Trusting partly to the help of the Egyptians and partly to the strength of Jerusalem, Zedekiah paid no attention to the repeated entreaties of Jeremiah, that he would save himself with his capital and people from the destruction which was otherwise inevitable, by submitting, to the Chaldaeans (cf. Jeremiah 38:17, Jeremiah 38:18), but allowed things to reach their worst, until the famine became so intense, that inhuman horrors were perpetrated (cf. Lamentations 2:20-21; Lamentations 4:9-10), and eventually a breach was made in the city wall on the ninth day of the fourth month. The statement of the month is omitted in our text, where the words הרביעי בּחרשׁ (Jeremiah 52:6, cf. Jeremiah 39:2) have fallen out before בּתשׁעה (2 Kings 25:3, commencement) through the oversight of a copyist. The overwhelming extent of the famine is mentioned, not "because the people were thereby rendered quite unfit to offer any further resistance" (Seb. Schm.), but as a proof of the truth of the prophetic announcements (Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53-57; Jeremiah 15:2; Jeremiah 27:13; Ezekiel 4:16-17). הארץ עם are the common people in Jerusalem, or the citizens of the capital. From the more minute account of the entrance of the enemy into the city in Jeremiah 39:3-5 we learn that the Chaldaeans made a breach in the northern or outer wall of the lower city, i.e., the second wall, built by Hezekiah and Manasseh (2 Chronicles 32:5; 2 Chronicles 33:14), and forced their way into the lower city (המּשׁנה, 2 Kings 22:14), so that their generals took their stand at the gate of the centre, which was in the wall that separated the lower city from the upper city upon Zion, and formed the passage from the one to the other. When Zedekiah saw them here, he fled by night with the soldiers out of the city, through the gate between the two walls at or above the king's garden, on the road to the plain of the Jordan, while the Chaldaeans were round about the city. In 2 Kings 25:4 a faulty text has come down to us. In the clause המּלחמה וכל־אנשׁי the verb יברחוּ is omitted, if not even more, namely העיר מן ויּצאוּ יברחוּ, "fled and went out of the city." And if we compare Jeremiah 39:4, it is evident that before הם וכל־אנשׁיstill more has dropped out, not merely המּלך, which must have stood in the text, since according to 2 Kings 25:5 the king was among the fugitives; but most probably the whole clause יהוּדה מלך צדקיּהוּ ראם כּאשׁר ויהי, since the words הם וכל־אנשׁי have no real connection with what precedes, and cannot form a circumstantial clause so far as the sense is concerned. The "gate between the two walls, which (was) at or over (על) the king's garden," was a gate at the mouth of the Tyropoeon, that is to say, at the south-eastern corner of the city of Zion; for, according to Nehemiah 3:15, the king's garden was at the pool of Siloah, i.e., at the mouth of the Tyropoeon (see Rob. Pal. ii. 142). By this defile, therefore, the approach to the city was barred by a double wall, the inner one running from Zion to the Ophel, whilst the outer one, at some distance off, connected the Zion wall with the outer surrounding wall of the Ophel, and most probably enclosed the king's garden. The subject to ויּלך is המּלך, which has dropped out before הם וכל־אנשׁי. הערבה is the lowland valley on both sides of the Jordan (see at Deuteronomy 1:1).

And on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine {c} prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.

(c) So much that the mothers ate their children, La 4:10.

25:3 The people - For the common people, but only for the great men. Now they eat their own children for want of food, Lam 4:3, and c. Jeremiah in this extremity, earnestly persuaded the king to surrender; but his heart was hardened to his destruction.

Margin fourth month

i.e. July.

3. on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed-In consequence of the close and protracted blockade, the inhabitants were reduced to dreadful extremities; and under the maddening influence of hunger, the most inhuman atrocities were perpetrated (La 2:20, 22; 4:9, 10; Eze 5:10). This was a fulfilment of the prophetic denunciations threatened on the apostasy of the chosen people (Le 26:29; De 28:53-57; Jer 15:2; 27:13; Eze 4:16).

25:1-7 Jerusalem was so fortified, that it could not be taken till famine rendered the besieged unable to resist. In the prophecy and Lamentations of Jeremiah, we find more of this event; here it suffices to say, that the impiety and misery of the besieged were very great. At length the city was taken by storm. The king, his family, and his great men escaped in the night, by secret passages. But those deceive themselves who think to escape God's judgments, as much as those who think to brave them. By what befell Zedekiah, two prophecies, which seemed to contradict each other, were both fulfilled. Jeremiah prophesied that Zedekiah should be brought to Babylon, Jer 32:5; 34:3; Ezekiel, that he should not see Babylon, Eze 12:13. He was brought thither, but his eyes being put out, he did not see it.