2 Kings 25:1 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
2 Kings 25:1
And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about.
the new moon · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
tenth
בֶּעָשׂ֣וֹרbe.'a.Sor
H6218
ten · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
month
לַחֹדֶשׁ֒la.cho.Desh
H2320
the new moon · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
Nebuchadnezzar
נְבֻכַדְנֶאצַּ֨רne.vu.khad.ne.Tzar
H5019
Nebukadnetstsar (or -retstsar · proper noun, a man's name
king
מֶֽלֶךְMe.lekh-
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine singular construct
Babylon
בָּבֶ֜לba.Vel
H894
Babel (i.e. Babylon) · proper noun, a place name
came
בָּ֠אba'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
host
חֵיל֛וֹchei.Lo
H2428
probably a force · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Jerusalem
יְרוּשָׁלִַ֖םye.ru.sha.Lim
H3389
Jerushalaim or Jerushalem · proper noun, a place name
pitched
וַיִּ֣חַןvai.Yi.chan
H2583
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
built
וַיִּבְנ֥וּvai.yiv.Nu
H1129
to build (literally and figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
forts
דָּיֵ֥קda.Yek
H1785
a battering-tower · noun, common masculine singular absolute
about
סָבִֽיבsa.Viv
H5439
(as noun) a circle · noun, common both genders singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 52:4-11 And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon c…
1 Chronicles 6:15 And Jehozadak went into captivity, when the LORD carried away Judah and Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.
Isaiah 29:3 And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee.
Jeremiah 34:1-6 The word which came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of…
Jeremiah 43:10 And say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my serv…
2 Kings 24:1 In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him.
2 Kings 24:10 At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
2 Chronicles 36:17-21 Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 25:1-7
We left king Zedekiah in rebellion against the king of Babylon (Kg2 24:20), contriving and endeavouring to shake off his yoke, when he was no way able to do it, nor took the right method by making God his friend first. Now here we have an account of the fatal consequences of that attempt.
I. The king of Babylon's army laid siege to Jerusalem, Kg2 25:1. What should hinder them when the country was already in their possession? Kg2 24:2. They built forts against the city round about, whence, by such arts of war as they then had, they battered it, sent into it instruments of death, and kept out of it the necessary supports of life. Formerly Jerusalem had been compassed with the favour of God as…
In the ninth year of his reign - Zedekiah, having revolted against the Chaldeans, Nebuchadnezzar, wearied with his treachery, and the bad faith of the Jews, determined the total subversion of the Jewish state. Having assembled a numerous army, he entered Judea on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of the reign of Zedekiah; this, according to the computation of Archbishop Usher, was on Thursday, January 30, A.M. 3414, which was a sabbatical year: whereon the men of Jerusalem hearing that the Chaldean army was approaching, proclaimed liberty to their servants; see Jer 34:8-10, according to the law, Exo 21:2; Deu 15:1, Deu 15:2, Deu 15:12 : for Nebuchadnezzar, marching with his…
And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign,.... Of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah. From hence to the end of 2 Kings 25:7, the account exactly agrees with Jeremiah 52:4.
