2nd Kings Chapter 25 verse 4 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - And the city was broken up; rather, brown into; i.e. a breach was made in the walls. Probably the breach was on the north side of the city, where the ground is nearly level (see Ezekiel 9:2). According to Josephus ('Ant. Jud.,' 10:8. § 2), the enemy entered through the breach about midnight. And all the men of war - i.e., all the soldiers who formed the garrison - fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls; rather, between the two walls, as in Jeremiah 52:7. As the enemy broke in on the north, the king and garrison quitted the city on the south by a gate which opened into the Tyropoeon valley, between the two walls that guarded the town on either side of it. Which is by the king's garden. The royal gardens were situated near the Pool of Siloam, at the mouth of the Tyrepoeon, and near the junction of the Hinnom with the Kidron valley (see Josephus, 'Ant. Jud.,' 7:11). (Now the Chaldees were against the city round about.) The town, i.e., was guarded on all sides by Chaldean troops, so that Zedekiah and his soldiers must either have attacked the line of guard, and broken through it, or have slipped between two of the blockading pests under cover of the darkness. As no collision is mentioned, either here or in Jeremiah, the latter seems the more probable supposition. And the king went the way toward the plain; literally, and he 'went. The writer supposes that his readers will understand that the king left the city with his troops; and so regards "he went" as sufficiently intelligible. Jeremiah 52:7 has "they went. By "the plain" (literally, "the Arabsh") the valley of the Jordan is intended, and by "the way" to it the ordinary road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) Broken up.--Comp. 2Chronicles 32:1. A breach was made in the wall with battering-rams, such as are depicted in the Assyrian sculptures. The Chaldaeans forced their entry on the north side of the city, i.e., they took the Lower City (2Kings 22:14). This is clear from Jeremiah 39:3, where it is said that, after effecting an entrance, their generals proceeded to assault "the middle gate," i.e., the gate in the north wall of Zion, which separated the upper from the lower city. (See also 2Kings 14:13.)All the men of war fled.--The Hebrew here is defective, for it wants a verb, and mention of the king is implied by what follows. (See Jeremiah 39:4; Jeremiah 52:7.) A comparison of these parallels suggests the reading: "And Zedekiah king of Judah and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city by night," &c. . . .