to the ninth day of the fourth month, in the eleventh year of his reign; as follows:”
3. (vv. 8-11)
a.the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king: Zedekiah is overtaken in the plains of Jericho and judged not in Jerusalem but at Riblah, Nebuchadnezzar's own headquarters in the north, where his sons are slain before his eyes as the last thing those eyes ever see. His eyes are then put out, a grim literal keeping of 34:3, thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, one final sight and no more. Bound in chains, he lives out 34:5's word that he would not die by the sword, dying instead in a Babylonian prison, the two oracles fulfilled together rather than set against one another.
Jeremiah 52:8, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:8
“But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king,.... Not finding him in his palace, and being informed of his flight, and which way he took: and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: See Gill on Jer 39:5; and all his army was scattered from him; when they saw the enemy pursuing them, and near unto them, they left him, as Josephus (q) says, and shifted for themselves. (q) Ibid. (Antiqu. l. 10. c. 8. sect. 2. Ed. Hudson.)”
Jeremiah 52:9, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:9
“Then they took the king,.... King Zedekiah, being left alone, excepting some few with him: and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; which is supposed to be Antioch in Syria: where he gave judgment upon him; or "spake with him judgments" (r): chided and reproached him for his perfidy and ingratitude; expostulated and reasoned with him upon this subject, exposing his iniquity; and then passed sentence upon him, which was after executed; See Gill on Jer 39:5. (r) וידבר אתו משפטים "qui cum eo locutus est judicia", Schmidt. So Cocceius.”
Jeremiah 52:10, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:10
“And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes,.... Or, however, ordered them to be slain; See Gill on Jer 39:6; he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah; who, together with the king's sons, were taken with him; or, however, were taken in Jerusalem, and brought to Riblah; which of them is not certain, very probably the former.”
Jeremiah 52:11, 3 voices
Jeremiah 52:11
“Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah,.... After he had seen his children and princes executed, which must be very terrible to him; See Gill on Jer 39:7; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon; in Jer 39:7; it is said, he bound him, "to carry him" there; here it is affirmed he did carry him thither: and it is added, and put him in prison till the day of his death; from this place only we learn that King Zedekiah was put into a prison, and died a prisoner.”
Jeremiah 52:11
“Put him in prison ... - Not found in 2 Kings, for in the contemporaneous history what befell Zedekiah at Riblah would alone be known. It was no doubt added by the same hand which inserted the account of the deportations to Babylon.”
Jeremiah 52:11
“Eze 12:13: "I will bring him to Babylon . . . yet shall he not see it." prison--literally, "the house of visitations," or "punishments," that is, where there was penal work enforced on the prisoners, such as grinding. Hence the Septuagint renders it "the house of the mill." So Samson, after his eyes were put out, "ground" in the Philistine prison-house (Jud 16:21).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
B. The House of the LORD Burned and the Pillars Broken Up
1. (vv. 12-16)
a.in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month: The temple's burning is dated to the fifth month, tenth day, matching 2 Kings 25:8-9, the date the synagogue still keeps as the ninth of Av, mourning this destruction and the second temple's together. Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, burns the house of the Lord, the king's house, and every great house in the city, then breaks down the walls of Jerusalem entirely, the three burnings and the wall named in one sweep. The poor of the land are deliberately left behind for vinedressers and husbandmen (v16), so that the land is not stripped of every hand to work it, the same detail 39:10 has already given.
Jeremiah 52:13, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:13
“And burned the house of the Lord - Thus perished this magnificent structure, after it had stood four hundred and twenty-four years three months and eight days. It was built A.M. 2992, and destroyed A.M. 3416.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 52:15, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:15
“Certain of the poor of the people, and - Omit (as in 2Ki 25:11), being inserted through some confusion with Jer 52:16. Multitude - Possibly workmen. The object of Nebuchadnezzar was to people Babylon, not with paupers, but with men of a better class, artisans and workmen, who would enrich it.”
2. (vv. 17-23)
a.the pillars of brass that were in the house of the Lord: The temple's bronze work is stripped and shipped to Babylon piece by piece, the two great pillars 1 Kings 7:21 names Jachin and Boaz, the molten sea, and the twelve bulls that carried it, Solomon's own craftsmanship undone in the same measurements it was first recorded in. The pillar's exact dimensions are repeated here, eighteen cubits, network and pomegranates round about, the bench reading the precision as the appendix's own care to record exactly what was lost rather than only that it was lost. The listing reads as an inventory rather than a lament, brass, silver, and gold accounted for vessel by vessel before the chapter turns to the people themselves.
Jeremiah 52:17, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:17
“Fulfilling the prophecy (Jer 27:19). See 1Ki 7:15, 23, 27, 50. Nothing is so particularly related here as the carrying away of the articles in the temple.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 52:19, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:19
“But most of the temple-prey that was now seized was of brass, which, being of less value, was carried off last. When the gold was gone, the brass soon went after it, because the people repented not, according to Jeremiah's prediction, ch. xxvii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 52:20, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:20
“Seraiah the chief priest is put first, whose sacred character could not exempt him from this stroke; how should it, when he himself had profaned it by sin? Seraiah the prince was a quiet prince ( ch. li. 59 ), but perhaps Seraiah the priest was not so, but unquiet and turbulent, by which he had made himself obnoxious to the king of Babylon.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 52:21, 2 voices
Jeremiah 52:21
“And concerning the pillars, the height of one pillar was eighteen cubits,.... As in 1Ki 7:15; said to be thirty five, 2Ch 3:15; of the reconciliation of which; see Gill on 2Ch 3:15, and a fillet of twelve cubits did compass it; a thread or line of that measure encompassed each of the pillars, 1Ki 7:15; and the thickness thereof was four fingers; either of the pillar, or the fillet about it; that is, the brass of it was four fingers thick: it was hollow; that is, the pillar was hollow.”
