2 Raja-raja 25:17-22

25:17 Each of the pillars was about twenty-seven feet ¹  high. The bronze top of one pillar was about four and a half feet ²  high and had bronze latticework and pomegranate shaped ornaments all around it. The second pillar with its latticework was like it.

25:18 The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest and Zephaniah, the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers. 25:19 From the city he took a eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, five ³  of the king’s advisers ⁴  who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens ⁵  for military service, and sixty citizens from the people of the land who were discovered in the city. 25:20 Nebuzaradan, captain of the royal guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 25:21 The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed ⁶  at Riblah in the territory ⁷  of Hamath. So Judah was deported from its land.

Gedaliah Appointed Governor

25:22 Now King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, as governor over the people whom he allowed to remain in the land of Judah. ⁸ 

[25:17]  ¹ tn Heb “eighteen cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) long.

[25:17]  ² tn Heb “three cubits.” The parallel passage in Jer 52:22 has “five.”

[25:19]  ³ tn The parallel passage in Jer 52:25 has “seven.”

[25:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “five seers of the king’s face.”

[25:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “the people of the land.”

[25:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “struck them down and killed them.”

[25:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “land.”

[25:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “And the people who were left in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon left, he appointed over them Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan.”