The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Kings

865

Van Oort, iv. 52.

866

Jos., Antt., X. viii. 2; 2 Chron. xxxii. 5, xxxiii. 14. First and last, the siege seems to have lasted one year, five months, and twenty-seven days.

867

Zech. viii. 19.

868

The inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar which have been as yet deciphered speak of his sumptuous buildings and of his worship of the gods rather than of his conquests. See Records of the Past, vii. 69-78.

869

Robinson, Bibl. Res., ii. 536. Some suppose that "the king's garden" was near the mouth of the Tyropœon Valley.

870

Ezek. xii. 12. Perhaps the gate alluded to is the fountain gate of Neh. iii. 15. Ezekiel seems to speak of "digging through the wall." Robinson says that a trace of the outermost wall still exists in the rude pathway which crosses the mouth of the Tyropœon on a mound hard by the old mulberry tree which marks the traditional site of Isaiah's martyrdom.

871

Jos., Antt., X. viii. 2.

872

Traces of his presence are found in inscriptions in the Wady of the Dog near Beyrout, and in Wady Brissa. See Sayce, Proceedings of the Bibl. Arch. Soc., November 1881.

873

2 Kings xxv. 7. See Layard, Nineveh, ii. 376.

874

The blinding was sometimes done by passing a red-hot rod of silver or brass over the open eyes; sometimes by plucking out the eyes (Jer. lii. 11, Vulg. oculos eruit; 2 Kings xxv. 7, effodit). See a hideous illustration of a yet more brutal process in Botta (Monum. de Ninève, Pl. cxviii.), where Sargon with his own hand is thrusting a lance into the eyes of a captive prince, whose head is kept steady by a bridle fastened to a hook through his lips. See also Judg. xvi. 21; Xen., Anab., i. 9, § 13; Procopius, Bel. Pers., i. 1; Ammianus, xxvii. 12; Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, i. 307.

875

Jos., Antt., X. viii. 2, 3.

876

Nebur-zir-iddina, "Nebo bestowed seed." Jer. xxxix. 9, 13, is in some way corrupt. Ezekiel (ix. 2), however, and Josephus (Antt., X. viii. 2) mention six officers. Nebuzaradan was "chief of the executioners" (Gen. xxxvii. 36; 1 Kings ii. 25, 35, 46).

877

Psalm lxxix. 2, 3.

878

2 Chron. xxxvi. 17; Lam. ii. 21, v. 11, 12.

879

To the reminiscences of these scenes are partly due the Talmudic legend about the blood of Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, bubbling up to demand vengeance. Nebudchadrezzar slew a holocaust of human victims to appease the shade of the wrathful prophet, until the king himself was terrified, and asked if he wished his whole people to be slaughtered. Then the blood ceased to bubble.

880

See Rawlinson, Kings of Israel and Judah, p. 236.

881

Lam. iv. 22.

882

Psalm lxxix, 1.

883

Obad. 14-16; Psalm cxxxvii. 7; 1 Esdras iv. 45.

884

Comp. Esther i. 14.

885

On these personages see 1 Chron. vi. 13, 14; 2 Kings xxii. 4; Ezra vii. 1; Jer. xxi. 1, xxxvii. 3, etc.

886

Nebuchadrezzar had no doubt needed them for his great buildings at Babylon, and their deportation would render more difficult any attempt to refortify Jerusalem.

887

Jer. xli. 8, xl. 12.

888

Jer. lii. 28-30. In his seventh year, 3,023; in his eighteenth, 832 in his thirty-third, 745 = 4,600.

889

Ramah was but five miles from Jerusalem, and at first Jeremiah may not have been identified (Jer. xl. 1-6).

890

The present, if accepted, could only be regarded, under the circumstances, as part of the necessity of life. It does not fall under the head of the presents often offered to prophets (1 Sam. ix. 7; 2 Kings iv. 42; Mic. iii. 5, 11; Amos vii. 12).

