Jeremiah 52:28

This is the people whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand Jews and three and twenty:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(28) This is the people . . .—Here the parallelism with 2 Kings 25, which goes on to give a brief summary of the history of Gedaliah and Ishmael, as narrated in Jeremiah 40-43, ceases, and the writer of the appendix goes on to give particulars as to the various stages of the deportation of the captives. It presents some difficulties in detail. (1) The date given here, the “seventh year” of Nebuchadnezzar, does not agree with 2Kings 24:12, which gives the “eighth year” as the time of the first deportation after the defeat of Jehoiachin. (2) The number of the captives then carried into exile, given in 2Kings 24:14 at 10,000, besides the craftsmen and the smiths, is given here as 3,023. The precision of the number seems to imply reference to a register or record of some kind, and so far bears primâ facie evidence of accuracy. Probably the word “ten” has dropped out before “seven,” and we have here the record of a second deportation in the seventeenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, while the siege of Jerusalem was going on, and made up in part of prisoners taken in skirmishes, and partly of the numerous Jews who “fell away to the Chaldæans” (Jeremiah 37:13).

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 52:28-30. This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive — “These verses are not inserted in 2 Kings 25. Nor are they to be found here, according to the Roman and Alexandrian editions of the LXX.; but in the Complutensian they are, and in two MSS. collated by Dr. Grabe; also in Theodotion’s version in the Hexapla. All the other ancient versions acknowledge them; and they are not omitted in any of the collated Hebrew MSS.; so that there is no doubt of their being genuine. But are we to conclude from them, that the whole number of the Jews, whom Nebuchadnezzar, in all his expeditions, carried into captivity, was no more than four thousand six hundred? This cannot be true, for he carried away more than twice that number at one time; which is expressly said to have been in the eighth year of his reign, 2 Kings 24:12-16. Before that time he had carried off a number of captives from Jerusalem in the first year of his reign, among whom were Daniel and his companions, Daniel 1:3-6. And of these Berosus, the Chaldean historian, speaks, as cited by Josephus, Ant., lib. 10. cap. 11. These are confessedly not taken notice of here. And as the taking and burning of Jerusalem are in this very chapter said to have been in the fourth and fifth months of the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, those who were carried into captivity, at the date of those events, cannot possibly be the same with those that are said to be carried away either in the 18th or 23d year of that prince. Nor indeed is it credible, that the number carried away at the time the city was taken, and the whole country reduced, could be so few as eight hundred and thirty-two. Here then we have three deportations, and those the most considerable ones, in the 1st, the 8th, and 19th years of Nebuchadnezzar, sufficiently distinguished from those in his 7th, 18th, and 23d years. So that it seems most reasonable to conclude, with Archbishop Usher, that by the latter three the historian meant to point out deportations of a lesser kind, not elsewhere noticed in direct terms in Scripture.” — Blaney.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

52:24-30 The leaders of the Jews caused them to err; but now they are, in particular, made monuments of Divine justice. Here is an account of two earlier captivities. This people often were wonders both of judgment and mercy.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Seventh year - The suggestion is now generally received, that the word ten has dropped out before seven, and that the deportations mentioned here are all connected with the final war against Zedekiah. The calculation of Nebuchadnezzars reign is different from that used elsewhere, showing that the writer had access to a document not known to the compiler of the Book of Kings. In each date there is a difference of one year. The Septuagint omits Jeremiah 52:28-30.

The number of the exiles carried away is small compared with the 42,360 men who returned Ezra 2:64-65, leaving a large Jewish population behind at Babylon. But a continual drain of people from Judaea was going on, and the 10,000 carried away with Jehoiachin formed the nucleus and center, and gave tone to the whole (see 2 Kings 24:14). When they began to thrive in Babylon, large numbers would emigrate there of their own accord.

