Jeremiah 39:1

Fall of Jerusalem

1 In the ninth year and the tenth month of Judah's King Zedekiah, Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar and his entire army came against Jerusalem and surrounded it.

Jeremiah 39:1 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 39:1

In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth
month
The month Tebet, which answers to part of our December, and part of January; so that it was in the winter season the siege of Jerusalem began: came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem,
and they besieged it;
provoked by Zedekiah's breaking covenant with him, and rebelling against him, who had set him upon his throne, in the room of his nephew; so that here was a mixture of perfidy and ingratitude, which he was determined to revenge; and being impatient of it, came at such an unseasonable time of the year for a long march and a siege. The king of Babylon came in person at first; but having begun the siege, and given proper orders to his generals for the carrying of it on, and supposing it would be a long one, retired to Riblah in Syria, either for pleasure or for business. The time of beginning the siege exactly agrees with the account in ( 2 Kings 25:1 ) ; only there it is more particular, expressing the day of the month, which was the tenth of it; and so in ( Jeremiah 52:4 ) . The reason of inserting the account of the siege and taking of the city, in this place, is both to show the exact accomplishment of Jeremiah's prophecies about it, and to lead on to some facts and predictions that followed it.

Jeremiah 39:1 In-Context

1 In the ninth year and the tenth month of Judah's King Zedekiah, Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar and his entire army came against Jerusalem and surrounded it.

2 In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, on the ninth day of the fourth month, they broke through the city walls.

3 Then all the commanding officers of the king of Babylon—Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim the chief officer, Nergal-sharezer the field commander—entered it and took their places at the middle gate with the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.

4 When Judah's King Zedekiah and his troops saw them, they tried to escape at night through the royal gardens and the gate between the two walls, toward the desert plain.

5 But the Babylonian army chased them down and caught Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They arrested him and brought him before Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah in the land of Hamath. There the king put him on trial.