Jeremiah 39:9

Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard. — Here again the title in the Hebrew — Bab-tab-bachim — takes a form like that of Rab-saris and Rab-shaken, and means literally, “chief of the slaughterers” The title is given to Potiphar in Genesis 37:36, and probably answered to our “commander of the king’s body-guard.” The name has been interpreted as “the prince-lord, or the worshipper, of Nebo,” but the etymology of the last three syllables is uncertain, He does not appear as taking part with the other generals in the siege of Jerusalem, but comes on the capture of the city, arriving a month afterwards (Jeremiah 52:12) to direct, even in its minute details, the work of destruction (2 Kings 25:9). The defenders and deserters were involved in the same doom of exile. It need scarcely be said that, as in the case of the conquests of Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 15:29), Shalmaneser (2 Kings 17:6), Esar-haddon (2 Kings 17:24), and Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:32), this wholesale deportation was part of the systematic policy of the great Assyrian and Babylonian monarchs. So Darius carried off the Pæonians from Thrace (Herod. v. 14). To distribute the lands of the exiles thus dispossessed among “the poor of the people,” was, it was thought, likely to enlist their interests on the side of the conqueror; and, by keeping up the cultivation of the soil, secured the payment of tribute.