A comparison of this chapter with the parallel portion of 2 Kings hows that though not free from clerical errors and mistakes of copyists the body of the text is remarkably sound. Many of the differences between the two texts are abbreviations made purposely by the compiler of the Book of Kings; others are the result of negligence; and upon the whole the text of the Book of Kings is inferior to that of the Appendix to the Book of Jeremiah. Bearing in mind, however, that possibly they are not two transcripts of the same text, but the result of an independent use by two different writers of the same original authority, their complete agreement, except in trivial matters and mistakes easy of correction, is a satisfactory proof of the general trust-worthiness of the Masoretic Text in all more important particulars.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. seventh year—in 2Ki 24:12, 14, 16, it is said "the eighth year" of Nebuchadnezzar. No doubt it was in part about the end of the seventh year, in part about the beginning of the eighth. Also in 2Ki 24:1-20, ten thousand (Jer 52:14), and seven thousand men of might, and a thousand craftsmen (Jer 52:16), are said to have been carried away, But here three thousand twenty-three. Probably the latter three thousand twenty-three were of the tribe of Judah, the remaining seven thousand out of the ten thousand were of the other tribes, out of which many Israelites still had been left in the land. The thousand "craftsmen" were exclusive of the ten thousand, as appears, by comparing 2Ki 24:14 with Jer 52:16. Probably the three thousand twenty-three of Judah were first removed in the end of "the seventh year"; the seven thousand and a thousand craftsmen in the "eighth year." This was at the first captivity under Jehoiachin.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

That is, in the time of Jehoiachin, 2 Kings 24:12-14; here it is said to be in the seventh year, there in the eighth year, it might be in part of both. But there is a difference in the number of the captives, which are here said to be three thousand and twenty-three, and 2 Kings 24:14,16, seven thousand, or eight. It is thought by some that the number here mentioned were such as properly belonged to Judah, and the number mentioned 2 Kings 24, were the number of the captives of Judah and Benjamin. See the English Annotations.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive in the seventh year,.... That is, of his reign: in 2 Kings 24:12; it is said to be in the eighth year of his reign; it being at the latter end of the seventh, and the beginning of the eighth, as Kimchi observes; this was the captivity of Jeconiah: the number of the captives then were

three thousand Jews, and three and twenty; but in 2 Kings 24:14; they are said to be ten thousand; which may be reconciled thus, there were three thousand twenty and three of the tribe of Judah, here called Jews; and the rest were of the tribe of Benjamin, and of the ten tribes that were mixed among them; see 2 Kings 24:16.

Geneva Study Bible

This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: in the {m} seventh year three thousand Jews and three and twenty:

(m) Which was the latter end of the seventh year of his reign and the beginning of the eighth.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

28–30. Enumeration of Nebuchadnezzar’s captives

28. in the seventh year] These vv. are absent from the LXX and from 2 Kings 25 and apparently come out of a separate document from the rest. For “seventh” we should read seventeenth, for in Jehoiachin’s captivity the number was far greater than is here specified (2 Kings 24:14; 2 Kings 24:16). Thus the first deportation would consist of the men of Judah taken prisoners outside Jerusalem in the first year of the siege (Jeremiah 39:1), the second (Jeremiah 52:29) of those carried captive “from Jerusalem” itself, but not including those taken into exile after the capture of the city. Of the third occurring some years later we have no other clear account, though we know from Josephus (Ant. X. ix. 7) that Nebuchadnezzar in his 23rd year carried on considerable warlike operations in the direction of Palestine and in Egypt, carrying off Jews from that country to Babylon.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 28. - In the seventh year. As Ewald and Keil agree, we should correct "seventh" into "seventeenth" (just as in 2 Chronicles 36:9, for "eight" we should read "eighteen"). On the small number of Jews deported Ewald remarks, "Nothing so clearly shows the extent to which the best men from the upper classes had been already despatched by the Chaldeans across the Euphrates, as the fact that in all the years of the second, and, if it be insisted on, of the third revolt, put together, they found only 4600 men more whom they thought worth the trouble of transporting" ('History of Israel,' 4:265). As to the third deportation, see on Jeremiah 41:1. Jeremiah 52:28

