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Jeremiah 52
Chapter 52
| Biblical Source | Jewish/Modern Date | Events |
| 2 Kgs 25:1; Ez 24:1-2 | 10 Tebeth = 27 January 589 BC | The beginning of the first siege of Jerusalem. |
| Jer 34:8-10 | 1 Tishri = 29 September 588 BC | The release of Hebrew slaves commanded by King Zedekiah and the beginning of what should have been a Jubilee Year. |
| Jer 34:11-22; 37:5-16 | Between Tishri 588 & Nisan 587 BC = October 588 to April 587 BC | The approach of Egyptian army causes the Babylonians to temporarily lift the siege. The slaves are taken back by their owners. Jeremiah is arrested when he attempts to go to Anathoth. |
| Jer 34:22; Ez 30:20-21 | 7 Nisan = 29 April 587 BC | The Babylonians force Egyptians to withdraw, and the siege of Jerusalem resumes. |
| 22 Kgs 25:2-4; Jer 39:2, 52:7; Ez 33:21, 40:1 | 9 Tammuz = 29 July 587 | The Babylonians breach the walls of Jerusalem. The Babylonians capture the Judaeans and take them to Ramah. King Zedekiah is captured fleeing with his family. |
| 22 Kgs 25:8 | 7 Ab/Av = 25 August 587 BC | General Nebuzaradan arrives at Jerusalem from Riblah in Hamath (Syria). He consults with commanders in the field regarding the pillaging of the city. He searches for Jeremiah. Finding Jeremiah at Ramah, he releases him. |
| 22 Kgs 25:9-19; 2 Chr 36:18-19; Jer 52:12-25 | 9 Ab/Av = 28 August 587 | The Babylonian army enters Jerusalem to pillage, destroy, and to burn the city, including the palace built by King Solomon and the Temple. The Jewish captives at Ramah are deported to Babylon. |
| Michal E. Hunt Copyright © 2017 | ||
Jeremiah 52:1-3 ~ A Summary of King Zedekiah's Reign
Most Biblical scholars assume that Seraiah wrote the historical appendix to the Book of Jeremiah while he was in Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem with the other Judaean captives.
Question: What was Zedekiah's relationship to deposed Judaean king Jehoahaz? See 2 Kng 23:29-34.
Answer: They were brothers; the sons of King Josiah by the same mother.
3 He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, just as Jehoiakim had done. 3 That this should happen to Jerusalem and Judah was due to Yahweh's anger, resulting in his casting them away from his presence.
That he did what was "evil in the eyes of Yahweh" (literal Hebrew) is a standard formula for denouncing Israel's kings who failed to keep Yahweh's covenant (i.e., 1 Kng 11:6; 14:22; 15:26, 34; 16:25). 2 Chronicles 36:12 records his failure to listen to Jeremiah who spoke "from the mouth of Yahweh" (literal translation). Zedekiah's reign is compared to his half-brother Jehoiakim who did evil and invoked the wrath of Yahweh (see 2 Kng 23:37). The point is that the evil practices of Judah's kings and people built up Yahweh's anger until Yahweh had to cast the nation out from His presence.
Jeremiah 52:4-11 ~ The Final Days of Jerusalem
This passage is, for the most part, a repetition of 2 Kings 24:18-25:30 and Jeremiah 39:1-10. A summary of Nebuchadnezzar's capture of Jerusalem and burning of the Temple is also in 2 Chronicles 36:11-21.
The Babylonian siege of Jerusalem began at the end of December of 589-88 BC. There was a break in the siege when the Babylonians withdrew to confront the Egyptians, but in total, the siege lasted over two years. The tenth day of the month is the 10th of Tevet, which the Book of Zechariah says is observed as a fast day to mark the beginning of the siege (Zech 8:19). The Babylonians immediately built "earthworks" around the city which Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, recorded were equal in height to the walls: "Now the king of Babylon was very intent and earnest upon the siege of Jerusalem; and he erected towers upon great banks of earth and from them repelled those that stood upon the walls; he also made a great number of such banks round about the whole city, the height of which was equal to those walls" (Antiquities of the Jews, 10.131).