Jeremiah 52:21
“The fillet means a measuring line; the pillars were 12 cubits, i. e., 18 feet, in circumference, and thus the diameter would be 5 feet 9 inches. As the brass was four fingers, i. e., scarcely four inches thick, the hollow center would be more than five feet in diameter.”
Jeremiah 52:22, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:22
“But 2Ki 25:17 has "three cubits." There were two parts in the chapiter: the one lower and plain, of two cubits; the other, higher and curiously carved, of three cubits. The former is omitted in 2Ki 25:17, as belonging to the shaft of the pillar; the latter alone is there mentioned. Here the whole chapiter of five cubits is referred to.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 52:23, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:23
“On a side - The 96 were toward the four winds, 24 toward the north, 24 toward the east, and so on. Add one at each corner, and the whole 100 is made up.”
C. Priests Slain at Riblah; the Captives Numbered
1. (vv. 24-27)
a.the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest: Leadership itself is carried off and executed, the chief priest and the second priest, the door-keepers, the eunuch who commanded the men of war, seven of the king's own counselors, the scribe who mustered the land's troops, and sixty men of the people, all put to death together at Riblah. The summary line closes the account, thus Judah was carried away captive out of his own land, the same sentence Kings gives at the parallel point in its own history. Nothing distinguishes rank here, priest and scribe and counselor share one execution and one verse.
Jeremiah 52:25, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:25
“An eunuch ... men of war - Or, who had charge of men of war. The King James Version makes him commander-in-chief; he was second in command, i. e., a lieutenant, possibly one among many others of equal rank.”
2. (vv. 28-30)
a.in the seventh year three thousand Jews and three and twenty: Three deportations are counted by regnal year, 3,023 in the seventh year, 832 in the eighteenth, 745 in the twenty-third, a total of 4,600, a smaller figure than 2 Kings 24:14's 10,000 for the earlier deportation under Jehoiachin. The commentators hold the difference open rather than resolving it: some read a different regnal-year reckoning, an accession-year count here shifting the numbering against Kings, others read this list as counting adult males alone against a broader figure there; the text itself does not choose between them. Either way the number is strikingly small measured against the size of the catastrophe, a whole nation's fall counted in a few thousand names.
Jeremiah 52:28, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:28
“On these verses Dr. Blayney has some sensible remarks; I will extract the substance. These verses are not inserted in 2 Kings 25. Are we to conclude from these verses that the whole number of the Jews which Nebuchadnezzar, in all his expeditions, carried away, was no more than four thousand six hundred? This cannot be true; for he carried away more than twice that number at one time and this is expressly said to have been in the eighth year of his reign, 2Ki 24:12-”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
D. Jehoiachin Lifted from Prison to the King's Table
1. (vv. 31-34)
a.in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin: Verses 31 to 34 match 2 Kings 25:27-30 almost word for word, a new Babylonian king lifting Jehoiachin's head out of prison, changing his prison garments, and setting his throne above the other captive kings who were with him. The kindness is small against forty years of siege and burning, yet the bench reads it as the book's chosen last word, a captive Davidic king given a permanent place at a pagan table years before Cyrus ever issues a decree. Jehoiachin eats bread before the king continually, all the days of his life, and the book closes on that open phrase, the exile still running when the last word is written.
Jeremiah 52:31, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:31
“In the twelfth month - Answering nearly to our twenty-fifth of April, A.M. 3442. Lifted up the head of Jehoiachin - This phrase is taken from Gen 40:13. It is founded on the observation that those who are in sorrow hold down their heads, and when they are comforted, or the cause of their sorrow removed, they lift up their heads. The Hebrew phrase, lift up the head, signifies to comfort, cheer, make happy.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 52:32, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:32
“Spake kindly - Conversed freely with him. Set his throne - Gave him a more respectable seat than any of the captive princes, or better than even his own princes had, probably near his person.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 52:33, 1 voice
Jeremiah 52:33
“And changed his prison garments - That is, Jehoiachin changed his own garments, that he might be suited in that respect to the state of his elevation. Kings also, in token of favor, gave caftans or robes to those whom they wish to honor. And he did continually eat bread before him - Was a constant guest at the king’s table.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 52:34, 2 voices
Jeremiah 52:34
“And - there was a continual diet given him - This was probably a ration allowed by the king for the support of Jehoiachin’s household. For other particulars, see the note on 2Ki 25:30. All the days of his life - I believe these words have been by mistake added from the preceding verse. There, they are proper; here, they are tautological. They are wanting in the Septuagint and in the Arabic. The preceding words, עד יום מותו ad yom motho, “to the day of his death,” are wanting in two of De Rossi’s and one of Kennicott’s MSS.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 52:34
“All the days of his life - Here ends the history of the kingdom of Judah. I shall only observe the severe judgment of God upon this people, whose kingdom was made up of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and half the tribe of Manasseh.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
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 →
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826); Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765) and Matthew Henry.
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