Jeremiah 52:6-16

6 By the ninth day of the fourth month, the hunger was terrible in the city; there was no food for the people to eat.

7 Then the city wall was broken through, and the whole army of Judah ran away at night. They left the city through the gate between the two walls by the king's garden. Even though the Babylonians were surrounding the city, Zedekiah and his men headed toward the Jordan Valley.

8 But the Babylonian army chased King Zedekiah and caught him in the plains of Jericho. All of his army was scattered from him.

9 So the Babylonians captured Zedekiah and took him to the king of Babylon at the town of Riblah in the land of Hamath. There he passed sentence on Zedekiah.

10 At Riblah the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah's sons as he watched. The king also killed all the officers of Judah.

11 Then he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and put bronze chains on him, and took him to Babylon. And the king kept Zedekiah in prison there until the day he died.

12 Nebuzaradan, commander of the king's special guards and servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem on the tenth day of the fifth month. This was in Nebuchadnezzar's nineteenth year as king of Babylon.

13 Nebuzaradan set fire to the Temple of the Lord, the palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every important building was burned.

14 The whole Babylonian army, led by the commander of the king's special guards, broke down all the walls around Jerusalem.

15 Nebuzaradan, the commander of the king's special guards, took captive some of the poorest people, those who were left in Jerusalem, those who had surrendered to the king of Babylon, and the skilled craftsmen who were left in Jerusalem.

16 But Nebuzaradan left behind some of the poorest people of the land to take care of the vineyards and fields.

Jeremiah 52:6-16 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.