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The account given regarding the arrest of the chief officers of the temple and of the city, and concerning their transportation to Riblah, where Nebuchadnezzar caused them to be executed, agrees with 2 Kings 25:18-21, except in some unimportant variations, which, however, do not alter the sense; the explanation has been already given in the commentary on that passage. In 2 Kings, the account of the appointment of Gedaliah as the governor of Judah, together with that of his assassination by Ishmael, which follows the narrative just referred to, is here omitted, because the matter has bee already more fully stated in the passage Jeremiah 40:7 on to Jeremiah 43:7, and had no close connection with the object of the present chapter. Instead of this, there follows here, in Jeremiah 52:28-30 (as a continuation of the remark made, Jeremiah 52:27, "Thus was Judah carried away captive out of his own land"), a calculation of the number of the Jews taken to Babylon at the three deportations: in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, 3023 Jews; in the eighteenth year, 832 souls from Jerusalem; and in the twenty-third year, 745 souls, - in all, 4600 persons. The correctness of these data is vouched for by the exactness of the separate numbers, and the agreement of the sum with the individual items. In other respects, however, they present various difficulties. There is, first, the chronological discrepancy that the second deportation is here placed in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, in contradiction with Jeremiah 52:12, according to which, the deportation after the taking of Jerusalem occurred in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar; and 832 souls could not well be carried out of Jerusalem during the siege. This difference can be settled only by assuming that this list of deportations was derived from another source than the preceding notice regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, in which the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign were reckoned in some other way than elsewhere in Jeremiah and in the books of Kings, probably from the date of the actual commencement of his reign, which followed a year after he first appeared in Judah, from which his reign is dated elsewhere; see Comm. on Daniel at Daniel 1:1. According to this mode of computation, the seventh year would correspond to the eighth of the common reckoning, and be the year in which Jehoiachin was carried away to Babylon, together with a large number of the people. But this does not agree with 3023, which is given as the number of those who were carried away; for, at that time, according to 2 Kings 24:14, 2 Kings 24:16, as many as 10,000 Jews, or, according to another view of these verses, even 18,000, were carried away to Babylon. This difference does not permit of being explained in any way. Ewald (History of the People of Israel, iii. p. 738) accordingly assumes that in Jeremiah 52:28, after שׁבע, the word עשׂרה has been omitted, as in 2 Chronicles 36:9, where the age of Jehoiachin is given; hence he thinks that, instead of "in the seventh," we must read "in the seventeenth year of Nebuchadnezzar." On such a view, the reference would be to a deportation which took place under Zedekiah, a year before the capture, or during the time of the siege of Jerusalem, and that, too, out of the country districts of Judah in contrast with Jerusalem, Jeremiah 52:29. This supposition is favoured not merely by the small number of those who are said to have been carried away, but also by the context of the narrative, inasmuch as, in what precedes, it is only the capture of Jerusalem and the deportation of the people in Zedekiah's time that is treated of. Ngelsbach has objected to this supposition, that it was not likely the great mass of the people would be carried away during the war, at a time when the approach of the Egyptian army (cf. Jeremiah 37:5) was an object of dread. But the objection does not weaken the supposition, since the former rests on two presuppositions that are quite erroneous: viz., first, that the deportation took place before the defeat of the auxiliary army from Egypt, where as it may have followed that event; and secondly, that the Chaldeans, by keeping the hostile Jews in the country, might have been able to get some assistance against the Egyptian army, whereas, by removing the hostile population of Judah, they would but diminish the number of the enemies with which they had to contend. We therefore regard this conjecture as highly probable, because it is the means of settling all difficulties, and because we can thereby account for the small number of those who were carried away in the deportations during and after the destruction of Jerusalem.