The fate of King Zedekiah in verses 8-11 is recounted in 2 Kings 25:4-7. Ezekiel 12:13 records the same fate for Zedekiah in an oracle Ezekiel received from Yahweh: I shall throw my net over him and catch him in my mesh; I shall take him to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldaeans, though he will not see it; and there he will die. Zedekiah "will not see" Babylon because King Nebuchadnezzar had him blinded before the journey (52:11; 2 Kng 25:7).
Jeremiah 52:12-16 ~ The Babylonians Destroy Jerusalem
Nebuzaradan's name means, "[the god] Nabu has given off-spring." His title is the Rab-tabehim, meaning the "chief butler," but the title points to his high position. His functions mentioned in 2 Kings and Jeremiah indicates that he was a ranking military official. A clay prism found at excavations of the royal palace at Babylon lists Nebuchadnezzar's court officials. Among those name is Nebuzaradan with the title "chancellor." The prism is dated to circa 570 BC and suggests a political appointment for Nebuzaradan following his successful military career.
The Book of Baruch 1:2 puts the burning of Jerusalem on "the seventh day of the month." Some scholars reconcile the discrepancy by suggesting that the fire was set on the 7th and burned until the 9th. Archaeological excavations in Jerusalem verify a 587 BC date for the destruction of Jerusalem by a great fire.
Question: What was the extent of the destruction Nebuzaradan inflicted on Jerusalem and the people?
Answer: He was responsible for:
- the destruction of the Temple
- the destruction of the royal Davidic palace
- the destruction of the prominent houses of Jerusalem
- the destruction of the city walls
- deporting all the captives to Babylon
He was also responsible for finding Jeremiah, making arrangements for his welfare (2 Kng 25:11-21; Jer 39:10-14; 41:10; 43:6). King Solomon built the royal palace and the Temple in the 10th century BC; read about the magnificence of these buildings in 1 Kings Chapters 6-7
Jeremiah 52:17-23 ~ The Destruction
Also see 2 Kings 25:11-17 and 2 Chronicles 36:18-19 for a similar description. According to Ezra 1:7-11, King Nebuchadnezzar embellished his temple in Babylon with what he took from Solomon's Temple. The items he took remained in Babylon until King Cyrus restored them in 539/8 BC.
All the bronze furnishings used in worship
- two bronze pillars
- wheeled stands
- the bronze Sea
- ash containers
- scoops
- knives
- sprinkling bowls
- incense bowls
All the gold and silver furnishings - bowls
- censers
- sprinkling bowls
- ash containers
- lamp-stands
- goblets/chalices
- saucers
Question: What very important sacred items from the Temple are missing from the list?
Answer: There is no mention of the golden Altar of Incense or the Ark of the Covenant.
The golden table of the Bread of the Presence and the solid gold Menorah (lampstand) made for the desert Sanctuary are also not named, but they might be listed among the gold items that were confiscated. Since the Ark of the Covenant was the most sacred shrine of the Judaeans, it would have been a prized find. The absence of its mention supports the account of Jeremiah hiding the Ark and the gold Altar of Incense before the city fell (2 Mac 2:4-5).
Solomon's Temple complex had several outer courtyards and one inner court called the Court of the Priests. The Court of the Priests was the location of sacrificial altar, the movable water basins, and also the great bronze Sea, a huge ritual purification basin that rested on a base of twelve bronze oxen representing the tribes of Israel. The Sea was over seven feet high and fifteen feet in diameter with a capacity of about 11,500 gallons of water used for priestly ritual washings before approaching the altar of sacrifice or entering the Holy Place. The chief priests used the water just as Catholic priests purify themselves by washing their hands before taking up the Host (see 2 Kng 7:23-26, 39; 2 Chr 4:6). The ten wheeled stands held basins of water for the priests to cleanse their hands after offering the sacrifice of an animal (2 Kng 7:27-39)..(2)
Jeremiah 52:24-27 ~ The Fate of the High Priest and Royal Officials
Seraiah the chief or high priest is not the same man as Seraiah the brother of Baruch, and Zephaniah the priest is not the same man as Zephaniah the prophet. These were common names in this period. "Friends of the king" refers to the ministers of the king's cabinet. All the ministers who encouraged Zedekiah to revolt and all the ministers and chief priests who conspired to kill God's holy prophet Jeremiah were themselves killed by the Babylonians.
