2 Kings 24:11

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city, while his servants were besieging it;

World English Bible · Public Domain

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צָרִ֥ים

tsûwr

H6696

“besieging”

Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 36× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 23:22

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1898 , 1899 , 1900

to bind, besiege, confine, cramp - (Qal) - to confine, secure - to shut in, beseige - to shut up, enclose - (Qal) to show hostility to, be an adversary, treat as foe - (Qal) to form, fashion, delineate

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

9: words
8: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

צָרִ֥ים to besiege H6696 occurs in 36 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
5 nouns
2 prepositions

Verb forms

וַיָּבֹ֛א Qal · Sequential Imperfect
צָרִ֥ים Qal · Participle Active

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

עַל upon H5921 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 9 Hebrew tokens and 15 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 2 Kings 24:11 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיָּבֹ֛א נְבוּכַדְנֶאצַּ֥ר מֶֽלֶךְ בָּבֶ֖ל עַל הָעִ֑יר וַעֲבָדָ֖יו צָרִ֥ים עָלֶֽיהָ

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city, while his servants were besieging it;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Kings 24:11 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἰςἔρχομαι ναβουχοδονοσορ βασιλεύς βαβυλών εἰς ὁ πόλις καί ὁ παῖς αὐτός πολιορκέω ἐπί αὐτός

And Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants besieged it.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וַאֲתָא נְבוּכַדְנֶאצַר מַלְכָּא דְבָבֶל עַל קַרְתָּא וְעַבְדוֹהִי צַיְרִין עֲלָהּ:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 2 Kings 24:11 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

2Ki 24:11 And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it.

Ver. 11. And his servants did besiege it.] Till their king came himself in person, and entered the city, as Sulpitius hath it: but whereas he addeth, that at this time, urbem murosque ac templum solo stravit, this is utterly false; for Jehoiachin, by yielding up the city, as Jeremiah had advised him, preserved it; wherein he did the part of a good king, saith Josephus.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) Did besiege.—Were besieging. The king arrived after the siege had begun.

Came against.—Came unto.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

11. Nebuchadnezzar came against [R.V. unto] the city, and his servants did besiege [R.V. were besieging] it] Here a preposition is expressed, and the latter clause of the verse indicates that the siege had begun before Nebuchadnezzar came thither in person.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house,.... The gates of the city being thrown open to him, he entered and plundered the temple, and the royal palace, and took from thence all the riches thereof:

and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said; Kg2 20:17 and so the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled. No more is said of these vessels in Ch2 36:10 than that they were brought to Babylon; and so Piscator renders the word here, "took", or "carried them away"; and certain it is that they were carried whole to Babylon, Dan 5:2 but as Hezekiah is said to cut off the doors of the temple, that is, strip or scrape off the gold of them, Kg2 18:16 so Nebuchadnezzar cut off from the temple, or stripped it of the golden vessels in it; of great part of them, the greater part thereof; for that there were some left is plain from Jer 27:18.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

11. Nebuchadnezzar… came — After his generals had laid siege to the city, the king himself came to superintend the war in person.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

And Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it; rather, his servants were besieging it. While the siege conducted by his generals was still going on, Nebuchadnezzar made his appearance in person before the walls, probably bringing with him an additional force, which made a successful resistance hopeless. A council of war was no doubt held under the new circumstances, and a surrender was decided on.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

During the siege he came himself to punish Jehoiakim's revolt in the person of his successor.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

2 Kings, in the Historical, opens this verse with 9 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is tsûwr (“to besiege”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to besiege” (tsûwr) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Exodus 23:22 shares the word «to besiege» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“upon” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «וַיָּבֹ֛א» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 5 words in this verse.
“upon” occurs 2× in this single verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.