And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
And the city entereth into siege till the eleventh year of king Zedekiah,
And the city was besieged until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
2 Kings — Two kingdoms on parallel but diverging arcs. Elisha's ministry; Samaria falls to Assyria in 722 BC; Jerusalem falls to Babylon in 586 BC. Prophets interpose; kings refuse; the exile comes — and closes on a whisper of covenant hope.
Voices2
And the city was besieged, etc. - Nebuchadnezzar, having routed the Egyptian army, returned to Jerusalem, and besieged it so closely that, being reduced by famine, and a breach made in the wall, the Chaldeans entered it on the ninth day of the fourth month, (Wednesday, July 27), Zedekiah and many others endeavoring to make their escape by night.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832evangelical
What think you of Nebuchadnezzar? Have you not heard from Scripture that he was bloodthirsty, fierce, with the disposition of a lion? Have you not heard that he disinterred the kings? Have you not heard that he brought the people away into captivity? Have you not heard that he put the king's sons to the sword before Zedekiah's eyes and then blinded him? Have you not heard that he shattered the cherubim?
Cyril of Jerusalem· Catechetical Lecture 2:17-19, 386patristic
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The verses this one reaches1
At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched up to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege.