Jeremiah 52:28-30 ~ The Number of Exiled Judaeans in Three Deportations
The list appears to be from the Babylonian Chronicles. All the years are reckoned according to the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign from 605-561 BC. The Babylonian Chronicles and Jeremiah give the seventh year, but 2 Kings 24:12 records that Jehoiachin was deposed and taken prisoner in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. The Babylonians counted the reignal years differently, not reckoning the part year of an ascension year, but it could also mean the deportation didn't begin until the turn of the year. The record of deportations seems low and perhaps records only the male adults who survived the journey:
598/7 BC: 3,023 (when Jehoiachin was deposed; 2 Kings 24:14 records ten thousand exiles)
587/6 BC: 832 (the deportation after Jerusalem fell)
582 BC: 745 (when the Babylonians returned after the murder of Gedaliah)
for a total of 4,600 people
Jeremiah 52:31-34 ~ Postscript
Evil-Merodach was the son of Nebuchadnezzar who succeeded his father as king of Babylon in 561 BC. He released Jehoiachin in 561 BC after 37 years in prison. 2 Kings 25:27-30 narrates the same account of Jehoiachin's release from prison by Evil-Merodach.
Question: Who was Jehoiachin? See 2 Kng 23:34; 24:5-12; 2 Chr 36:9-10; he is called Jechoniah in Mt 1:11-16.
Answer: He was the grandson of King Josiah and the son of King Jehoiakim. King Nebuchadnezzar deposed him when he was eighteen years old, only three months after the death of his father, and took him as a captive to Babylon. Joseph, the husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus, is his descendant.
From Jehoahaz to Zedekiah there was a succession of unworthy Davidic kings. In this final passage, Zedekiah's captivity and death in prison are contrasted with Jehoiachin's release from prison to captive living. The release of King Jehoiachin signals the forward movement of God's plan for the release of the Judaeans from captivity and the edict issued for their eventual return from exile in 539 BC. In the meantime: Until the country has paid off its Sabbath, it will lie fallow for all the days of its desolation; until the seventy ears are complete (2 Chr 36:21).
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A Daily Defense
DAY 257 Justification: Quality and Quantity
CHALLENGE : “The Catholic idea that there is more than one form of justification doesn’t make any sense. You are either righteous before God or you’re not.”
DEFENSE: This view doesn’t reflect the biblical data (see Day 228).
The key to understanding this issue involves the difference between the quality and the quantity of righteousness.
Along the axis of quality, people hypothetically could range from totally unrighteous (purely evil) to totally righteous (purely good). Viewed in these terms, justification (being declared, reckoned, or made righteous by God) would involve having one’s unrighteousness removed and being instead given a pure righteousness before God.
This corresponds to how justification is commonly understood in Protestant circles. It also corresponds to how initial justification is understood in Catholic circles. Thus the Church acknowledges that, when people first come to God and are forgiven, they “are made innocent, immaculate, pure, guiltless and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to hinder their entrance into heaven” (Trent, Decree on Original Sin 5).
If justification only operated on a single axis—quality—then from this state, no further improvement would be possible. However, justification also works along another axis—quantity.
Along this axis, there would be the possibility of further improvement in righteousness. The situation may be compared to light. Even if a light is pure white, it may be either dim or bright.
One could thus take a lamp that is emitting pure white light and turn up the intensity so that it shines more brightly. In the same way, after God has given a person a pure righteousness before him, he may by his grace lead that person to grow in the quantity of righteousness he has.
This is the understanding the Catholic Church has of ongoing justification. Having been initially justified, people “increase in that justice received through the grace of Christ and are further justified, as it is written: . . . ‘Do you see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only?’ ” (Trent, Decree on Justification 10, citing James 2:24).
Note that it is only in regard to ongoing growth in righteousness, not initial justification, that the Church cites James 2:24 (see Day 222).
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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