Jeremiah 39:8-10

C. The Captivity of the People Jeremiah 39:8-10

TRANSLATION

(8) The Chaldeans burned the house of the king and the houses of the people and tore down the walls of Jerusalem. (9) The rest of the people who remained in the city, and those who had deserted to him, and the rest of the people who remained, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guard, took captive to Babylon. (10) Only some of the poor people who had nothing did Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guard, leave in the land of Judah, giving to them vineyards and fields at that time.

COMMENTS

The capture of the upper city of Jerusalem and other pockets of resistance must have taken three or four weeks. According to Jeremiah 52:12, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the king's body guard, did not arrive on the scene in Jerusalem until a month after the city fell. When he arrived he put the city to the torch and broke down the walls which had for so many months thwarted the Chaldean might (Jeremiah 39:8). The Judeans who had already defected to the Chaldeans and those who were captured when the city fell were prepared for deportation to Babylon (Jeremiah 39:9). Only the very poor of the land were left. The parallel accounts (Jeremiah 52:16; 2 Kings 25:12) say that they were left as vinedressers and husbandmen. The text here indicates further that these poor were given the vineyards and fields (Jeremiah 39:10).