2 Kings 25 · a question people ask
Jeremiah 52 tells the same events. Do the two accounts agree?
Jeremiah 52 tells what 24:18-25:30 tells, much of it in nearly the same words, and the two differ in places, among them these. The day Nebuzaradan came: "in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month" (25:8), and "in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month" (Jeremiah 52:12). The men taken "of those who saw the king’s face": "five men" (25:19) and "seven men" (Jeremiah 52:25). The capital on each pillar: "The height of the capital was three cubits" (25:17), and "the height of the one capital was five cubits" (Jeremiah 52:22), as 1 Kings had it when the pillars were made: "The height of the one capital was five cubits" (1 Kings 7:16). The day of Jehoiachin's release: "on the twenty-seventh day of the month" (25:27), and "in the twenty-fifth day of the month" (Jeremiah 52:31). Jeremiah also has things 2 Kings doesn't. It says Zedekiah was put "in prison until the day of his death" (Jeremiah 52:11), and it numbers the people carried away (Jeremiah 52:28-30). And where the WEB's 2 Kings says Evilmerodach "released" Jehoiachin (25:27), the WEB's Jeremiah keeps the words both Hebrew texts have: he "lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah" (Jeremiah 52:31). It doesn't tell of Gedaliah; the book of Jeremiah tells of him in other chapters (Jeremiah 40:5-6). These notes set the two side by side and don't try to fit them together.
The verses
“Now in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.”
“Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem.”
“and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and five men of those who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city; and the scribe, the captain of the army, who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.”
“and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and seven men of those who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the middle of the city.”