891

Jer. xi. 19-21, xii. 6.

892

Stanley, Lectures, ii. 515.

893

So Grätz and Cheyne.

894

Jer. xxxi. 15-17.

895

Jer. xxvi. 24.

896

Jer. xl. 12.

897

Some identify it with Shaphat, a mile from Jerusalem.

898

They are called sarî ("princes").

899

There is no Elishama in the royal genealogy, except a son of David. Ishmael may have been the son or grandson of some Ammonite princess. An Elishama was scribe of Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi. 12).

900

The Hebrew text calls these ten ruffians rabbî hammelech, "chief officers of the king" of Ammon.

901

Josephus records or conjectures that the governor was overpowered by wine, and had sunk into slumber (Antt., X. ix. 2).

902

In Jer. xli. 9, for "because of Gedaliah," the better reading is "was a great pit" (LXX., φρέαρ μέγα).

903

Ishmael – a marvel of craft and villainy – put into practice the same stratagem which on a larger scale was employed by Mohammed Ali in his massacre of the Mamelukes at Cairo in 1806 (Grove, s. v. Bibl. Dict.). For "the midst of the city" (Jer. xli. 7), we ought to read "courtyard," as in Josephus.

904

Comp. Jehu's treatment of the family of Ahaziah (2 Kings x. 14).

905

The dark deed is still commemorated by a Jewish fast, as in the days of Zechariah (Zech. vii. 3-5, viii. 19).

906

Isa. xix. 18-22.

907

Jer. ii. 16, xliv. 1; Ezek. xxx. 18; Jer. xliii. 7, xlvi. 14; Herod., ii. 30.

908

Fl. Petrie, Memoir on Tanis (Egypt. Explor. Fund, 4th memoir), 1888.

909

Jer. xliii. 13, Beth-shemesh. Only one pillar of the Temple of the Sun is now standing. It is said to be four thousand years old. It is certain that Nebuchadrezzar invaded Egypt and defeated Amasis, the son of Hophrah, b. c. 565, reducing Egypt to "the basest of kingdoms" (Ezek. xxix. 14, 15). Three of Nebuchadrezzar's terra-cotta cylinders have been found at Tahpanhes.

910

How far the prophecy was fulfilled we do not know. Assyrian and Egyptian fragments of record show that in the thirty-seventh year of his reign Nebuchadrezzar invaded Egypt and advanced to Syene (Ezek. xxix. 10).

911

2 Macc. ii. 1-8; comp. xv. 13-16. The tradition is singular when we recall the small store which Jeremiah set by the Ark (Jer. iii. 16).

912

Evil-Merodach (Avil-Marduk, "Man of Merodach") only reigned two years, and was then murdered by his brother-in-law Neriglissar (Berosus ap. Jos.: comp. Ap., i. 20). The Rabbis have a story – perhaps founded on that of Gaius and Agrippa I. – that Evil-Merodach had been imprisoned by his father for wishing his death, and in prison formed a friendship for Jehoiachin.

913

"Lifted up his head." Comp. Gen. xl. 13, 20.

914

To be thus ὁμοτράπεζος, or σύσσιτος, of the king was a high honour (Herod., iii. 13, v. 24. Comp. Judg. i. 7; 2 Sam. ix. 13, etc.).

915

T. Hodgkin, Friends' Quarterly, September 1893, p. 401.

916

Jer. xxix. 25-27.

917

Up to the time of Tiglath-Pileser II., the Eponym Year (which is not here given) marks the second complete year of each king's reign.

918

This Shalmaneser died about b. c. 825, after a reign of thirty-five years (Sayce in Records of the Past, v. 27-42; Oppert, Hist. des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie; Ménant, Annales des Rois d'Assyrie, 1874).

919

Many of these dates can only be regarded as uncertain and approximate. Kamphausen dates the commencement of all the latter kings a year later (Die Chronologie der hebräischen Könige, Bonn, 1883).