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Kings 25:1-7
Siege and conquest of Jerusalem; Zedekiah taken prisoner and led away to Babel (cf. Jer 52:4-11 and Jer 39:1-7). - Kg2 25:1. In the ninth year of the reign of Zedekiah, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar marched with all his forces against Jerusalem and commenced the siege (cf. Jer 39:1), after he had taken all the rest of the fortified cities of the land, with the exception of Lachish and Azekah, which were besieged at the same time as Jerusalem (Jer 34:7). On the very same day the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem was revealed to the prophet Ezekiel in his exile (Eze 24:1). "And they built against it (the city) siege-towers round about." דּיק, which only occurs here a…
The Church Fathers
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? I do not mean the invisible cherubim—it is blasphemy to think it—but the sculptured images and the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, from the midst of which God was apt to speak with his voice. He trampled on the veil of sanctification, he took the censer and carried it away to a temple of idols; he seized all the offerings; he burned the temple to its foundations. What punishment did he not deserve for slaying kings, for burning the holy object, for reducing the people to captivity, for putting the sacred vessels in the temples of the idols? Did he not deserve ten thousand deaths?You have seen the enormity of his crimes. Turn now to the loving-kindness of God. Nebuchadnezzar was turned into a wild beast; he dwelled in the wilderness; God scourged him to save him. He had claws like a lion's, for he had preyed on the saints. He had a lion's mane, for he had been a ravening, roaring lion. He ate grass like an ox, for he had behaved like a brute beast, not knowing him who had given him his kingdom. His body was drenched with dew, because, after seeing the fire quenched by the dew, he had not believed. And what happened? Afterwards he says, "I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes to heaven … and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and glorified him who lives forever." When therefore he acknowledged the Most High, and uttered words of thanksgiving to God, and repented of his past wickedness and recognized his own weakness, in that hour God restored to him his royal dignity. What then? If God granted pardon and a kingdom to Nebuchadnezzar after such terrible crimes, when he had made confession, will he not grant you the remission of your sins if you repent and the kingdom of heaven if you live worthily? God is merciful and quick to forgiveness but slow to vengeance. Therefore let no one despair of salvation. Peter, the chief and foremost of the apostles, denied the Lord thrice before a little serving maid; but, moved to repentance, he wept bitterly. His weeping…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Chaldees — Or Chaldeans, the inhabitants of the country of which Babylon was the capital. They were so called till the time of the Captivity (2 Kings 25; Isa. 13:19; 23:13), when, particularly in the Book of…
Fast — The sole fast required by the law of Moses was that of the great Day of Atonement (q.v.), Lev. 23:26-32. It is called “the fast” (Acts 27:9). The only other mention of a periodical fast in the Old…
Jerusalem — Called also Salem, Ariel, Jebus, the “city of God,” the “holy city;” by the modern Arabs el-Khuds, meaning “the holy;” once “the city of Judah” (2 Chr. 25:28). This name is in the original in the…
Kings, The Books of — The two books of Kings formed originally but one book in the Hebrew Scriptures. The present division into two books was first made by the LXX., which now, with the Vulgate, numbers them as the third…
Pharaoh — The official title borne by the Egyptian kings down to the time when that country was conquered by the Greeks. (See EGYPT.) The name is a compound, as some think, of the words Ra, the “sun” or…
War — The Israelites had to take possession of the Promised Land by conquest. They had to engage in a long and bloody war before the Canaanitish tribes were finally subdued. Except in the case of Jericho…
Zedekiah — Righteousness of Jehovah. (1.) The last king of Judah. He was the third son of Josiah, and his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah, and hence he was the brother of Jehoahaz…
Armies · Were led by: Kings in person — Were led by: Kings in person
Babylon · Nebuchadnezzar king of: Besieged and took Jerusalem — Nebuchadnezzar king of: Besieged and took Jerusalem
Siege ramps were characteristic of ancient Near Eastern warfare. Attackers built tall earthen ramps and towers to give them a more advantageous position (see Jer 52:14; Ezek 21:22).
Rashi on 2 Kings 25:1
In the ninth year of his reign. Of Tzidkiyohu.1Which corresponds to Nevuchadnetzar's seventeenth year.—Radak
Siege towers. [Targum Yonoson] rendered כרקום [=works of siege].
· Calamities of, mentioned: Taken and burned by Nebuchadnezzar
— Calamities of, mentioned: Taken and burned by Nebuchadnezzar
Siege · .By Nebuchadnezzar — .By Nebuchadnezzar
Sieges · Described as: Pitching against — Described as: Pitching against
Zedekiah · to Babylon, blinds his eyes, kills his — to Babylon, blinds his eyes, kills his
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
