Jeremiah 52:11

Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death. HE PUT OUT THE EYES OF ZEDEKIAH - thus fulfilling , "I will brink him to Babylon, yet shall he not see it." PUT HIM IN PRISON - literally, the house of visitations or punishments; i:e., where there was penal work enforced on the prisoners, as grinding. Hence, Septuagint render it 'the house of the mill.' So Samson, after his eyes were put out, "did grind" in the Philistine prison-house ()....

1-11 This fruit of sin we should pray against above any thing; Cast me not away from thy presence, Psalms 51:11. None are cast out of God's presence but those who by sin have first thrown themselves out. Zedekiah's flight was in vain, for there is no escaping the judgments of God; they come upon the sinner, and overtake him, let him flee where he will....

Verse Jeremiah 52:11. _HE PUT OUT THE EYES OF ZEDEKIAH_] Jeremiah 39:7....

PUT HIM IN PRISON ... - Not found in 2 Kings, for in the contemporaneous history what befell Zedekiah at Riblah would alone be known. It was no doubt added by the same hand which inserted the account of the deportations to Babylon....

EXPOSITION The contents of this chapter prove that it is not an independent narrative, but the concluding part of a history of the kings of Judah. It agrees almost word for word with 2 Kings 24:18-12, from which we are justified in inferring that it is taken from the historical work which the editor of the Books of Kings closely followed. It is most improbable that Jeremiah was the author. Would the prophet have contented himself with the meagre statement that Zedekiah "did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord" (verse 2), or with such a summary description of the siege of Jerusalem? Apparently the editor who attached Jeremiah 52:1. as an appendix to the Book of Jeremiah omitted the account of Gedaliah (preserved in...

THEN HE PUT OUT THE EYES OF ZEDEKIAH,.... After he had seen his children and princes executed, which must be very terrible to him; Jeremiah 39:7; AND THE KING OF BABYLON BOUND HIM IN CHAINS, AND CARRIED HIM TO BABYLON; in Jeremiah 39:7; it is said, he bound him, "to carry him" there; here it is affirmed he did carry him thither: and it is added, AND PUT HIM IN PRISON TILL THE DAY OF HIS DEATH; from this place only we learn that King Zedekiah was put into a prison, and died a prisoner....

CHAPTER S 50-51 BABYLON These two final Chapter s contain a great prophecy concerning Babylon, her overthrow and doom. The fifty-first chapter closes with the statement “thus far are the words of Jeremiah.” There is a direct statement that Jeremiah wrote all these words. We find it at the close of Jeremiah 51:59. “Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon.” It would be a brazen infidelity which says Jeremiah did not write all these words. Yet the almost universally accepted view of the critics is that these Chapter s cannot be the work of Jeremiah. The German infidel, Professor Eichhorn, the man who coined the phrase “higher criticism,” started this denial; Kuenen, Budde and others have followed in his steps. Others have modified this radical view and concede the possibility that Jeremiah may have b

JEREMIAH 52. HISTORICAL APPENDIX. This is taken from 2 Kings 24:18 ff., and gives an account of the capture of Jerusalem, etc., in 586, _i.e._ of the fulfilment of Jeremiah's repeated declarations. Except for Jeremiah 52:28, this chapter has been taken, virtually verbatim, from its source, which should be consulted for the commentary (see _mgg.)._ The differences of text are of minor importance, _e.g._ the addition here of Jeremiah 52:10 b, and the last clause of Jeremiah 52:11, the reading tenth, for seventh (2 Kings 25:7)

PUT OUT THE EYES. See note on Jeremiah 32:4. Compare 2 Kings 25:6; 2 Kings 25:7; Ezekiel 12:13. Hence, Zedekiah never _saw_ Babylon, though he was taken thither....

These _vv_. appear in a shorter form in 2 Kings 25:7....