Regarding the third deportation, which was effected by Nebuzaradan (Jeremiah 52:30) in the twenty-third, or, according to another reckoning, in the twenty-fourth year of Nebuchadnezzar, i.e., in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, we have no other information; for the statement of Josephus, Antt. x. 9. 7, that Nebuchadnezzar made war upon the Ammonites and Moabites in that year, has not been placed beyond a doubt, and is probably a mere inference from this verse, taken in connection with the prophecies in Jeremiah 48 and 49. Yet there is nothing improbable in the statement, viewed by itself. For it must be borne in mind that, after the appointment of Gedaliah as governor, and the departure of the Chaldean hosts, many Jews, who had fled during the war, returned into the country. Hence, in spite of the fact that, after the murder of Gedaliah, a multitude of Jews, fearing the vengeance of the Chaldeans, fled to Egypt, many may have still remained in the country; and many other fugitives may not have returned till afterwards, and given occasion to the Chaldeans for removing other 745 disturbers of the peace to Babylon, four or five years after Jerusalem had been laid in ashes. This deportation may have taken place on the occasion of the subjugation of the Moabites, Ammonites, and Idumeans, or during the war with the Phoenicians, possibly because they had rendered assistance to these nations against the Chaldeans. These verses thus contain nothing to justify the assumption of M. von Niebuhr (Gesch. Assyr. und Babels, S. 58, note) and Ngelsbach, that they are a gloss. The paucity of those who were carried away is not to be attributed to a desire on the part of the writer of this inserted portion to represent the calamity as not so very terrible after all; nor is it due to the substitution of the number of the Levites for that of the entire people, - two wholly arbitrary assumptions: it is completely explained by a consideration of the historical circumstances. The best of the population of Judah had already been carried away, and Zedekiah and his counsellors must have said to themselves, when they rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, that the latter would not spare this time; thus they must have defended themselves to the utmost, as is shown by the very fact that the siege of Jerusalem lasted eighteen months. In this manner, war, pestilence, and famine carried off a great number of the population of Jerusalem; so that, of men who were able-bodied and fit for war, and who could be carried into exile, not more than 4600 fell into the hands of the Chaldeans. During the war, also, many had concealed themselves in inaccessible places, while the lowest of the people were left behind in the country to cultivate the fields. Still more strange might appear the circumstance that the sum-total of those who were carried away to Babylon, viz., 10,000 with Jehoiachin, and 4600 under Zedekiah, - 14, 600 in all, - is evidently disproportionate to the number of those who returned to Jerusalem and Judah under Zerubbabel, which number is given in Ezra 2:64 at 42, 360, exclusive of men and maid servants. For this reason, Graf is of opinion that still later deportations may have taken place, of which no mention is made anywhere. This assumption, however, has little probability. On the other hand, we must consider these points: (1.) In the accounts given of those who were carried away, only full-grown and independent persons of the male sex are reckoned, while, along with fathers, both their wives and their children went into exile. (2.) Even so early as the first capture of Jerusalem in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, a number of prisoners of war, perhaps not inconsiderable, came to Babylon; these might unite with the thousands of their brethren who were carried thither at a later period. (3.) When the exiles had settled down in Babylon, and there found not only a means of livelihood, but even in many instances, as is clear from several intimations, attained to opulence as citizens, many, even of those who had been left in the country, may have gone to Babylon, in the hope of finding there greater prosperity than in Judah, now laid waste and depopulated by war. (4.) From the time when the 10,000 were carried away with Jehoiachin, in the year 599 b.c., till the return under Zerubbabel, 536 b.c., 63 years, i.e., nearly two generations, had passed, during which the exiles might largely increase in numbers. If we take all these elements into consideration, then, in the simple fact that the number of those who returned amounts to nearly three times the numbers of those given as having been carried away under Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, we cannot find such a difficulty as entitles us to doubt the correctness of the numbers handed down to us.