2 Raja-raja 25:1-3

25:1 So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside ¹  it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign. ²  25:2 The city remained under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. 25:3 By the ninth day of the fourth month ³  the famine in the city was so severe the residents ⁴  had no food.

[25:1]  ¹ tn Or “against.”

[25:1]  ² sn This would have been Jan 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).

[25:3]  ³ tn The MT has simply “of the month,” but the parallel passage in Jer 52:6 has “fourth month,” and this is followed by almost all English translations. The word “fourth,” however, is not actually present in the MT of 2 Kgs 25:3.

[25:3]  sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

[25:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the people of the land.”