2 Kings 25:21

25:21 So the people of Judah were sent into exile from their land: Like the northern kingdom before it (17:5-17), Judah was exiled as punishment for their covenant infidelity. A remnant later returned to the Promised Land in 538 BC (2 Chr 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1–2:20; see also 2 Chr 36:15-21; Jer 25:11; 29:10; Dan 9:2).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 21. The king of Babylon smote them] He had, no doubt, found that these had counselled Zedekiah to revolt.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(21) The king of Babylon smote them . . .—He was too irritated by the obstinacy of their defence to admire their bravery.

So Judah was carried away . . .—This sentence evidently concludes the whole account of the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the people (comp. 2Ki_17:23; Jer_52:27); and not merely that of the proceedings of Nebuzaradan. The prophecy of Obadiah refers to the heartless behaviour of the Edomites on occasion of the ruin of Judah. (Comp. Psalms 137; Lam_4:21-22.)

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

21. and slew them [R.V. put them to death] at Riblah] The word is not the same as in verse 7, and the R.V. follows A.V. of Jer_52:27.

So Judah was carried away out of their [R.V. his] land] The A.V. has ‘his own’ in Jeremiah 52. Jeremiah gives the totals of this captivity thus. In the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar 3023, in the eighteenth year 832, and in the three-and-twentieth year 745, making a total of 4600. Jer_52:28-30.

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.

So Judah was carried away - The kingdom of the two tribes was at an end; and the task of the historian might seem to be accomplished. He still, however, desires to notice two things:

(1) the fate of the remnant 2Ki 25:22-26 left in the land by Nebuzaradan; and

(2) the fate of Johoiachin, who, of all those led into captivity, was the least to blame 2Ki 25:27-30.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

21. Slew them at Riblah — See on 2Ki_25:6. All these officers and principal citizens were regarded as implicated with Zedekiah in his rebellion, and guilty of treason, and were, therefore, punished with death.

According to Jeremiah there were three different deportations of Jewish exiles: in Nebuchadnezzar’s seventh year, 3,023; in his eighteenth year, 832; and in his twenty-third year, 745; making in all 4,600. These numbers vary very much from the statements of this book of Kings. According to chap. 2Ki_24:13, one deportation alone contained 10,000 captives, and occurred in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighth year. 2Ki_25:12. The difference in the date is but slight, and may be explained by assuming that the different writers began to reckon from different periods of a year; but the numbers in the one or the other passage are undoubtedly corrupt. Most critics incline to think that the numbers in Jeremiah are the more correct. No mention is made in Kings of the third deportation, which occurred, according to Jeremiah, in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, and no mention is made in either book of a small deportation, among whom was Daniel and his three friends, which occurred at the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s first invasion of Palestine, and with which the Babylonish captivity of Judah seems really to have begun. But no doubt many that were left in the land proved to be persistently rebellious, and provoked the king of Babylon to order their extirpation.

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

And the King of Babylon smote them, and slew them at Riblah in the land of Hamath. Severities of this kind characterized all ancient warfare. The Assyrian sculptures show us prisoners of war impaled on crosses, beheaded, beaten on the head with maces, and sometimes extended on the ground and flayed. The inscriptions speak of hundreds as thus executed, and mention others as burnt in furnaces, or thrown to wild beasts, or cruelly mutilated. Herodotus says (3. 159) that Darius Hystaspis crucified three thousand prisoners round about Babylon after one of its revolts. That monarch himself, in the Behistun inscription, speaks of many eases where, after capturing rebel chiefs in the field or behind walls, he executed them and their principal adherents (see Colossians 2. Par. 13; Colossians 3. Par. 8, 11). If Nebuchadnezzar contented himself with the execution of between seventy and eighty of the rebel inhabitants of Jerusalee, he cannot be charged with cruelty, or extreme severity, according to the notions of the time. So Judah was carried away out of their land. Jeremiah adds an estimate of the number carried off. These were, he says, (Jer_52:28-30) in the captivity of the seventh (query, seventeenth?) year, 3023; in the captivity of the eighteenth year, 832; and in that of the twenty-third, five years later, 745, making a total of 4600. If we suppose these persons to be men, and multiply by four for the women and children, the entire number will still be no more than 18, 400.

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

Out of the land - This compleated their calamity, about eight hundred and sixty years after they were put in possession of it by Joshua.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.