Jeremiah 52:21-31

21 Each pillar stood twenty-seven feet high with a circumference of eighteen feet. The pillars were hollow, the bronze a little less than an inch thick.

22 Each pillar was topped with an ornate capital of bronze pomegranates and filigree, which added another seven and a half feet to its height.

23 There were ninety-six pomegranates evenly spaced - in all, a hundred pomegranates worked into the filigree.

24 The king's deputy took a number of special prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the associate priest, three wardens,

25 the chief remaining army officer, seven of the king's counselors who happened to be in the city, the chief recruiting officer for the army, and sixty men of standing from among the people who were still there.

26 Nebuzaradan the king's deputy marched them all off to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

27 And there at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon killed the lot of them in cold blood. Judah went into exile, orphaned from her land.

28 3,023 men of Judah were taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar in the seventh year of his reign.

29 832 from Jerusalem were taken in the eighteenth year of his reign.

30 745 men from Judah were taken off by Nebuzaradan, the king's chief deputy, in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year. The total number of exiles was 4,600.

31 When Jehoiachin king of Judah had been in exile for thirty-seven years, Evil-Merodach became king in Babylon and let Jehoiachin out of prison. This release took place on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month.

Jeremiah 52:21-31 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 52

This chapter contains the history of the besieging, taking, and destroying of Jerusalem; the moving cause of it, the wicked reign of Zedekiah, Jer 52:1-3; the instruments of it, the king of Babylon and his army, which besieged and took it, Jer 52:4-7; into whose hands the king of Judah, his sons, and the princes of Judah, fell; and were very barbarously and cruelly used by them, Jer 52:8-11. Then follows an account of the burning of the temple, the king's palace, and the houses in Jerusalem, and the breaking down of the walls of it, Jer 52:12-14; and of those that were carried captive, and of those that were left in the land by Nebuzaradan, Jer 52:15,16; and of the several vessels and valuable things in the temple, of gold, silver, and brass, it was plundered of, and carried to Babylon, Jer 52:17-23; and of the murder of several persons of dignity and character, Jer 52:24-27; and of the number of those that were carried captive at three different times, Jer 52:28-30; and the chapter is concluded with the exaltation of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and of the good treatment he met with from the king of Babylon to the day of his death, Jer 52:31-34.